First the election day count and automatic recount, then with the Florida Supreme Court extending the count deadline to allow for his recount. Gore still can’t win.
Now Gore is asking for another recount and a new extended deadline.
I can just see him as President, demanding Congress to recount everytime one of his favorite bills does not pass.
At least we have a Florida Supreme Court that is/was willing to do the right thing: To set aside personal beliefs (and the law) and do what’s right for the best interests of the Party.
I think what people don’t realize is that he doesn’t want to recount what has already been counted, but that there are at least 10,000 ballots which were never counted at all. If the recount had started right after the election, it woud have been over by now, but since Bush delayed it with lawsuuits because he wanted everything to end when it was going his way, it is still dragging on now.
People keep going on like Gore is saying “count those votes again” which he is NOT. He’s saying FINISH COUNTING THOSE VOTES. They still haven’t counted all of them.
Gore is a moron. What was wrong with the first count? Absolutely nothing! Do not give me any crap about all the voter intent BS. If someone intends to vote, then they better be smart enough to poke a hole in a piece of paper. And how the hell is a person supposed to determine voter intent? Just count the votes like they were counted all over the nation.
Bush delayed the re-count? Hello? Buy a book or a newspaper because that never happened.
Those ballots where looked at. Gore just feels it’s unfair that they are considered invalid and not just given to him.
Why is it that Gore, and Jesse Jackson, assume that if a ballot is not punched, or is not puched properly, that it is the ballot of a minority Democrates? Jackson seems to think that the people too stupid or careless to correctly mark ballots were minorities and so not counting an invalid vote is discrimination.
The only good thing about the Florida vote is that the invalid votes are from people trying to vote for a Presidential candidate instead of blindly voting a straight party ballot.
Wonder why? Because the ballots were invalidated. Either they had more than one candidate selected, or they didn’t have any candidate selected. Why should invalidated votes be counted?
I know that in four years when it is time to do again, I’ll vote for a tree befor I will Gore (sorry people but I just don’t like him, he gives me the creeps). Bush is getting to to joining him on my list. So I guess whoever runs that isn’t one of them will get mine.
Homeslice: What was wrong with the first count? Well, under florida law, close races must be recounted. They ran the ballots through the machines again - and got a different answer. The machine manufacturer even stated that there is a large margin of error on the machines.
If anyone wants to read a good play by pay of what’s really going on in the elections, check out http://www.delphi.com/perlaw and look for the election thread. Neither side is innocent, but Bush is way ahead in the dirty tricks department. Although Secretary of State Harris is likely to go down in history as the greastest threat to democracy ever.
Everyone has a right to vote and have that vote counted. Many, many people lost that right this election. No matter what happens, our next president will have a hard time shaking the stigma of having “stolen” the election.
It’s almost past party politics now. It’s about Gore wanting all the votes counted and Bush saying I’m not gonna do it I’m not gonna listen I got my brother and another Republican rigging it up for me. But seriously though if Bush wouldn’t have delayed the whole process with lawsuits and the such they could have probably recounted ALL of Florida by now. As for Kathryn Harris start calling her Dictator because that is the way things are with her. BUT I’m starting to get sick of the whole mess maybe Gore should concede and show he is the bigger man of the 2 candidates.
The only good thing to come out of the Florida mess is that it clearly shows just how inconsistent the electoral rules are.
In Australia, we have an Electoral Commission that administers all aspects of elections: voter registration, electoral boundaries, appointment of temporary staff to run each election, consistency in ballot papers, maintenance of uniform standards nationwide etc.
Surely it’s not too hard for the US to learn from the current farce?
Just to make sure everyone understands: the 10,000 votes that were not counted were invalid. The person either made no selection, or s/he punched two or more selections and was too embarrassed to get a new ballot. If you don’t care enough to make sure that you vote correctly, then you have no right to expect your vote to be counted. This isn’t just my opinion, this is what the legal precedent says. Gore is trying to get the court to write him a new set of rules.
Gore will not quit until the count comes back in his favour or the supremes tell him to shut up and colour. He’s blamed Bush for running out the clock and using delaying tactics in the courts; even if it were true, he’s just sore that bush is using the administrations’ favourite tactics against him.
this has been routinely discussed in all of the other election threads. a “no vote” is not the same as an invalid vote.
The machines will read a “no vote” unless there is a complete space. So, a hanging chad can cause a “no vote” to be read. In addition, a chad from another ballot can temporarily sit in a hole and again cause a “no vote”. when the manufacturers talk about “error rate” they specify these false ‘no votes’ as being seperate. The manufacturer has been on the record as believing that “dimpled chads” should be considered votes, (which assumes hanging chads etc).
Bush hasn’t even tried to act like a leader in this. He refused to meet with Gore to reach a solution. He repeatedly denoued manual recounts as unfair, despite the fact that he helped pass a law in Texas that mandated them. The fact that Bush is declaring himself King already is scary. Scary that someone would want the presidency so badly that they would throw out democracy to achieve their goals. I don’t really like either candidate, but Bush has acted like a complete child on this issue, which does not bode well for his presidency.
Of course the fact that Gore didn’t like the supreme court decision that favored him because it didn’t favor him enough to win.
Does it matter wether or not those votes were counted(other than in the machine) because the SC already deliberated on this. Of course I guess they could extend the deadline even more right?
MadPoet I would suggest you read the dozens of other posts on this subject before you make some of those statements.
Gore is wanting to count invalid votes. They are invalid and shoulden’t be counted because so many ways to contest a election sets a bad precedent. We will never count all the votes so saying “those arent as invalid as the rest and we want gore to win so lets count them”. Rules about counting the votes(about how to tell wether or not they are votes) should not be changed to try to win a election.