Reps. demand hand-count in NM! Is this a joke?

Great Debates
1

Just saw in the paper today that the Republicans are demanding a hand-recount of ballots in New Mexico, due to “irregularities.” Apparently, a high number of ballots did not register a presidential candidate. The paper even said that they are using the exact same argument in favor of hand counts in NM as the Democrats are in Florida!

Isn’t this the dumbest thing the Republicans could possibly do? NM won’t matter, and they just set themselves up for allegations of hypocrisy, which IMHO are fully justified if the article is accurate. Either hand counts are more accurate or they are not. They are not accurate in New Mexico and subjective in Florida.

2

Same argument?
New Mexico has a high elderly population, but its ballot design was also confusing?

3

I think their excuse here is that 10% of the ballots in a county didn’t have them.

They’re still hypocritical, though.

4

I haven’t read anything about it. Is there anything online you could link to?

5

It’s especially pointless in a broader sense because only Florida matters mathematically. Anything the Bush people do to contest the NM race undercuts their Florida arguments in the court of public opinion.

This has to be simply trying to win for winning’s sake, not that I can really blame them for it, of course.

6

This is BLATANT hypocrisy, but at the same time, Bush is more than legally entitled to this, and it should be carried out in a timely fair manner, with no interference from either side. As a very staunch Democrat, I think that every legal vote SHOULD be counted, be it in Florida, NM, or elsewhere.

For Bush (or any of the republicans) to do this, however, just screams hypocrisy. I can’t imagine why they’d make this decision, but I applaud it in it’s quest for truth.

7

Monster104:
I was suprised not to see this brought up here earlier, so I guess it isn’t that widely reported. I saw it in the Orange County Register, but damned if I can find an on-line article about it. Maybe the Bush camp is counting on the fact that everyone will be so preoccupied with Florida so as to not notice what they’re doing in New Mexico.

I’d appreciate it if someone could find something on-line about this.

8

Here’s what I had read about it:

http://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/12/01/new.mexico.election/

At the end it says the Bush campaign hasn’t said whether they’re contesting or not.

9

funny, I voted in NM, and the ballot seemed pretty straight forward to me.

10

While we are still on the issue of ballot design…
Wide disparity between Black and White voters in the Florida poll according to Washington Post.
One potential problem in Duval. Instruction on the ballot said to remember to vote on every page - the presidential candidates were spread out over two pages…
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15998-2000Dec2.html