Wring…Those ARE the democratic national headquarters.
And BTW…
You may have noticed that I quoted Federal law AND Florida State law about the military ballots being legal.
Now it seems that the military ballots are going to be included, regardless of postmarks (or rather, the lack thereof).
At least someone (in another thread) reported that it’s a possibility. That VP Candidate Lieberman has asked that they be included. It was theorized that he may be doing so as a face-saving gesture, that he feels that VP Gore is going to lose Florida and is wanting to distance hisself from the morass down there.
If I were in a more partisan mood, I’d say “darned tootin’!”.
But I now believe that the time for such antics are over. I’m tired of seing it on TV, the radio, the newspapers, and sadly, even here.
The Straight Dope has some of the smartest, most educated people I have ever met, IRL or electronically.
I’m of the opinion that all of us can step back, take a few deep breaths, smoke a cigar and drink a beer, set aside politics and put our heads together to sort out this mess of “Who Did/Said What/When” and demonizing the other side’s motives.
The law concerning overseas/absentee ballots is unequivocal; a judges interpretation (we call them judges because, you know, they exercise judgement) can very well say otherwise.
But if exceptions are going to be made to the law, their needs to be, for the good of the country and the people of Florida, a damned good reason.
And if exception are going to be made, they need to apply fairly and equitably to both sides of the issue, in such a manner that all legal, correctly indicated ballots are included to give us the most accurate count humanly and/or mechanically possible.
My final concern is that, at ths point, accurate counts, regardless of the counting method, are no longer possible due to excessive handling/movement of the ballots in question.
This whole mess went very wrong, very quickly, very early.
And I’m beyond the point of laying blame; I’m more concerned with finding and fixing the problems, resolving the disputes, and figuring out who the next President really is.
Ex Tank, they are just following Florida law. IF the ballots were signed and dated by the 7th (you can see one of Freedom2’s posts for the cite) they will be included w/o a postmark (as per Butterworth’s request). However, I believe they still plan to throw out any vote that was improperly cast (i.e. no witness). I suppose that will still “disenfranchise” (if I hear someone else using that word I’ll strangle them) members who improperly cast their vote.
In fact, if you see the first cite Freecom2 used, that was one of the complaints (here) The military votes “more than half” were being thrown out for lack of witness signature. That is the true irony. These are improperly CAST ballots, and should no more count than those that are double punched.
Other things to remember:
Neither Bush or Gore or their lawers can throw out ANYTHING. The decision on whether an absentee ballot counts comes form the county. Thus Democratic county=Dem leadership, and the same goes for the Repuplican counties.
The Florida Supreme Court is NONPARTISAN. Regardless of who put them in office. I have yet to hear (from anyone who counts) that they have even given the appearance of impropriety.
If Bush wins by 50, 500, 5000 votes he STILL gets the win in FL. This does NOT mean it’s over (sorry to say). The U.S Congress is already deciding if it will accept Florida’s Electors. The are doing some serious reading up on the electoral College and Congress’s role. In fact Tom DeLay, yesterday put out a memo making sure other members know what they may be called to do.
It ain’t over 'til it’s over folks!
Time is becoming the major issue now. Florida has to choose its electors by Dec 12, or it may lose its vote in the electoral college.
The main issue with recounts is that it eats into the time that Bush might have to contest the election. What happens if the recount continues, and finished on Dec 5 showing that Gore wins by 100 votes? That gives the Bush team only 7 days to contest the election, a process at least as long as the one that’s been going on now.
I’m afraid that this may be Al Gore’s actual strategy - keep the election in confusion until Dec 12. If his campaign can get Florida’s electors removed from the college, he wins the White House.
The slow increase in votes for Gore may become more of a factor. The Supreme Court is going to be very hesitant to make new law under this kind of time pressure. And you know what they say about unusual circumstances making for bad law. So if they think the recount is going to fail anyway, they may just rule for Bush and uphold the deadline. But if it looks like Gore is going to pick up the votes he needs, or at least come close, then the situation is about to get even more confusing.
Sam it’s the Republicans (through their SoS and lawyers) who have been attempting since the election to prevent, stall, stop etc. the recounts. Perhaps, had they not done so, all would have been done by now.
I don’t think there will be a problem with a GOP-controlled Congress if Bush wins. The only problem would be with a Gore win, and that will be DeLay keeping the moderates and freshmen in the fold - I would expect a vote as strenuously whipped as the impeachment vote, and as contemptuous of any results of elections that the bitter-end right doesn’t like.
The memo DeLay is putting out is charmingly titled “Don’t Let Gore Steal The Election Through The Courts”. Isn’t Bush doing anything, even quietly, to keep that stuff damped down? How’s THAT for being “a healer, a uniter and not a divider” and “ending the bitter partisanship in Washington” ?
I keep seeing this argument that the ballots are being mishandled, and that this could change the tallies. People make much of piles of chads laying about after the manual counts, and I keep wondering why this innuendo hasn’t been more strenuously refuted.
I have worked with punch cards before, though thankfully not for many years now. These are made of relatively sturdy cardstock, and they are designed to be handled by people. When we used them, chads would quite often be lying about after a process. This does not mean that unpunched chads suddenly leapt out of their holes. Quite the reverse in fact. The chads are very secure, and they often hung on by one or two corners even after being punched. They also would simply stick to the cards sometimes due to static charges. Those types of chads might end up on the floor after a run, but unpunched chads? Not in my experience. In fact, without a pen to punch the dang things out, it is very difficult to get an unpunched chad out of its hole without bending the card because they are so small an area to apply pressure to.
I am not trying to say that everyone involved in this process is a paragon of virtue. Cheating may indeed happen. But in my estimation it would be very difficult to do under the eyes of observers and cameras. And as far as accidental dislodging of unpunched chads goes, I don’t buy that at all.
I don’t think anyone is suggesting that people are taking unpunched ballots and making the chads pop out by manipulating them. The suggestion is that perhaps plain ballots are being made into “dimpled ballots”, dimpled ballots into “pregnant ballots”, etc. etc. IOW, the degree to which the ballots have been “voted” is subject to manipulation by the handlers. This is taking on an added significance, in light of the new push by the Gore people to expand the definition of a legal vote.
Anyone with any evidence of any of that going on should and would present it to law-enforcement authorities, right? But that hasn’t happened.
Do you think that stuff has been happening? On what basis?
Or are you simply saying that it’s theoretically possible, and the Democrats will stop at nothing, so they must be doing it? Please.
Really Izzy? yet another point upon which we disagree. and yes, I have seen actual accusations that specific wholesale fraud went on - and the accusation was that the 18,000 votes in PBC that were double punched were actually Bush votes. this was in a link the UncleBeer submitted (although he did seem to step away from the conculsion that wholesale voter fraud went on). Check out This
Of course, the author doesn’t suggest exactly how and why 18,000 votes could have been double punched, by other than the individual confused voter, but hey, what’s reality when you’ve got an interesting theory.
So, yes, there have been specific allegations that wholesale voter fraud went on/is going on (remember the news flash about the “ballots with tape”!!! - until of course it came out that it was two absentee ballots, where the likely reason for the event was the voter did it, rather than speculation of how a poll worker could secretly have itty bitty pieces of tape and manage to take those itty bitty pieces and a chad and under intense scrutiny tape over Bush’s vote).