A rumor that I have heard bandied about suggest that under the Freedom of Information Act, an after-the-fact hand recount of the Florida ballots is possible, even likely. Anybody have the real skinny on this? Is there any way the Forces of Darkness could thwart that?
Whaddaya wanna bet Al Gore would approve, but “Landslide” George will try to find some way to avoid it?
Straight dopey minds want to know!
Is the Pope Catholic?
–R.J.
It is irrelevant HOW many times the ballots are counted, the issue isn’t going to be resolved by counting the ballots. This election is NOT being contested (at this point) on the basis that Mr. Gore got more votes than Mr. Bush (or vice versa). It’s being contested on the basis that Mr. Gore and Mr. Bush differ in their interpretation of what a ‘vote’ is. Since the interpretation of Mr. Gore involves subjectivity, the result of a ‘recount’ will inherently be tied to the opinion of the counter. Because the interpretation of Mr. Bush is that there shouldn’t BE any manual inspection (from this we infer that he is asserting the machines are as accurate as we need), any ballot that wasn’t recorded as having a vote for any candidate is not a ‘vote’; this of course ignores the very real fact that machines also make errors, as indicated by the variation in the original count from the machine recount.
Look at them all you want, count them to your heart’s content. In the absence of objective standards about what should be counted as a vote, the count is irrelevant.
Thanks, Shayna, that is certainly where I got the notion. But I am fuzzy on the details, is there a legal premise, however flimsy, that would allow the Evil Ones to deny such an embarrassing revelation to come to light? Is there a statute, for instance, that instructs that the ballots be destroyed after a certain point in time, or, conversely, prevents that from occuring?
PS (I thought I posted this as a GQ, must not have punched the chad through. Despite my unabashedly partisan stance, I think its a question.)
PPS Not that, Cecil Forbid, I question the wisdom and perspicacity of the Moderators! No, no, please, stop, no…AAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaarrrrggghh!
RJ: According to strict experimental protocols, animals of the species ursus horribilis, given a clear woods/no woods choice, consistently (99.9%, +/- .001%) prefer to perform defecation in the woods.
I certainly hope this comes to pass. I’m certain it will reveal Gore to be the true elected prez, and that will help a great deal with de-legitimizing Bush as well as proppoing up the Dems for '02 and '04.
stoid
It’s a virtual certainty that various groups will be hand-counting these votes. Florida has pretty liberal Freedom of Information laws, IIRC.
I agree with all that DSYoung said, except:
I don’t think the Bush camp is trying to ignore that machines make errors; I think their position is that machine and voter errors occur in every election, and tend to balance themselves out to reflect the national vote anyway when viewed in their entirety.
And machine recounts are undeniably more objective than evaluations of ballots by Democrats and Republicans who have a stake in the outcome, and who use various and shifting subjective standards of what constitutes a vote.
Admittedly, accepting the typical margin of error becomes a bit dicey when the election is a virtual tie. But by all the typical means of determining an election winner, Bush has never trailed in Florida.
Anyone who believes that is the work of Jeb Bush, Katherine Harris or anyone else is probably such a dimwit that they think a politcal party with views different from their own is a “Force of Darkness,” or that de-legitimizing their new president is a goal worth working toward.
Anybody who thinks they’re going to find ‘The Truth’ from looking over fragile, perforated ballots that, by the time it’s all done, will have been handled and moved around anywhere from 10 to 50 times more often than they typically are, is a little misguided, too.
What would make you so certain? I would imagine that Gore would gain votes in some of the counties he won, but undoubtedly, if the entire state’s votes are recounted, Bush would pick up a few as well.
Palm Beach’s recounted totals are not enough to swing it in favor of Gore, and Miami-Dade’s are unlikely to as well. After those two counties and the ones already recounted, most added votes would be more likely to go in Bush’s favor. Given the size of the margin separating them, it is certainly possible that Gore might be able to find enough votes to squeeze out a small margin. However, I see no justification (and neither did Judge Sauls, apparently) for claiming that Gore certainly would prevail.
The only way I can see that Gore could be guaranteed victory is through selecting a standard for the dimpled ballots contrived to give Gore the most votes. Any standard derived independantly that actually measures the will of the voter will probably be insufficient to change the outcome. However, I don’t doubt that a definition of a “vote” could be constructed that would give Gore the election.
Oyez, Oyez, The OP has entered the room
No kidding, guys, I really wanted to ask about whether or not there would be an after the fact count, you know, just to see. Of course, they will have to be handled with great delicacy, for, as everybody knows, those IBM punchcards are the merest gossamer, the slightest touch, a harsh glance…
But, dammit, I want to know.
As to “dimwit”, sign me up! I wish to emphasize that I am quite above such partisan name-calling, but apparently your irony-sarcasm vectors are not functional, which is a relatively common problem amongst people who think that Rush Limbaugh is insightful and funny. Perhaps a quick course of Voltaire,Swift, and Twain might help to recalibrate? Then you can join me and mine on our Olympian heights, and eschew such unfortunate characterizations, which demeans an argument already crippled by the facts.
Poopypants!
Yeah, because arrogance (Even sarcastic arrogance) makes you seem just so much above everyone else :rolleyes:
I think it’ll happen. And much as I hate to disagree with DSYoung, I think such ‘recounts’ will be conclusive in demonstrating that a plurality of voters at the FL polls on Election Day at least tried to vote for Gore.
I’ve already made my case in my Survey Response Error thread that the twice-punched ballots in Palm Beach County will be the clinching piece of evidence that the butterfly ballot used there distorted the result, depriving Gore of probably more than 10,000 votes, while having negligible effects on Bush’s vote total.
And in Duval County, the candidates’ names were spread over two pages, and the voters were instructed to vote on every page. Those that followed the instructions disqualified their votes. It would be easy enough to see how many voters punched the hole for a major-party candidate on one page, then punched a minor-party candidate on the next, to see how many votes Bush and Gore were each done out of. Due to various demographic considerations of where those ballot errors occured, I feel confident that counting those ballots would show, all by itself, that Gore won Florida by thousands of votes, if we accept all the votes of voters who were done out of their votes because they followed the instructions. (Individual-responsibility advocates, what say you here?)
At any rate, I believe we should have access to the facts about this election, whatever they may be. In Miami-Dade, if they have to put the uncounted ballots in little piles by how many corners were punched out, and how many were merely dimpled, we should know that, too, just to be able to argue about what it means, until the end of time.
When I was a child, a President was assassinated, and then the claimed assassin was himself murdered. The Warren Commission investigated, and when it was done, they announced their conclusions, and sealed up the evidence. That sealing of the evidence has caused much doubt, over the decades, in the accuracy of the Warren Commission’s conclusions. Let’s not do another Warren Commission burial job here. It won’t affect the outcome one whit, but we should know the underlying facts of this election.
Well…
Like everything else about this election there sure are a lot of different takes on this issue.
The way I heard it was that only the tallys were available, not the actual ballots. But then I KNOW for a fact that Judicial Watch was counting at least some of them.
Then I heard that they were charged $1100 an hour to examine the ballots. This sounded absurd to me, but then I think I remember hearing (way before this election mes) that the loser had to sometimes pick up the tab for a recount. It seems that only the county can handle the actual ballots, so there needs to be county employees to hold the ballots, and county property to count them on.
So…I have no idea what the real truth is because none of my info was ever sourced.
FWIW, my bet is that there will be no mass hand re-count of Florida. And I’m tired of all the implications that Gore would win if there was one. At the very least you have to admit that Florida is basically tied, and we have seen Gore count the most fertile areas that would benefit him already. If anything, at this point I think a state-wide recount would favor Bush.
He is already 3-0, 4-0 doesn’t seem out of the question:)
I can bet that if there are any ways for the Bush forces to stop such after-the-fact recounts from happening, they will be used!
Actually, this reminds me of a similar case involving the death penalty. There is a case where someone in some state (Virginia?) was put to death a few years ago under a cloud of uncertainty. They now have some DNA evidence they could test to see if the crucial piece of evidence against this person “convicts” or “exonerates” him. Anti-death penalty advocates want to use this case to see if they can get around the old conundrum they are always faced with: Namely, that anyone on death row who gets exonerated is then not killed and thus death penalty advocates can say, “See, the system works…There is still no evidence an innocent person has been executed.” They also point out that since the results would not be used to release anyone from prison, even the most hardened “tough on crime” junkie ought to be willing to try this fun little experiment. Naturally, the state involved is saying, “No fucking way!!!” (perhaps not exactly in those words)
<HIGH FIVE>
I’ve noticed that among the partisans on this board, the Bush supporters are the first, the last, and near as I can tell, the only ones to resort to personal attacks and name calling as a form of argument.
I wonder if they will ever realize that it undermines their position and makes them look desperate, even when their position might otherwise be judged as quite strong?
Now ask me if I care…<shrug>
You have gotten to the heart of why this all sucks so badly. We all know that the intention of the Florida voters was to vote for Al Gore. If not for the various screwups, he would be working on his transition right now. We KNOW this to be true. Add to that the fact that he got the popular vote as well, and how anyone could call Bush our legitimate president is beyond me. Bush being president is a travesty of justice. It’s not what the people of Florida wanted, and it is not what the people of America wanted. Al knows it, and he’s been fighting to show it with what few tools (and ballots) he has at his disposal.
It was Bush who stole this election, by doing everything in his power to stop the legal system from working to determine the true vote count, right from Day One. And he won. Asshole.
It’s a tragedy and a travesty.
And does everyone realize that Dick Cheney is our president? Bush is barely taking note of anything going on around him. What a pathetic joke…he’s going to make Reagan look sharp. He’s going to be the 10th man to be president in my lifetime, and unquestionably the least qualified, able or deserving. He doesn’t even belong in the same room with the other 9, much less the Oval office.
Bah…
stoid
Ignoring your famous thread about Selfish Uncaring Republicans of course.
If anything is clear, WE do not all know anything.
Are you really having trouble understanding the irrelevance of the popular vote? I know you are partisan, but you never struck me as dumb. I truly can’t tell if you are just blinded by loyalty on this issue or if you really are confused.
OOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHh The HORROR!!!
Let’s see, worst case scenario, Florida is basically a tie. But yet it is obvious to you that the “people of Florida” wanted Gore. The way I see it, half of Florida wanted Bush, and half of Florida wanted Gore. The chips just happened to fall Bush’s way. And then the PEOPLE OF AMERICA…
Well see…that is pretty much tied up also. Neither side has the right to be running around claiming they have the support of “The People Of America.”
Stoi…
You are not taking this loss well at all. Logic, facts and reason have left the room.
I think this is my favorite part of the whole thing.
Lovely! I will admit, however, that whatever one might think about Cheney, he does at least give the appearance of having a brain in his head. (On the other hand, the last person I remember thinking that about was Robert Bork and then he went and wrote “Slouching Toward Gommorah” in a very successful attempt to prove me wrong!)
Stoidela, in a rare insight, claims:
Then later she says:
Apparently she’s a Bush supporter then.
I find it amazing that Stoidela finds it perfectly rational to believe every possible negative generalization about conservatives. At least those who make personal attacks are being discriminating. While the ad hominem may not serve as a rational debating tool, it is at least a few steps above decreeing that those who disagree with you are selfish and not worthy of being trusted.
Bush did not steal any election. There is no legal provision to measure what somebody meant to vote if it’s not what they actually do vote. Perhaps a stupid ballot design cost Gore votes. Read the FSC’s ruling on the case. It makes it quite clear that it is the responsibility of the individual to vote correctly, regardless of whatever problems there may be with the ballot. At best, it could be said that Bush was helped by circumstances out of his control here.
Dimpled ballots were not counted. There is no requirement in Florida law to count dimpled ballots. Gore has still not yet exhausted all legal recourses on this matter, but it is unlikely that the Florida Supreme Court is going to reverse the finding that it was not sufficiently shown that the dimpled ballots would change the outcome of the election.
As for the deadline set by Ms. Harris, it was in accordance with the Florida statutes on election law. While the FSC decided that the Florida State Constitution would not allow it, the USSC seems to be indicating that its decision may not have been in keeping with federal law.
If Bush truly “stole” this election, then Gore needs to find better lawyers, as they’ve had several opportunities in court to make their case, and have lost at almost every turn. And they are not likely to win at any of the coming turns either. While it may be true that Gore did indeed manage to get a small plurality of the total vote by some standard, to claim that this was in any way the result of Bush “stealing” it is simply ludicrous.
What sort of qualifications do you consider to be necesssary to be President? Certainly, being governor of Texas is at least as qualified as being governor of Arkansas. I’d say that by any sort of reasonable standard, Truman was probably far less qualified for the position, though he proved to be remarkably capable when he had it.
And I’m pretty sure I can think of one of those previous Presidents who would wholeheartedly disagree that his own son is unworthy of being in the same room as him.
Stoid, you’re acting like a child unwilling to accept the fact that Santa isn’t real. You’re stating your opinions, hopes, desires, conspiracy theories, wet dreams, etc. as fact. It’s just making you look like an ass.
Stop before you give yourself a brain aneurism.