Can anybody disagree with this election position?

Great Debates
21

Gore has requested hand recounts in 4 Florida counties.

In each county, 3 precincts are selected for a sample manula count.

If the sample count justifies it, in the opinion of the canvassing board, other precincts may be manually recounted as well.

There is no provision for requiring other counties to recount based upon the results in one county.

re: the electoral college and the Republican Party. Historically, the Republican party has often benefited from the electoral college, since Democrats tend to gain more support in heavily populated urban areas. Also, the electoral college tends to increase the power of the states, particularly the small states, an issue which the republican Party in its current composition also supports.

22

For those who were doubting that Gore would just keep recounting until he gets the answer he wants:

The hand-count is about half finished now. The result has been a total increase of 19 votes for Bush, and 28 for Gore. A difference of 9 votes between them. This has to be considered trivial after hand-counting tens of thousands of ballots, but now the Gore campaign is saying that this justifies re-counting the entire county.

The only reason this is considered ‘significant’ is because it might result in a Gore win. Is that the criterion? If Bush’s lead was only 10 votes, I’m assuming that the Gore campaign would consider a one-vote difference to be ‘significant’, when that’s clearly not the intention of the hand-count provision (which is to uncover serious problems in the machine count or deliberate defacing of ballots).

23

Sam.

If you wish to present a balanced view, you might try extrapolating the difference in vote from the sample size to the number of votes collected in Palm Beach county. That would, perhaps, shed more light upon the question of whether extending the recount to other precints is reasonable. Some information you will need: how many ballot sin teh sample count, how many ballots recorde in the county, shift in votes from the recount, difference in votes between the candidates. The math shouldn’t be too hard for you.

Of course, if you wanted to present a balanced view you might wait until both recounts (remember, Bush requested a recount, too–he just requested a mechanical recount) have been completed and the results announced.

BTW – upon what do you base your statement that the manual count is designed only to “uncover serious problems in the machine count or deliberate defacing of ballots.” Do you see that language in the Florida statutes?

For that matter, how much discrepancy in machine count is considered sufficiently serious when the outcome of the vote hinges upon a difference of .005%. At that level, a difference of nine ballots from among 165,000 would be equally significant.

24

According to what I saw on the news (CNN) earlier today, the Republicans already asked for and got a manual recount in Seminole County of ballots rejected by the machine when the machine recount was happening.
As to why the Dems would want a recount of the entire county: all you have to do is multiply the number by 200, if what you’re referring to is the hand recount in Palm Beach. If it’s half over, that means one half of one percent of the ballots have been recounted by hand. The hand recount covers 1% of the ballots in a county, according to Fla election law (according to CNN, once again). If one half of one percent uncovers 19 for Bush and 28 for Gore, that means countywide you would be looking at 380 more for Bush and 560 more for Gore. Given the margin, this would indeed be significant.
Finally, the Republicans had the same 72 hours the Democrats had to ask for recounts in counties, and precincts within those counties. That they didn’t is something Dubya needs to take up with his advisers. Seems to me they’re not doing a terribly good job of representing his interests.

25

Without the electorial college no one would campaign in my state(SC) ever. Though as it is no one campaigned in my state at all:) It was pretty much a shoein for Bush from the start.

26

** Not my country, none of my damm business but what the hell … :smiley: **

Let Tweedledee and Tweedledum fight the whole thing out in the courts, recount by hand every precinct in the nation if necessary. With a bit of luck it’ll last for most of the next term.

On Jan 20th, Strom Thurmond takes over as acting President. It’d be a nice touch if the world’s oldest democracy had the oldest head of state and also to have a man who’d turn 100 during his term as the first President of the new millennium.

While the wonder boys are slugging it out, the country stays in administration gridlock and, through lack of interference, the good times keep on rolling. The nation gets a real glimpse of what “small government” is about. The Executive is formed through a pragmatic and informal coalition and appointments are largely based on merit, rather than partisan politics.

The interim administration limits its actions to a few judicious electoral reforms and the 2004 election is fought out (in a much stripped down form) between three candidates of genuine popular appeal and stature. Voter turnouts of over 90%.

The 43rd President is never sworn in.

I’d like to see that! :slight_smile:

27

Well, actually, it would be 3800 more for Bush and 5600 more for Gore (which makes your point even more strongly). [I seem to have heard that the precincts selected have to amount to **at least** 1%…So, if it is actually somewhat more than 1%, then these numbers would be reduced…But, you get the idea, and of course, the large statistical fluctuations on these small numbers (the 18 and 28, that is) make it hard to extrapolate to what will actually happen.]

28

I’d say that they should repeat the hand recount process in every county, just as they did in Palm Beach. Check 1% of the votes in each county to see what the discrepancies are statewide. I’m guessing it’ll come out a wash, with small numbers of new votes in each direction. Hopefully, the candidates realize that a full hand recount wouldn’t reveal anything new.

Personally, I think the coolest scenario would be for the Oregon, New Mexico, Wisconsin, and Iowa tallies to be recounted, and it end up being a tie in the Electoral College. Just think of the ratings. I get hard just thinking about it. OK, maybe not quite.

29

The problem is simple: hand recounting 1% of one county took 9 hours.

And you want to redo the entire state? With luck, we’d be done by Christmas.

Of next year, I mean.

The whole thing reminds me of football. A tailback dives into the pile, the ref spots the ball and they trot out that chain and he comes up two inches short–as if the ref’s spotting of the ball was ever that exact.

We have a tie. One of them will be gracious and concede.

The one who gets the office will be the one most driven by will to power. That’s a shame.

30

I have a silly idea. Gore concedes the presidency to Bush, but Bush makes Gore his VP (this can be done by having Cheney step down, and them 'releasing" their electors). If that vote for Senator for Wa is still going neck & neck, Bush calls the Repub, asks him to concede, and appoints him Secretary of whatever. The Dems then have a very slight majority in the Senate (as Lieberman would stay on as Senator), and Gore is poised to challenge Bush in 4 years. Bush gets 4 years as Pres to show how good he is. He will not get to stuff the SCOTUS. Bush wil have to be very very nice to the voters, and will need to show how great he is.

Ok, it is silly- but better than this nonsense. :smiley:

31

David, I agree with the first half of what you suggest. It’s unseemly (not to mention completely illogical) when I hear Republican officials suggesting Gore should concede before the final accounting has been rendered. Let’s be OVERLY precise, for Pete’s sake. And if Gore gets the most votes, he wins, fair and square, regardless of who has conceded or what CNN has reported in the past.

There will come a point where it’s obvious to everyone but the most stridently partisan that any more attempts to improve the precision of the count are ridiculous. We’re not there yet and won’t be for some time (at least until EVERY state’s legal absentee ballots are tallied–everything is still in play from that perspective to the extent a state’s results are still close).

I can’t agree with the second half. If Bush wins based on the certified count and the Dems (and voters) sue because of the “irregularities” in Palm Beach County, that is their right, however selfish and misguided their intentions may be. If the conclusion of this is that a single county where there is no established fraud gets to re-vote with every other state’s results already reported–and based on “voter confusion” when the ballot in question was not disputed by either party prior to the election…that would be an outrage that could not be ignored. Pure and simple, an outrage and a subversion of the basic Democratic process.

Everybody, in every part of the country, in some way gets their say regarding ballot design prior to the election. There was a mechanism for providing feedback on the design of the ballot in Palm Beach County, a mechanism that was ignored. I won’t argue against the idea that some people were confused. Their rights deserve enthusiastic protection (and part of this protection is incumbent upon them). That protection should have taken place when the ballot was filed and made available to every registered voter in the county. It’s not fair to make it an issue now. More than that, it renders the vote in 49 other states meaningless, given the current circumstances.

It would be march-on-Washington time with a Palm County re-vote. Hell, I hope some state tries to secede given this outcome, just for the effect (a re-vote would be that bad of a decision). Just my opinion.

32

The main reason discrepancies are likely in the counties undertaking a recount is because they use punchcard ballots and the machine readers will not register a vote if the small piece of paper to be punched, called a chad, is still attached to the ballot. A hand count in this case is more accurate than a machine count since it can tell when a ballot has been punched even if the chad is still attached on an edge. It is my understanding that only a few, mostly heavily Democratic, counties use punchcard ballots. Hence recounts in other counties are unlikely to show the same rate of discrepancies. Thus, the changes probably would not balance out between the two candidates.

I believe the the proposals call for doing the recounts concurrently, not sequentially :slight_smile:

33

Would be interesting, although if I did the math right, it is also impossible to produce a tie with only those states in play.

And, I think it is exceedingly unlikely for Bush to get what he needs to win from these states without Florida! New Mexico is indeed incredibly close…even moreso than Florida at this point. But, the tallies in Wisconsin, Iowa, and Oregon, while close, are considerably less so than Florida (5000–6000 votes in all 3 cases out of vote totals of 1.3–2.6 million). And, I believe (again if I did the math right) that Bush would have to take 3 out of 4 of these states, with one of those being Wisconsin, in order to win without Florida.

34

Yes, I agree with jshore- altho Bush has a reasonable chance of getting OR & NM, the other 2 are out of reach. The margin (as a %) is 10 times greater than in FLA.

35

Maybe we should define “irregularities” before anything else is done. Are “irregularities” only appearing on ballots where people “think” they may have accidentally voted for Buchanan rather than Gore. I saw one of these guys on television yesterday. He was claiming that he voted for Gore but “must have” punched the wrong hole. It was obvious he really had no idea which hole he’d punched. Is this one of your “irregularities?” If so, I disagreee.

How about the ballots that appear to have more than one hole punched? Are these also “irregularities?” If so, are the officials supposed to intuit a voter’s true intentions? Again, I can’t see these as irregular ballots.

“Irregularities” must be tightly defined before you can determine whether additional re-counts are necessary. I’m also wondering how you decide when the count you have is accurate enough. And how you know the next count is inherently more accurate than the preceding.

36

Correct, according to this article from yesterday’s Orlando Sentinel:

2% to 5%!? More than 430,000 votes were cast in Palm Beach County. Assuming a 5% error rate, this would mean the machines failed to count more that 21,000 legitimate votes, never mind the double-punched ones!

It would not surprise me to see lawsuits filed against the makers of punch-card ballots and/or the machines that read them, if it has not been done already.

37

Hopefully, the recount will lead to an indisputable win for Gore. That they are even considering a revote is absurd. If the ballot is illegal, too bad, both local Parties agreed to the ballot, get it right next year. It was an obviously failed attempt at a ballot style that the creators thought would be easier for people to read.

If the disgruntled idiots of Palm Beach County (the 4% of the population there that couldn’t figure out what the other 96% could) get a revote, Bush should take the high ground and concede the election just because Gore’s campaign manager seems far too irresponsible to do so. Otherwise, the attorneys, once they get their hands in there, will never leave the electoral process, they’re like a cancer. My take on this whole Florida recount/lawsuit thing:

Okay, if we can jump through this hoop and win, we’ll quit, but if that hoop doesn’t work, we have this other hoop, and if that one doesn’t work, we have another and another and another…

Hopefully Al Gore will develop a stronger sense of the damage that these lawsuits will do to the election process than his campaign manager. Of course, that is what Daley was hired to do, to win the election, and he has no scruples whatsoever about how he does it. But for the Democratic Party to support these lawsuits is truly sad, and yes I would say the same exact thing if the roles were reversed.

I agree about the media spin though David, although they won’t back down until they stop selling commercials and papers with their spins. It is at least another week before all the votes are even in. It is premature with this close race to call it either way. Gore should use a recount, an election this close, IMHO, shows that the U.S. is more similarly minded than ever, more centrist, not, as others have spun, more left/right than ever.

*Regarding a Bush/Gore term, I think we would all prefer a Cheney/Lieberman term, they were much more civil to each other.

38

“Um, Mr. President, we hate to tell you this, but some judge in Palm Beach County says you need to step down as President.”

The PBC voters can file all the lawsuits they want. But they’d better be quick because once a new president is “official” then they have no remedy. No court is going to ask the sworn president to step down.

I would agree to a recount, even a manual one - no matter how time consuming and ridiculous that seems. But a revote of PBC or even the whole state? No way. The nation as a whole votes on the same day for the President. That’s the law. And if some democratic official in PBC made a confusing ballot, that’s too damn bad.

39

As much as I hate to agree with a Bush supporter (kidding, kidding), this sounds like a reasonable approach to me. I don’t think the Democrats should pursue the re-vote issue, but I do believe a manual recount is needed.

40

The only court with the power to do that would be the Supreme Court. But anyway, why is everyone in such a hurry? If I remember my NBC news coverage correctly, the Electoral College doesn’t register their votes until Dec. 18th. Nothing before then is set in stone, unless one of the candidates officially concedes the election. Further, the President doesn’t take office until Jan. 20th.

Everyone wants this decided before the end of the week! What, they’re worried about spoiling someone’s thanksgiving dinner?

Both parties are acting in what they believe to be the best interest of the country. They also view the other guy as working in their own best interest. Both views are true. Would either party use duplicity to get what they want? Personally, I’d be more interested to hear from someone who believes that one side would where the other would not.

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