Conservative watchdog reviews Palm Beach ballots

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida (CNN) -- Volunteers from the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch joined the Florida election mayhem Tuesday as they began inspecting thousands of disputed presidential ballots from Palm Beach County.

The Washington-based legal group received court permission to examine Palm Beach County's punch-card ballots as part of an effort to conduct "an independent look-see" of the tallies for Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore.

Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Theresa LePore shows a disputed ballot to Larry Klaymen, center, of Judicial Watch Inc., as Kevin Haggerty, left, a certified public accountant and Democratic attorney Dennis Newman, background, look on Tuesday, in West Palm Beach, Florida

Described by its president Tom Fitton as conservative but nonpartisan and nonprofit, the group has been a harsh and frequent critic of the Clinton administration. Judicial Watch Chairman Larry Klayman said Tuesday that reviewers will be looking for evidence of fraud and to make sure the votes were counted correctly.

"Our volunteers are not here to favor any side," Klayman said. "When we make these results public, the American people can be reassured that this was a fair process."

Florida's public records law allows citizens to inspect the ballots. But because elections officials want to safeguard the ballots -- some of which may be needed as legal dispute drag on -- Judicial Watch members will be able to look at, but not touch, the ballots.

Klayman said he will start with a small-scale review of the ballots. Officials with the accounting firm Johnson Lambert & Co. will provide an independent assessment of the tally, he said.

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The group also plans to inspect ballots elsewhere around Florida, focusing first on Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties because they had large numbers of disputed ballots that could not be machine-read because of imperfectly punched holes. In Broward County Court on Tuesday, the county's attorney agreed to work out the logistics of making its ballots available to the group.

Klayman said that members of Judicial Watch will remain in Florida "as long as it takes."

"It's not just an issue of making any deadline. It's an issue for posterity," he added.

Reuters contributed to this report.