Hey Gad, I actually agree with you:) Bush is also doing something ordinary by trying to see if he can recount the republican ones through court.
Stoid:
That’s an interesting point. I’m not sure what the answer is. I haven’t seen an optscan machine ballot either. I heard it described as one of these color in the dots with a #2 pencil kinda deal.
I would just guess that it would be asier to guess intent from one of those than a punch ballot. The more a punch ballot is handled the greater chance there is to break off another chad and such. In other words, the vote has a higher chance of being altered.
It seems unlikely for that to happen with something with a written mark. If there’s more than one mark there’s also the possibility that the ballot might have writing on it that could help determine intent i.e. “Go Gore,” or “I was confused and messed up, but I want to vote for Bush.”
I heard from a coworker that there finding a bunch of chads on the counting room floor.
Punch ballots suck.
I’m sure the folks up in Duval (sp?) county, a strong Republican county, would like all their votes counted as well. I just heard on the news that 26,000 ballots up there had errors or were otherwise not counted.
If we want a true and accurate count of all votes, why not do a hand count of this county too? I know Bush should have requested it, I hope he still manages to get a recount there.
But, since everyone keeps on saying how all they want is an “accurate” count of all votes, (hence the hand count in PBC) and since 26,000 votes up in Duval remain uncounted…this does not compute for me. How can the Gore camp claim that the PBC hand count will glean an “accurate” count of all votes? Republican county Duval’s 26,000 uncounted ballots are not being included.
Of course they are finding chads on the counting room floor, that’s the point of the whole deal. When they are hanging by a corner, all the handling will knock them off. But are you really concerned that all those chads are GORE chads? That doesn’t make much sense, unless it is GORE VOTES.
The only advantage Gore has in this is the fact that it is a Dem county and people VOTED for him. So any dangling chads that represent votes for him are overwhelmingly, to a near 100% certainty, intentional and therefore SHOULD be counted for him. Any accidental chads falling out will fall out equally for both candidates, as well as all the other issues on the ballot.
And ya know, if the chads don’t come off when they are actually PUNCHED, I’m really not too worried that they will unintentially come off simply from being handled. If they were that fragile, they would be utterly useless for anything. The chads are pretty firmly attached, that’s why they don’t punch out completely very easily.
wring:
My point in stating that was, if you assume that counties that cast their majority with one candidate would tend to show more additional votes for that candidate than the other if all irregular ballots are rexamined, taking nationwide the extradordinary scrutiny being used in Gore’s four Florida counties would dig up many, many more Bush votes.
Stoid:
I understand your point.
Re: those chads on the floor: I wonder how many managed to hang on through 2 machine readings, and how many were attached at all four corners before an overenthusiastic person got there hands on them.
A dishonest person for either candidate could pretty easily alter one of these ballots.
With a punch ballot, there’s only one way to interpret, the chads. With a marked ballot, there’s much more of a possibility to actually discern voter intent, and less possibility to tamper or accidentally alter a vote, IMHO.
Also:
To the best of my knowledge nobody’s complaining or recounting in Texas, so maybe the OptScan is better.
Stoid: I’m getting confused. Now you’re defending this ballot?
So basically, you’re saying that all “doubtful” votes should be interpreted as absolute votes for Gore?
I’m boggled.
So, shouldn’t we just assume that all votes for Bush in that county were supposed to be votes for Gore? After all, it’s a Dem county, so it’s not like anyone would vote Republican.
Shouldn’t we just assume that all votes for Nader were from people who really would have voted for Gore if it had come down to it?
This kind of arrogance, and assumptions about “what is a vote for such-and-such” is why I’m seriously unnerved by a hand count being done when one party has a majority of votes among the officials (in this case, Democrats, but I’d be just as antsy with Republicans having a majority. “Well, ya know, this ballot for Gore is actually sort of an off-white, not the standard eggshell. Reject.”) Sure, it’s open to observers, but what it comes down to is the judgement calls of a few Democrats as they go over tens of thousands of ballots. And all it takes is calling a few more “questionable” ballots for Gore.
I agree that an accurate count is the most important thing. I disagree that hand counting- especially given that it is a matter of subjectivities arbitrated by a partisan board- is the way to achieve that. Do another machine count. Set up a bipartisan panel to review votes.
I also feel that there’s nothing to be done about the “mismarked” ballots. Sure, Buchanan got more votes than we think normal. But how many more votes? 1000? 2000? 2500? We can’t tell. And to assume that “well, they’re all really votes for Gore”…
the law covers all Texas counties, including several of teh most populous which do use punch ballots.
Perhaps you would like to read THIS ARTICLE, which is dated November 9, 2000.
Here’s an excerpt:
*Minor mathematical errors have caused the canvassing board of Seminole County to recount by hand every one of 137,350 ballots cast on Tuesday.
.
.
.
At first, the county decided to recount only the ballots with discrepancies, but representatives of the Republican and Democratic party objected. *
You see, sometimes “facts” are more compelling when you provide independent confirmation. Also when they are true.
True. Is it your contention, then, that these people are dishonest because they are Democrats?
Is there a fact here? Are you saying that in teh recount ballots with two chad’s showing at least one corner removed are not being disqualified? Do you have any evidence to back this up? Or are you just casting an aspersion upon the character of the people involved with nothing but your own prejudices to provide substance to the claim.
My, such rhetoric. hmmm
- I have always cared that ballots be accurately accounted. I have never before lived in Palm Beach County during an election.
- I have defended the right of any citizen in any county to have his vote counted according to the applicable laws. In the present situation, only four Florida counties have asked for this particular legal method of counting to be employed. Had other counties requested the same, I would have defended their positions, too.
- I care that anybody’s voice, as expressed in a valid ballot, be “heard”. I do not know why you assume that everyone who cares about this issue does so only due to rampant partisanship. I can only assume that it is based upon your personal experience.
Actually, that would seem to make it quite like the “facts” which you claimed (without citation, as a matter of fact).
The rule of law in this area seems contradictory, since the lawful deadline or county certification makes the lawful procedure of county hand recounts impossible to complete. I do not think it unreasonable to ask a court for assistance when the statutes guiding a process seem to contradict. Isn’t that what courts are for?
No. IF we assume a standard ratio of additional ballots counted by hand recounts, THEN:
- It would be reasonable to assume that a full recount would turn up many more counties that found more Bush votes.
- It would also be reasonble to assume that more additoinal votes would be discovered for Gore, since he had a slight lead in the overall popular vote among ballots cast at polling places.
Of course, the initial assumption itself is unwarranted since it ails to consider such obvious variables as types of polling mechanism and intial counting procedures.
yosemite
I said days ago that Bush should request a recount in Duval County. I also said that if Gore were a perfectly ethical being he would have requested that recount himself. Of course, I don’t know anyone who is under the impression that Gore is a perfectly ethical being.
John Corrado
I believe he was arguing that a ballot which shows a clear vote for Gore can be reasonbly assumed to have been intended as a vote for Gore, despite any appearance of “chads on the floor”. Maybe not, but I think he was responding directly to:
I agree with you, BTW, that there is nothing can be done (so far as the results of this election go) about the votes mistakenly cast for Buchanan. There is little question that a good number of them were not intended for Buchanan, but when the expressed intent is clear (with a valid ballot) we should not presume to override it.
I see no evidence that it would have been impossible to complete a hand-count by tomorrow IF it had been started on Election day, instead of 6 days later. I suspect that the provision for hand-counts was put into place to handle election problems that crop up on that day, like failures of the counting machines, gross irregularities after a machine count, etc. The problem here is that the hand count took too long to get underway, because it was sponsored by legal manoevering rather than an immediately apparent problem with the machine count.
Again, everyone knew that the machine count under-counts valid ballots. It was the job of the Democrats to deal with that issue BEFORE the election. The reason why there are legal procedures in place to challenge counting methods before the election is because that’s the only appropriate time to do so. Doing it afterwards introduces bias into the results.
Since we know machine counts under-represent voters equally, then it should make no difference if they are used uniformly in an equal number of Republican and Democratic areas. But if you suddenly take one of these areas AFTER the election and change the way the votes are counted, you introduce bias.
This whole thing is just becoming hilarious. First the Republicans criticize the Democrats for politicizing the vote counting process. The Democrats on this board start parroting the Official Democratic Response. Then the Republicans go to court, and the Democrats start yelling that the Republicans should not go to court. Now the Republicans get the Deadline upheld, and the Democrats are going to court.
The fascinating part is how the viewpoints of most people on this board are switching to match what their party is doing. Lawsuits are bad! No, they’re good! Now they’re bad again! Keep it out of the courts! Okay, let’s take it to court!
Perhaps, but, of course, in proportion. For example, the fact that Wayne County MI went heavily for Gore, and say, Cheybogan CO (probably) went heavily for Bush, you’d expect to find more Bush errors in Cheboygan than in Wayne. If there were a 1% error rate, the RAW number of additional votes would tend to be more statistitcally significant in Wayne County since Wayne has FAR more voters.
Which is ALL to say, ** Milo** that without attaching actual numbers (which is what they’re trying to do, dear), a discussion of relative numbers of counties is meaningless.
I’m basing my information on Seminole County on what I heard on “Meet the Press” Sunday morning. Don’t know how to provide a link to that. If you have information that disputes that, I will concede to it.
Um … yeah. Right. So? The point is, most of the state of Texas uses a type of ballot that makes hand-counting it more appropriate.
Not necessarily. My point is when the process is subjective, varying from county to county, and changing during the process within a county, the fact that the very few decision-makers have a partisan interest in the outcome is troubling.
A lot is being made that the Secretary of State, who wants the vote count concluded by tomorrow, is a Republican. She’s also following Florida law, to the letter. The law is convoluted on the methods for determining what is a vote when hand-counting punch ballots. It involves a lot of interpretation of intent, and that interpretation is being made by two Democrats.
Are you saying Bill Daley and Warren Christopher, in their earliest speechifying on the “irregularities” in Florida, didn’t claim that people intending to vote for Gore erroneously punched the top two holes on their ballot?
I would assume that means that they believe those should be counted in the Gore column. If that’s not their position, good. We’re making some progress from the insanity they are trying to let reign down there.
So I can safely assume, then, that you either think the subjective evaluation of these ballots in four Gore-leaning counties is wrong, or you want such scrutiny of all ballots nationwide. Right?
There was enough time for a count and a re-count. The count in Florida was no doubt the most heavily scrutinized in any state, ever. Bush won. Twice.
Florida law doesn’t allow Gore enough time to manipulate the vote. It doesn’t allow enough time for maneuver after maneuver after maneuver until he gets the result he wants. And I for one think that shows a lot of foresight on the part of legislators who put that portion of their election law in place.
MAN OH MAN…I am a partisan, no question about it, but at least I try for internal logic, at least I try for consistency, at least I try to acknowledge points made…some folks around here are being deliberately obtuse in an attempt to hang on to their point of view. the most egregious example has to be Milossarian in the post just previous. Milo: You LEFT OUT THE LINK THAT MUNDI PROVIDED FOUR LINES ABOVE THE COMMENT YOU CHOSE TO QUOTE. WHY DID YOU DO THAT, WHEN IT DID EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE ASKING!!!
AAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!
Sorry, sorry…I’ll pull myself together.
C’mon guys, play FAIR for gods sake. Debate what is in front of you, don’t ignore, interpret and add things to debate. Shit…
Then again, maybe that explains why so many people don’t seem to get what looks plain as day to so many of the rest of us. You just are refuising to SEE it…yeah, that’s it…
<grumble grumble…>
I don’t know if I can’t take this much longer. Partisanship is one thing, but this is maddening.
but then I thought I might be shot.
Check out this amazing accusation made on the CNN discussion board.
**
Wow. I wonder where he got those figures from. Has anyone else heard anything about this?
I thought about starting a different thread on this, but there’s already too many IMHO.
The standards have changed more than once and they are not consistent from County to County. Tomorrow they change again. Some places there have not been been any standards. Democrats outnumber Republicans 2 to 1 in the handcounting. Bias is such an ugly word, but there it is. It might be naive to think it’s not having an effect.
“Subjective and selective.” Seems to be the rule.
All this from karen Hughes statement on behalf of Bush.
A machine count at least seems impartial and consistent.
Let’s be honest, please, all partisanship aside, does anybody think this handcounting thing is actually fair? Accurate? Will it give us a meaningful result?
If this were a scientific study, we’d have to throw the data out, wouldn’t we?
I think Gore’s gonna win. This is gonna be won by manipuation, activism, litigation, and propaganda, and I think Gore’s better at it.
I cast no blame on that. I think the election is so close that an accurate determination isn’t possible unless the overseas vote comes in a landslide one way or the other.
It’s a shame it’s this way though.
I don’t understand the question. Please clarify.
Well, gee. Let’s start quoting strangers’ posts on message boards, using them as “cites”. Yeah - that’s real compelling evidence…
Stoid:
It’s a serious question. I may be misunderstanding you, but a few days ago you were tearing this punch ballot apart as being ambiguous. Now it seems your saying it’s actually easy to determine from a handcount the voter’s intent.
No offense implied.
Stoid:
What did I do? I’m corn-fused.