RTFirefly neither you nor Stoidela has engaged in effective arguement, if by that you mean ‘marshalling the facts’. An effective arguement takes the known facts, offers a position, shows how the position is supported by the known facts and/or the logical extension of those facts. It does not support itself with hyperbole, supposition, or unsupportable assumptions, all of which I might add both sides in this ‘debate’ (are you listening, Freedom2?) have employed without any compunction evident.
I have previously posted what I think about the result of independently reviewing the ballots in the counties at issue. In sum, the ‘result’ would be as disputed as the ‘result’ of the election has been. Without agreement as to the standard for how to determine whether a ballot contains a ‘vote’ for any given person, you can’t reach agreement on the total result of those ballots. Clearly, the result of this election would be different, for instance, if the ballots were counted according to Michigan law (which doesn’t allow counting dimpled chads) or according to Texas law (which does allow counting dimpled chads if it is determined the dimple is a ‘clearly ascertainable vote’). Since the main arguement from the Democrats has been to count as many ballots as having votes as you can, and the main arguement from the Republican side as been that you can’t rely on subjective determinations of ‘intent to vote’, both sides could look at these ballots and NEVER agree as to the ‘result’.
THAT is why you have the counting of votes delegated to some authority, such as a canvassing board, an election official, etc. Florida’s failure to have on its books a comprehensive statute governing how to manually tabulate votes means that, in the end, the canvassing boards, under review of the courts, have the final say on what is a vote. So far, that seems to mean that the official result of the election will be that the electors pledged to vote for Mr. Bush have been elected.
As to popular opinion, THAT is NEVER completely in agreement about ANYTHING. There will be some section of the people who will staunchly believe that Mr. Bush won Florida, others will staunchly believe Mr. Gore did, and that the result of the election represents manipulation by those who were in favor of Mr. Bush. Still a third group won’t know for sure which was true, but will accept the result because the rules got followed, or because it is practical to have some winner. Finally, a LARGE section of the populace won’t give a damn, they’ll just be happy that they don’t have to hear the word ‘chad’ again until the 2004 election.
Finally, a note about passion. Passion is never out of place in a debate; indeed, those who debate without passion often come across as uninterested in the result. But passion can blind one to rational thoughts. When that happens, you get what I see from my kids all the time, two of them pointing a finger at each other and screaming their position without realizing the other will never accept what they are saying as the right way of viewing things. When that happens, you just have to shrug and agree to disagree, and be civil about it. Not that we’ve seen any of THAT on this issue. (sigh)
