Gore wants a fourth count

[emarkp]

Posted by Airblairxxx:
Sigh. It was Gore’s right to ask for recounts on a county-by-county basis. He chose three counties, Broward, Palm Beach, and Dade, not only because they were strongly Democrat but because there were HUGE irregularities. This is strategic thinking, and shrewd, and partisan, but illegal? No. Unfair? Not even–Bush could have done the SAME FECKING THING and asked for recounts of solidly Republican counties, but stupidly didn’t. This is his fault. (And you want this dumbshit as your Commander in Chief? Whoops, end flame, back to the subject.)

Remarkable. Everything you said here validates my post. My claim was that Gore’s rallying cry, “Count all the votes!” is patently false. He could have asked for hand recounts in Duval county as you said, but probably didn’t because of the republican bias. That proves my point right there. The fact that it may have been the case that ~1400 votes might have been Democrat is probably a reason that Gore is kicking himself (or a member of his legal team) right now. The percentage of undervotes is greater than any of the counties that Gore chose with the exception of Miami-Dade.

Now, I’d like to point out that I’m talking about Gore. Your comments about Bush have nothing to do with it, but I thought I’d point out the fallacies in your argument there too. You make the point that Bush could have chosen Duval county. However, he’s been entirely consistent in decrying the handcounts as prone to mischief. Furthermore, it now appears that (with the 1400 vote estimate) it was even the right decision in that particular case, even if the decision were solely to try to win the votes–so he made the right decision both morally and politically. And you’re criticizing this?

2: 4700 Seminole County ballots that GOP election officials added registration numbers to after the election, making them appear valid after they were disqualified (a similar incident happened in Martin County);

I’m going to have to ask for a quote for this one. Everything I saw said that the 4700 ballots were marked (as nebuli said) with the voter registration number on the application for the absentee ballot (I’d call that good customer service, not fraud or tampering–in fact I’ll bet a lot of people would be unhappy if they got their requests back saying, “sorry, but for technical reasons, that number that you know and that I know is one that you have to write down, not me”). Now, a Democrat is claiming in that county that since there is no way to tell which of the ballots are of those 4700, all 15,000 absentee ballots must be invalidated. This from the party that wants to “count all the votes?”

As for the military ballots, one person has said that it’s kind of hard to find a postmark on a submarine. The military mail does not require a stamp, and hence no postmark. Furthermore, the federal law says that a dated signature is sufficient, and this is a federal election. And lastly, what happened to Al Gore whose champion call was to ascertain “the will of the people?” Why doesn’t he make sure those ballots are counted, since they are surely the will of the people?

I don’t think there will ever be 100% certainty about this election, but what’s wrong with trying to resolve the blocks of questionable votes? I’m talking about the 19,000 in Palm Beach, the 4700 in Seminole County, etc.

There may not be 100% certainty about the election, but there better be 100% certainty about how many ballots were cast! And I’m talking about the ballots in Palm Beach County. How can we trust them to accurately count the votes if they can’t even accurately count the number of pieces of paper?

5. In the US, approximately 2,000,000 votes for president were rejected by the machine count. That’s nearly 10 times the number of votes separating the candidates in the national popular vote. Yet Gore claims that he won the popular vote, and isn’t crying for a national recount

What an irrelevant point. Gore gets eviscerated for wanting 19,000 votes examined by hand and you think he should demand a nationwide recount? The nationwide popular vote doesn’t matter, it’s the Electoral College vote, and in that there is only the issue of Florida to settle.

It is entirely relevant. Gore is claiming now in several interviews that he won the popular vote in the nation, yet is claiming that because of the number of uncounted ballots in Florida, we don’t know the winner there. In both cases, the number of ballots not counted is significantly higher than the difference in votes for each candidate. Gore is inconsistent.

Which, of course was my original statement: The claim that Gore wants all ballots counted is simply false.

[Tejota]

*Originally posted by emarkp *
The claim that Gore wants all ballots counted is simply false. **

Well, since you are trying to win your point by being strictly literal (as apposed to reasonable). Try this one on for size.

What makes you the expert on know what Gore wants? Hasn’t he stated clearly that he would abide by a hand count of the whole state?

Is your only evidence that he doesn’t want a full count the fact that he hasn’t filed a lawsuit demanding a full recount of the state?

If so, then you will have to do better than that. Just about any 3 year old knows that there is a difference between what you want and what you get.

There also a huge difference between what you want and what you want so bad that you are willing to sue to get it.

After all, no matter what Gore may want here, he doesn’t have any legal right to demand a full count. He doesn’t have any reasonable claim that the count is inaccurate in any counties other than the ones he is currently asking to have counted.

If I were in Gore’s position, I would certainly want to have the whole state counted by hand. That is clearly the fairest way to end this stalemate, and the least likely to leave lingering doubts about whether the outcome was correct.

tj

[elucidator]

Voting machines of the punch card type have the highest error factor precisely because of the whole goddam chad thing. So why are they used? Money.

Voting takes place at the county level, it is the county that foots the bill. Which counties have the biggest budgets for voter stuff.? Why, the counties with the most money. As a general trend, people with more money tend toward which political persuasion?

So whaddaya wanna bet that the counties whose recounts were most closely in line with their original vote tally are Republican? Whaddaya wanna bet that very very few of thier votes get “invalidated” as direct result of their ability to afford a better voting process?

So, whaddaya wanna bet that more Democratic votes are “invalidated” (i.e.,not counted!!) than Republican votes? According to the guys who made the voting machine, its a lead pipe cinch.

All right, money talks. I’ll live with that as best I can, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let it vote!

As Disraeli said about Palmerston (IIRC)“It’s not so much his having the ace of trumps up his sleeve that I resent, as his sincere certainty that God Almighty put it there”.

Finally, and most importantly, more Americans voted for Gore than for Bush. If there were no Electoral College crapola, Tipper Gore would be measuring drapes for the White House and Bush would head back for a brisk round of signing death warrants.

If “Landslide George” had real class and character, he would refuse such a victory as being unworthy!

That would be statesmanlike!

That would show character and integrity!

That will be the day!

[Tejota]

http://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/11/30/jackson.undervote/

a couple of quotes:

[quote]

Thirty-six Florida counties that use optical scanners recorded an average undervote of just over .03 percent by our figures, while 18 counties using punch-card systems reported an undercount of more than 1.5 percent – a substantial disparity.
{/quote]

Bush lawyers may have a point here. There were nearly 5,000 undervotes in Duval County, 1.7 percent of the total. According to CNN’s figures, that’s higher than the statewide average, as well as Miami-Dade or Broward Counties, though not quite as high as Palm Beach’s 2.6 percent.

But there’s another factor, too. Congresswoman Corrine Brown, a Florida Democrat, calculates that 1,400 of those Duval County undervotes came from four African-American precincts, which overwhelmingly supported Gore on Election Day. Her estimate accounts for 28 percent of the Duval County undervote.

nice to see some real numbers on this finally.

tj

[Tejota]

notice that there is a sidebar on the article with the raw data. I did a little rough math projecting the results of a hand recount in ALL punch-card districts.

I discard collier & broward undervotes, since these are already included in the certified results. and assume that 25% of the undervotes will be picked up by humans as a vote.

I also assume that undervotes will fall to bush/gore at the same rate that the fell in the machine tally for that district.

By this (rough) math I calculate that a full recount of the state will net Bush and additional 293 votes and Gore an additional 1060 votes.

the remaining math is left as an exercise for the reader.

tj

[Bill_H]

elucidator wrote

Finally, and most importantly, more Americans voted for Gore than for Bush. If there were no Electoral College crapola, Tipper Gore would be measuring drapes for the White House and Bush would head back for a brisk round of signing death warrants.

Finally, and most importantly, if it would only rain beer, I’d be having that drink I so richly deserve.

If “Landslide George” had real class and character, he would refuse such a victory as being unworthy!

This certainly gets an ‘A’ for originality. Bush won fair and square, not once or twice, but several times. However, since he’s a classy character, it’s only right that he resign!

[Tejota]

*Originally posted by Bill H. *
This certainly gets an ‘A’ for originality. Bush won fair and square, not once or twice, but several times.
**

I suppose that you can prove this? What precisely is ‘fair’ about blocking Gore’s right by law to ask for and receieve (at the sole discretion of the canvassing boards) hand recounts?

You aren’t basing the Bush ‘win’ on that discredited set of totals that Kathrine Harris tried to foist off on us are you? Hopefully you have better evidence than that, because I and about half the US population aren’t buying.

If Bush wins this election, it will be because the recounts were allowed to happen and they showed him to have the most votes. Anything less than that isn’t a victory, even if he does end up sitting in the Oval Office.

tj

[Bill_H]

Tejota wrote

You aren’t basing the Bush ‘win’ on that discredited set of totals that Kathrine Harris tried to foist off on us are you? Hopefully you have better evidence than that, because I and about half the US population aren’t buying.

Define ‘discredited’.
Rationalise ‘foist’.
Recognize that 40% and dropping isn’t ‘half’.

[emarkp]

Tejota wrote:
Is your only evidence that he doesn’t want a full count the fact that he hasn’t filed a lawsuit demanding a full recount of the state?

Did you read my post? I listed several reasons that suggest what I’m claiming. Look at my points 1-3,5 above (number 4 is more of an aside than a point per se).

Tejota continued:
There also a huge difference between what you want and what you want so bad that you are willing to sue to get it.

After all, no matter what Gore may want here, he doesn’t have any legal right to demand a full count. He doesn’t have any reasonable claim that the count is inaccurate in any counties other than the ones he is currently asking to have counted.

If I were in Gore’s position, I would certainly want to have the whole state counted by hand. That is clearly the fairest way to end this stalemate, and the least likely to leave lingering doubts about whether the outcome was correct.

The handcount wasn’t arrived at by the Gore camp suing the counties AFAIK (if I’m wrong, I’d appreciate a quote to show it–however, I now notice that you agreed with this in a later post). Gore only had to request the recounts. He could have asked for recounts across the state, but did not. He only asked for the recounts in certain counties. He only suggested a hand recount in the entire state after the statutory time for such a request had already elapsed. His offer was insincere and he and the rest of the country knows it.

Tejota pulled out of somewhere:
I discard collier & broward undervotes, since these are already included in the certified results. and assume that 25% of the undervotes will be picked up by humans as a vote.

And I can assume that the percentage of undervotes picked up by a human is 2.5%, and your numbers are too small to make a difference. If you’re going to pluck numbers out of the air (or anywhere else, for that matter), you’d better back it up or correctly label your “calculation” as arbitrary and valueless.

[jshore]

*Originally posted by emarkp *

Tejota pulled out of somewhere:
I discard collier & broward undervotes, since these are already included in the certified results. and assume that 25% of the undervotes will be picked up by humans as a vote.

And I can assume that the percentage of undervotes picked up by a human is 2.5%, and your numbers are too small to make a difference. If you’re going to pluck numbers out of the air (or anywhere else, for that matter), you’d better back it up or correctly label your “calculation” as arbitrary and valueless.

Well, at least he clearly stated his assumptions so you could decide whether to agree or disagree with them. That’s called “intellectual honesty” which is something you may have a hard time comprehending since the other side [not to name any names ;)] has used some blatantly dishonest numbers like comparing Pat Buchanan’s vote count in Palm Beach County this year to what he got in the '96 primary (when he was getting like 15% of the vote statewide!)

And, by the way, I find it interesting that so many of those people who support Bush, like yourself, imply that he decided against asking for hand recounts himself for “moral” reasons! For God’s sake, since he is ahead, his interest is in not having the recounts at all (besides the facts involving where most of the votes were undercounted)!!! I am willing to admit that Gore is acting mainly out of his own self-interest, but I can’t understand why you can’t see that Bush is too.

[Stratocaster]

*Originally posted by jshore *
**And, by the way, I find it interesting that so many of those people who support Bush, like yourself, imply that he decided against asking for hand recounts himself for “moral” reasons! For God’s sake, since he is ahead, his interest is in not having the recounts at all (besides the facts involving where most of the votes were undercounted)!!! I am willing to admit that Gore is acting mainly out of his own self-interest, but I can’t understand why you can’t see that Bush is too. **

This comes up a lot. I don’t know (though I strongly suspect) whether either side is acting solely from self-interest or from the belief that they are in the right–legally, morally, upon whatever basis they form their argument. Perhaps it’s somewhere in the middle for both.

But isn’t the real concern whether or not their arguments hold water? The fact that Bush or Gore’s wishes may be in their own interests does not mean either isn’t right. All the “You’re just a partisan dope” calls from both side don’t do anything to help clarify the issues.

If Gore says that “every vote must count” but only selected Democratic counties for re-count, it’s fair game to question the validity of his argument. If Bush says, “the law is the law” and then wants the absentee ballots included that (perhaps) violate the law, his argument is now in play. There may be adequate answers from both camps that make you comfortable that the logic is in fact consistent. Maybe not. But the fact that an argument, if accepted, benefits a particular side does not render that argument suspect unless it is deficient in some other way. (This is a long-winded way of saying that I concede that Bush’s strategy serves his own interests. The fact that he is right is just a happy coincidence.;))

[Sterra]

Hmm, why woulden’t it be the democrats who are richer and the republicans who are poorer? Democrats held overwhelmingly in NY and Cali and the price of living in both places is extremely high. Whereas texas has one of the lowest prices of living anywhere and it was overwhelmingly republican.

[jshore]

*Originally posted by Asmodean *
Hmm, why woulden’t it be the democrats who are richer and the republicans who are poorer? Democrats held overwhelmingly in NY and Cali and the price of living in both places is extremely high. Whereas texas has one of the lowest prices of living anywhere and it was overwhelmingly republican.

Numbers from New York Times in this election: The first number is the family income and the next two are the percent voting for Gore and Bush, respectively:

<$15,000 57 37
$15K–30K 54 41
$30K–50K 49 48
>$50,000 45 52
>$75,000 44 53
>$100,000 43 54

[blastfurnace]

*Originally posted by hypergirl *
**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. **

hypergirl,
You nailed it with the Bush delay tactics. The Bush campaign stated tpday that the sole purpose of their many lawsuits was to delay the recount process until December 12, when the electorial college must send their votes to congress.

I’m not a big Gore or Bush fan, but that is pretty low. Looking at this through “fairly” impartial eyes, it seems to me that Gore wants the votes to be counted, no matter the outcome. He has never said he will refuse to conceed the election. Bush, on the other hand, is working under the assumption that he has won. I’m sorry, folks, but no-one has won the election yet.

[Stratocaster]

*Originally posted by blastfurnace *
**

*Originally posted by hypergirl *
**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. **

hypergirl,
You nailed it with the Bush delay tactics. The Bush campaign stated tpday that the sole purpose of their many lawsuits was to delay the recount process until December 12, when the electorial college must send their votes to congress.**

blastfurnace, can you provide a cite for that? Not to be contrary, but that sounds like astounding stupidity to state this, even if it is the strategy. I’d be interested in reading more on this, if you can help. Thanks.

[blastfurnace]

Yeah, I was just thinking I needed to cite that…I heard it on the news on the way to work, but I will definately look for some evidence

[Milossarian]

I guess now, when Gore attorney David Boies says he wants manual counts to begin on the ballots before the judge even says whether the ballots should be manually counted yet again, what standards should be used, and who should do it (a Special Master? The canvassing boards?), and the Bush attorneys say, “Whoa; can we explain our case for why this shouldn’t be done before we just do it?”; it’s a “delaying tactic.”

This is so unfair! All the Gore camp is asking for is that boards consisting of mostly Democrats and where the majority rules count undervoted ballots in the counties that most heavily supported Gore; using the most liberal standard for discerning votes for Gore. What’s so wrong with that?

:rolleyes:

Why can’t Gore just be the ruler of the collective Dream World some of you seem to be in?

[Milossarian]

The Gore camp is also asking that the Bush camp waive its rights of due process, another one of those laws (like the deadlines and election judgements being legislatively put in the hands of the Secretary of State) that the Gore folks think they can brush away when they are cumbersome to them.

It’s getting hard to keep track of all the enemies of the Gore presidency now. It was so much easier when it was just Dubya, Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris.

Now, apparently, it includes:

*** the mostly Democratic Miami-Dade canvassing board** (who the Democratic National Committee threatened to sue if they didn’t do a manual ballot count; and the Dems are now suing because they decided [as was their right under the law] not to follow through after starting the count.

*** the mostly Democratic Palm Beach County canvassing board** (who used a standard for deciding what constituted voter intent that wasn’t the most liberal in giving votes to Gore, something the Gore camp is also fighting in court.)

*** the entirely appointed by Democrats Florida Supreme Court** (who rejected Gore’s request for forcing another hand-count.)[I know; one justice was appointed by both a Democratic governor and a Republican governor-elect jointly.]

So I guess this isn’t all that partisan of an issue, after all.

[Tejota]

Milo, Bush proposed calling 90 witnesses! That just stinks to high heaven. Bush is entiled to due process, yes.
But he’s making a pretty transparent attempt to game the system so that even if he loses the trial, he will still win because it’s to late to count.

In this case Justice delayed is justice denied. I’ve said it before, if Bush wins without having the votes in Florida counted, then we will find out that he actually lost before he leaves office.

Once that happens, he will be a lame duck. Even a real statesman would have trouble governing with that kind of cloud over his head. A moron like Bush hasn’t got a prayer unless he wins the election honestly.

tj

[Monster104]

Yet from what you and other die hard Dems have said it’s pretty clear that some people will never be able to accept Bush as the “honest” winner. He has already won. The vote has been certified. The only way Gore can win is to worm his way through the legal system, finding a loophole in whatever he can to manipulate the system.