Text of letter sent Wednesday by Collier County elections officials to Secretary of State Katherine Harris in relation to presidential election results:

Honorable Katherine Harris,

On November 14, 2000, as Collier County Supervisor of Elections Employees were preparing the ballot envelopes of this November 7, 2000, General Election for storage, we performed a post election audit of all envelopes to confirm all envelopes were empty. During this audit, we found 24 ballots had not been removed from the envelope in which they were received, although accepted and opened prior to the election, but were not counted. These 24 ballots represent a cross-section of voters of several political parties upon review of the unopened ballot envelopes.

An additional ballot was received October 18, 2000, and accepted. Upon opening, it was ascertained to be a ballot card for the first primary election. Upon further investigation of this ballot, it was determined that the voter had voted for the general election using a first primary ballot card.

We provide this for your information; we are not requesting a manual recount of ballots for this recent General Election. We do inquire if the Canvassing Board of Collier County Florida may provide an amended recount certification of Collier's ballots by merely adding these inadvertently omitted absentee ballots to the total ballot counts already certified and provided.

If this amended recount is approved, the count of these 25 ballots will take place on Friday, November 17, 2000, at 2 p.m. in the Elections Office, M.L. King Building, 3301 Tamiami Trail, Naples, Florida 34104. This will occur at the same meeting at which our overseas ballots will be canvassed, however, they will be certified separately.

Jennifer Edwards

Supervisor of Elections

Collier County