Short answer:  Led by Republican Majority Whip, GOP staffers in Washington were invited to take all expense paid trips down to Florida for the expressed purpose of casting a cloud of illegitmacy on the manual recounts in Dade and Broward counties.  Here are excerpts from a Wall Street Journal article that broke the story.

Click here to see a picture from the Dade protests with congressional staffers identified.
 

Long answer:

http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB975279431548753691.djm

Nov 27, 2000

GOP Protest in Miami-Dade Is a Well-Organized Effort
Bush Campaign Pays Tab For Aides From Capitol Hill Flown in for Rallies

By NICHOLAS KULISH and JIM VANDEHEI  Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

MIAMI -- When outraged Republicans raised a ruckus outside the Miami-Dade County elections office last week, some protesters at the door weren't local citizens. They were Capitol Hill aides on all-expenses paid trips, courtesy of the Bush
campaign.

Shortly after the door-kicking, window-banging protest, the Miami-Dade canvassing board made a sharp U-turn, suspending a recount that was expected to help Vice President Al Gore chip away at Texas Gov. George W. Bush's lead. Mr. Gore's inability to secure these votes was a key to Mr. Bush's certification as the Florida winner Sunday night. Miami-Dade       canvassing-board members, while denying that the crowd cowed them, decided they couldn't complete the count by Sunday's 5 p.m. deadline without using a room that the protesters complained limited public access.

Their work in Miami done, the Republicans headed to Broward County, where they joined a platoon that included about 20 other congressional staffers, who had watched the Miami-Dade commotion on CNN and wildly cheered their compatriots' televised antics.  Behind the rowdy rallies in South Florida this past weekend was a well-organized effort by Republican operatives to entice supporters to South Florida.

Bush operatives deny trying to intimidate. But they readily acknowledge that shortly after Election Day they began recruiting Republicans nationwide to come to the three predominantly Democratic South Florida counties then considering manual recounts. The biggest contingent appears to have hailed from within the marbled walls of the Capitol complex in              Washington.

In Washington, several GOP aides say the office of Mr. DeLay, the House Republican whip, took charge of the effort on Capitol Hill, passing on an offer many staffers couldn't refuse: free air fare, accommodations and food in the Sunshine State -- all paid for by the Bush campaign.

"Once word leaked out, everybody wanted in," says one GOP operative involved in the effort. Participants estimate that more than 200 staffers signed on, some spending more than a week in South Florida. Many stayed in Hiltons by the beach and received $30 a day for food, as well as an invitation to an exclusive Thanksgiving Day party in Fort Lauderdale.

The camaraderie was on full display at the glitzy Thanksgiving night party featuring free food and libations at the Hyatt on Pier 66 in Fort Lauderdale -- "a festive family mood," says one protester. The night's highlight was a conference call from Mr. Bush
and running mate Dick Cheney, which included joking references by both running mates to the incident in Miami, two staffers in attendance say.

Staffers who joined the effort say there has been an air of mystery to the operation. "To tell you the truth, nobody knows who is calling the shots," says one aide. Many nights, often very late, a memo is slipped underneath the hotel-room doors outlining coming events. On Friday night, one aide received notice that he and his colleagues were welcome to stay in South Florida until "further notice."

"All we are doing is rallying and protesting," says one GOP aide. "We are blowing the Democrats away."

Bush supporters sometimes outnumbered Gore backers by 10 to one outside the Broward County Courthouse in the Democrat-leaning community. A block to the north, a recreational vehicle festooned with Bush-Cheney signs served as operation central, having recently beeX-Mozilla-Status: 0009ilar duty in Miami.