I am just looking for information here, not making a stand about a thing.
But two questions have occured to me in watching all this mess:
- Why exactly would the Supreme Court caming down on the side of Bush and saying that the Florida Supreme Court rewrote law make any difference now? The election has been certified. Let’s say the Florida judge calls for a recount for Gore. Can’t the post-Nov 14 totals be used in such a scenario, along with any additional Miami Dade and whatever totals? The counts have actually been done, as we all know. If the judge orders those totals to be included… I just don’t understand why the pundits keep talking about it as though 930 will be the only number that counts and any further battling will completely ignore the additional Broward votes, even in a post-certification recount.
Have I made myself clear? i don’t feel that I have… but I hope so and I hope someone can provide an answer.
- Sorta related question, and maybe no one can answer it because it is more about the attorney’s strategy perhaps.
This business of recounts for Miami Dade… the Bush lawyers are, of course, bitching that no counts can commence until they battle out 2 things: should such counts commence as part of the contest, and what would the standard be for those counts?
Seems to me that it would be perfectly legal and appropriate to begin counting in any case, since time is short, while the battle rages. Then, if the court sez the count is to be included, it is ready to rock. If it does not, no harm done. As for the standard, that seems especially simple: since these ballots are being so anally examined and id’d anyway, it seems a relatively simple matter to break them down in the count and id them as follows:
full punch
3 corners
2 corners
1 corner
no corners, dimpled with light
dimpled no light
nothing resembling a vote of any kind
Then, when the judge sez what the standard should be, you count just the piles that fall within that standard. Extremely simple, and the damn ballots are counted.
I thought it interesting when the two minority leaders in Congress gave their press conference the other day and they said that under the Freedom of Information Act someone, sometime, was going to count those ballots by hand and let us know once and for all what the totals were. I hope they do, and I hope they do it according to what I outline above. That way we can all decide, according to what we think is legit, who really won on the votes.
Stoid