71.   County officials argued a machine sort of the ballots would amount to a recount in defiance of a U.S. Supreme Court order to halt all recounts.

72.   County officials call the strike proposal unacceptable.

73.   County officials contend that they never saw new federal foster care money because the state just used it to replace its own expenditures.

74.   County officials estimate that two thirds of the local inmates are indigent.

75.   County officials have declined to comment about details of the case because the suspects are juveniles.

76.   County officials have rejected the plan.

77.   County officials here have long used government money to pave private driveways, a practice so common that juries rarely convict officials if they are charged.

78.   County officials in San Francisco and elsewhere say that they have no effective way of providing information to or receiving it from other counties, let alone other states.

79.   County officials initially voted to reject her ballot but later reconsidered, under pressure from the Bush campaign, and accepted it even though the postmark made it illegal.

80.   County officials lobbied federal agencies to allow Davis to keep his cattle on the land, until the government transferred the land to the county.