The Certification, Coming Court Cases and What's Next...

Great Debates
21

Speaking as an outsider to the whole mess… no, Gore would not give up. If they’d all been counted yesterday he’d right now be mounting a court challenge against the Palm Beach results, arguing that Buchanan’s votes should be his, that there should be a revote, or whatever legal argument seemed likeliest to succeed.

It’s obvious to my eyes that Gore won’t accept losing the election until Bush is sworn in, and even then he might not accept it. Gore will probably never formally concede, no matter what happens.

Both sides have been consistent. The Democrats want revotes held until they can finagle a result that has Gore winning, at which point they will claim the vote has been properly counted, even if it hasn’t. The Republicans have already accomplished this goal, so they want the process stopped.

22

I was always wondering how it was possible for Gore to quickly rack up so many votes in Dade County, a county that he won by only about 6%. Acording to the analysts cited by this WSJ writer, it is because the precincts done first in the partial recount were heavily Democratic. By this reckoning the Republicans may not have that much to fear from the Gore lawsuit on this front. And it is also unfair to include the partial recounts in the final tally for this reason.

Regarding the point made by kiffa that “the Nassau county board of electors tossing out some 50 Gore votes by going back to their original count without a reasonable explanation given so far”, I guess it depends on your definition of “reasonable”. And your definition of “thrown out”. The explanation I’ve seen reported is that no Gore votes were actually “thrown out” - it came to light that the recount had omitted about 200 mostly Bush ballots. This had the effect of giving Gore an undeserved 50 vote boost. So in the interest of counting every ballot accurately and fairly, a well known Gore/Lieberman core value, they reverted back to the more accurate and more complete original count.

23

I’ll repeat what was said above :

The Florida election was determined by a margin less than the error rate on the machines. This means that statistically it is a tie. No amount of certification, recounting using current methods, or court cases will change this fact.

Add this to all of the legal challenges, dimpled chads, and other stuff from Florida and what you have is a quagmire.

We have 2 options :

Bush option : We have done 2 counts (in my book a partial recount means nothing, as it does not make the count more precise). Bush has won both. It doesn’t matter what the actual vote was – this is how we conduct elections in this country, and we are not going to change the rules in mid-stream. So Bush should win the state.

Gore option : The will of the electorate needs to be known. In order to do so, we should make sure that every vote is counted. Only if we get a precise count, we can determine the will of the electorate, and thus who won the presidency.

Both options have weaknesses – the GOP blinds themselves to errors in the counting, and the Democratic option is a pipe dream that can never be acheived even with 100 years of litigation. The other problem is that ANY other option besides the Bush option will give Gore the presidency.

As I see it, there are 3 fair solutions :

  1. Blinded hand recount of the entire state with controls. Preset rules before you begin. Hopefully, nonbiased counters, or true blinding. Yeah, right.

  2. Declaring a tie in the presidential election and
    a) letting the Florida legislature pipck electors
    b) statewide revote
    c) splitting the electoral count
    Yeah, right.

  3. State/national runoff or other creative solution. In Israel, the parties split a presidential term in half when this happened (Shamir/Peres I believe).

24

Yes, this is certainly all about Stoidela. Unlike any other issue, when it comes to her posts, we are all blinded by an irrational hatred that causes us to unfairly pillory her, while those who would generally agree with her stay away out of fear. She is a fearless crusader for truth and impartiality, but the Bush-sympathizers on the board will stop at no lengths to discredit her. On the single matter of Stoidela, the conservatives here (who otherwise seem to be in the minority by a little bit) come out of the woodwork to disagree with her.

Either that, or they actually have a point. I see this as a perfect time to take Occam’s Razor out of the proverbial medicine cabinet for a long needed shave.

Both sides want to win, and are willing to be more than a little bit dishonest to get there. If the Democrats truly wanted every vote counted, as they claim, they wouldn’t have asked for recounts in only four counties likely to give them more votes. If you believe that either side is uniquely concerned with a fair and complete count of the votes, you are simply being naive.

If you already believe sinister and dishonest motives on Ms. Harris’ part, you can easily fit any evidence to this theory. Speculation about what she is really thinking is simply a matter of taking any action of hers and constructing an explanation that fits the original theory. As with the thread about conservatives, Stoidela is using preconcieved notions about someone’s motivation as an argument in favor of them being dishonest. That is a rather circular argument.

25

I hadn’t heard any reason given as to why they went back to the original count. Now I understand that they found 200 Bush votes which effectively erased Gore’s 50 in the first recount. I am more confused than ever. Why doesn’t the certified vote count reflect Gore and Bush new found votes?

Maybe you could also check to see what happened to all those doubled notched votes which were thrown out by Duval County.

Appreciate your input.

26

This election business is starting to make me sick.
As my dad said, the ONLY way to truly be satisfied would be to throw out the results and have the ENTIRE COUNTRY vote again. However, that ain’t gonna happen.
Stoid-I don’t like Bush either. But Gore is not coming out of this smelling like a rose. This is partisan politics at its worst. We have totally rabid partisans running the whole election-both Republican and Democrat. It’s sad, it really is.

You know what? I think Gore SHOULD concede now. He should NOT prolong this in the courts. It only gets more and more embarassing. Yes, perhaps he SHOULD have been president, because, IMHO, he is better qualified. However, if once the results are certified, and Bush is the winner, he should indeed give up. Yes, it sucks to think of Lott and all of them running the show. But what can we do-a coup de’tat?

Perhaps something good will come out of this-massive updating of how we vote-I was reading somewhere that Mexico spent millions on this, and now there is less of a concern about rigged elections. We need major changes in this country…hopefully we can do that without turning on ourselves.

This election is almost like a festering wound on the body of the country. It is feeding on itself.

27

I’m impressed that you got to 23. I was going to put you to shame with my recount, I was positive that I could come up with AT LEAST 25 points of disagreement with Stoidela.

However, my recount failed to give me my anticipated results and I fell short by 3. I can only disagree with 20 of her points. I will submit your original count for certification since I like the number 23 better than 20.
You also summed up my feelings about responding to Stoidela. She has worn me down. I admit it. There is nobody who can ignore detrimental facts and create new ones to replace them better than Stoidela. I do not care if Stoidela or SoreLoserman ever concede this election. We do not need their permission to get on with the business of this country. Their loss in this election is not what marginalized them, it is their refusal to accept their loss that did.

There is nothing left to this process. The US Supreme Court is either going to rule that A Bush won by 930 votes or B That Bush won by 536 votes. Nothing they do can or will help Gore. I will be waiting (but not holding my breath) for the apologies that will be due once they rule that the FSC was making up the rules as they went along and were way out of line.
Congratulations President-Elect Bush
Who cares if Clinton co-operates with this transition. He has never shown any class, I don’t know why we should expect any now. He is on his way out. His opinion is worth as much as Gore’s. IOW…worthless.

28

Kiffa,

To clarify again: its not that they found new votes in the recount - to the contrary, the recount omitted votes. Most of these votes were Bush votes. As a result, they decided that the first count was more accurate after all, and returned to it. This caused Gore to lose a 50 vote margin that he had gained with the recount (helped by the ommitted ballots).

In Duval County, there was apparently a problem with alot of first time voters, mostly minorities, being confused by a ballot. Though the ballot was not inherently confusing, they were misled by the instructions that they received from the activists directing them to vote. The ballot for the most part had one page devoted to all the candidates for each office. The exception was the presidential slot, whose names spilled over onto two pages. Activists instructed the voters at the entrance to the voting booths (or polling places) to “make sure to vote once on each page”. This caused many people to mistakenly vote twice for the presidential slot.

Personally, I wonder if it’s such a tragedy whan people of such minimal intelligence don’t get their vote recorded. Clearly, these were people who were not doing much thinking on their own.

29

Let’s be hoinest here. WHen Gore/Lieberman say “let’s count every vote” they do not really meant to count “every vote”. THey mean “every vote in highly democratic counties.” If they really wantd every vote to count, they would have asked for the whole state to be recounted.

But the point is moot as Florida has a very clear law that sets a deadline for votes to be certified. Harris did nothing but follow the statute. The Supreme Court of Florida on the other hand decided to re-write teh statute, which was partisan judicial activism at its best.

But even with their new deadline, and even with dimpled ballots in Dem counties, the vote is still in Bush’s favor. He has won every single re-count. Unless they re-count the whole state, I don’t see how this can be reversed.

On a side note, has anyone noticed how liberal female journalists have been attacking Harris for her looks and make-up? Pro-feminist journalists reducing a powerful woman to the makeup she wears? WTF? Can you imagine of a conservative male did that…

30

Um, Gore offered to do exactly that way back when, remember? Hnad-count all of Florida, abide by the results, and drop all lawsuits.

If Bush hadn’t refused the offer, we’d have had this mess long settled by now.

(And Gore also offered to meet with Bush and talk about toning down the rhetoric and fire-breathing too, remember? And Bush turned that down as well, deciding instead to send James Baker out to fan the flames. Anyone who says Bush has class has conveniently forgotten about this incident.)

Bottom line: If you want an accurate and fair result in the Florida voting, don’t go to the GOP.

31

I do gotta hand it to Stoid for having strong beliefs. I Know some religious fanatics who don’t have as fervent a devotion to their God as Stoid does for Gore. I can almost feel the Titanic battle between the Son of God(or at least his VP) and the Governor of Darkness. Bush’s minions are thwarting every intent of the good and just Gore, but Gore has the power of righteousness on his side, and eventually, must prevail. And even from this darkest of hours the true believers maintain faith against all reason.

32

Anyone who can explain what facts Stoidela is leaving out, or what gaps in logic she’s displaying, would be more convincing and would be more in this forum’s purpose of “fighting ignorance” by doing so, rather than line up to denigrate her character in multiple paragraphs. I’m ashamed of the number of you who are doing just that, though.

33

**
Um, excuse me, but they DID, twice in public statements by Gore. Bush turned the offer down. The FL SC offered it again during oral arguments, and Bush turned it down again. Now he’s gone to the US SC complaining how unfair it is. Yes, that would be the best and fairest thing to do in the interests of We the People, IMHO of course. the only people not entitled to complain about not getting it are the Bush campaign, wouldn’t you say?

**

In fact, no, I haven’t seen or heard anything of the sort, and I’ve been paying close attention. Got a cite?

The only criticism of Harris I’ve heard is about her blatant conflict of interest.

34

Don’t let’m get you down Stoidela.

I really laugh when I hear the Repugnicans spouting platitudes like “for the good of the country” and “fairness and decency”. How quickly they forget the tactics they themselves employed during the Whitewater witchhunt. Heedless of the damage caused, they dragged the country through excrutiating agony, and they would not let go, even when every investigation turned into a dead end.

We watched, and learned.

And what of the impeachment debacle, where they put their purely partisan agenda ahead of the “good of the country” while paralyzing the government for months and months. Lott, Armey, Barr, et al used the most despicable, hateful, arrogant methods to pull down a sitting President, an agenda that was decided on before he was even sworn in.

We watched, and learned.

For eight years, bulldogs like Rush Limbaugh and Alan Keyes beat the Repugnican drums with the incessant battle cries of the right wing, whipping up the faithful with a call to arms that had but one purpose: Destroy the Democratic President, no matter what the cost to the country.

We watched, and listened.

Now, with the coronation of King George imminent, I almost feel an enormous relief at the thought of being on the other side. No longer in a defensive position, we are free to atttack, attack, attack. I believe it was Sun Tzu who said, “Know your enemy”. We know them well, and though they may have won the battle, they shall not win the war. The Repugnicans have sowed the wind, and now they shall reap the whirlwind. We are not your father’s Democrats, hugging trees and waving flowers. We are the party of James Carville, an in-your-face, take no prisoners, cut ‘em off at the knees Democratic Party. We absolutely, postively will not stop until George W. Bush has been completely emasculated, and the spectre of Repugnicanism has been driven from the face of the land. Enjoy it while you can, boys and girls, because you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet. It’s going to be a bumpy four years.

35

When that was offered by Gore, it was too late. The law specifies when hand counts can be requested. Just because the candidates agree on something does not mean that the Florida statute is no longer valid. THe law rules the election, not some gentleman’s agreement between candidates. That offer by Gore was meaningless and illegal. It was a PR ploy only. If he wanted fairness and fairness alone, he would have asked for a recount in the republican county that threw out 26,000 votes.

They have an election law. It MUST be followed. That is the point. You might not like the law, and you might not like the outcome of this election, but the law must be followed.

36

Some thoughts on points and questions raised in this thread:

  1. Deadline means deadline, when the Supreme Court says it.

The Florida Supreme Court, in its decision in the now famous case of Palm Beach County Canvassing Board v. Harris, specifically stated that amended certifications were to be filed no later than 5pm Sunday. The Secretary of State was required to accept any such amendments filed by 5 pm as long as her office was open that day. It was. One might suspect that there were less than grand motives for having the Secretary open her office on the Sunday of the holiday weekend, but it also is true that it makes it easier for parties to be ready with lawsuits today to challenge amended certifications. While it might have been nice of the Secretary to keep the issue open until Palm Beach County finished at about 7:15 pm, really as long as the office was open she can reasonably assert that the Supreme Court said what it meant, and meant what it said. It isn’t Ms. Harris’ fault PBC didn’t get done in time; it is the fault of PBC, which simply should have applied more resources to accomplish the task timely.

  1. Partial manual recounts can’t be accepted as they don’t comply with the law.

The manual recounts are provided for under Florida law by Section 102.166. The manual recount to be legal must be a countywide recount. One that is partially complete is not a legal recount; indeed, that would lead to mischief of the type Mr. Bush fears (e.g.: count all Democratic precincts, first, count all Gore dimples first, etc.). Having failed to complete the manual recount timely, the county can only legally certify the prior machine recount totals (if, indeed, it can legally certify ANY total; there is a strong legal argument that it was required to complete the manual recount). Ms. Harris is on very solid ground, there. And, it also helps everyone understand that Dade County couldn’t expect to be allowed extra time, because PBC wasn’t, either.

  1. Not all dimples are votes.

Let’s face it, folks, just cause a paper ballot has an indentation doesn’t mean that it was pressed with a stylus by a person intending to punch out the chad. There is a difference between perforated chads and dented chads. Mr. Bush makes a good point when he and his team assert that there should, at the least, be objective standards for counting votes, and whether or not the dimple ‘looks’ or ‘feels’ like a vote is not such a standard. Applying a resonable standard, PBC did not turn up the huge increased Gore vote everyone hoped for, even in the almost completed count. For the Democrats to assert that all ballots should be counted as votes where there is some dimple on the card over a particular chad is stretching the concept, especially in the absence of expert evidence regarding dimples, ballot-handling, etc.

  1. Mr. Bush and his team, far more than Mr. Gore and his team, have been quite partisan and unreasonable about how to handle this Florida fiasco.

This is my own subjective opinion, but it is based on some reaonably independant review of the matter. Mr. Gore has had some team members who let hyperbole overcome reason, as has Mr. Bush. But the main theme to Mr. Bush’s rhetoric has been: you must trust the machines cause the people can accomplish mischief. But this is silly in light of the fact that a) there was not one single county that managed two machine counts with identical totals for the two main candidates (why not make it an average of, say, ten machine counts?) and b) some counties actually had vote totals that went DOWN for one or the other candidate on the second machine count. Now we have had it explained that increasing totals can be accounted for by chads that were partially detached preventing a card from being read, but knocked off during the processing, allowing a proper read the second time. However, how do you get a decreased total if the machines are so accurate. In short, the statewide machine recount narrowed the original difference by something like 65%. Just how is one supposed to think the machines are accurate? And clearly those machines missed perforated chads, as well as some hanging, swinging, and or otherwise detached chads. Face it: Machines are not any more accurate in this instance than people, and possibly far less so. On the other hand, so-called ‘mischief’ can reasonably easily be kept in control by observation; just ask any bank or casino. Thus, the basic position of Mr. Bush boils down to: I want to be the winner, I don’t want that in jeopardy, and if you don’t count them by hand, I will be the winner.

  1. Mr. Gore has his chance now to be either reasonable or a total whiner.

Mr. Gore has the following chessboard: he faces checkmate, he has the option of a long drawn out messy endgame fight which is highly unlikely to result in a win, but which can further fray tempers and cause insulted feelings, or he can, basically, resign, go home, study the openings books, and come out again in 2004. There is not one single lawsuit on file which has any legitimate chance of resulting in Florida’s 25 electoral votes being cast by his pledged electors. This is not to say that there is no single law suit that doesn’t have a valid legal point. But regardless, the remedy for any such lawsuit will not be the reversal of the certification issued by Ms. Harris.

All adults learn, we hope, that one has to consider a larger world than one’s own wants. Certainly, a President should be aware of this. If Mr. Gore presses to their conclusion all the potential challenges, and fails to concede the practicality that he has lost the election, he will be demonstrating his unfitness for office in at least as conclusive a fashion as Mr. Bush may have demonstrated his within the last three weeks.

  1. Debate does not include refusing to listen, or stubborn adherence to one’s own beliefs in the face of evidence casting doubt on them.

There are certain members who have been involved in the discussion of this general topic, both in this thread and elsewhere, who don’t seem to grasp that you don’t engage in debate by pointing a finger at the other side and saying: “I’m right and you’re wrong” over and over. Stoidela and others here may have learned, I hope, that it doesn’t make anyone feel like engaging in discussion with you when you behave substantially like that. Of course, based on the responses from both Stoidela and ElvisL1ves, it is clear that they, so far, do not. NOT that some of those who have advocated for Mr. Bush have necessarily been better.

37

Since neither candidate can accept an honest victory at this point, I think we should do the only intelligent thing: remove government for the next four years. Sure, that’s fair.{ha-ha}

Guys, when the vote is this close it stands to reason that it doesn’t matter who wins, they obviously have very similar stances on many topics. Being an optimist, I find both candidates equally worthy to be president(instead of equally inept as some offer), and this vote bears the truth in that. We’re talking a difference of 300 some-odd thousand votes? What is that, one tenth of one percent of the entire poulation? {side-note: what is the estimated population of people of voting age? sorry} Clearly this is not much of a majority. Even guessing that only half of the American population can vote, that leaves us with a victory of two-tenths of a percent. While I might, were I Al Gore, feel a bit slighted by the electoral college system, you shouldn’t fight it only when it is to your advantage to do so; to do that belies a selfishness not inherent in the Dem party’s topics. Nothing was done about the electoral college the last two times this happened. This just happens to be an even more extreme case, not a different one.

Ballots are messed up all the time, tossed out, et cetera. Large number of people make mistakes all the time; just because it worked against Gore isn’t an excuse to hamper our political system more than it already is.

Gore didn’t want every vote counted. No one did. He only wants the votes recounted that will give him the election. He could care less if 3 Ohio voters’ cards were rejected incorrectly. Ohio was a won state, yeah? So he didn’t care whose vote was dismissed there. Nor should he. But he also shouldn’t in Florida.

And just because Bush acted “poorly” in this, well, maybe he was thinking about being presidental and getting things done. Maybe, maybe, we consider the possibility that his speech was to at least calm this process down a bit. After all, he’s won three times. I would think there was a trend there, wouldn’t you? It’s nice when things fall together instead of being forced.

{more ramblings directed now at Fear Itself}
Excruciating agony over whitewater? I don’t recall any agony…I thought it was either a sham or a pointless cover-up and so ignored it. Perhaps you just needed a V8.

Impeachment debacle? What, thinking a president should be impeached for lying? I agree, it was a sham, and so, like most things pointless, I ignore them. Lo!-Clinton lasts the whole term. Huh, who would have thought?

Destroy Clinton? DESTROY? A peacetime president? Did you ever hear the Limbaugh shows where he ragged on Bush this year too? As a political commentator of sorts, leaning to the GOP side, you might expect him to do the same thing YOU are doing: bash the other side. But it is your error to assume that EVERYONE is swayed to the fanatical heights expressed here.

I also like the way you present democracy with warlike tactics because you did not get your way. “We want everything fair…or else. We want things to go our way…or else.”

This is why I hate government: because of the cultists it creates.

38

Bob Cos wrote:

Allowing for hand recounts is the law in Florida, yet the Republicans filed suit to prevent this. One of their arguments against it is that there are no uniform standards, yet that is what Florida law provides for (i.e. discretion of the local canvassing boards).

From what I read in this morning’s paper, no one knows why the machine recount showed fewer votes than the original machine count. The two main possibilities are 1) some votes were missed in the second count, or 2) some votes were counted twice in the first count. Also from the article, the democrats are claiming that the meeting where it was voted to resubmit the first machine count was illegally held without proper advance notice.

39

I’d like you to reconcile this with your own “point 3” in which you said that not all dimples are votes. It happens that Bush shares your view with regard to this matter, but this view is not the one adoprted by Broward or Miami-Dade counties. So the question is - if you were Bush, and you thought you were likely to lose the election because political opponents of yours in control of the canvassing boards were likely to adopt a very liberal standard for counting ballots in an attempt to deprive you of the presidency, what would you do?

I think there’s an inconsistency in the way many well-meaning people’s attempt to be evenhanded by judging every issue in a complete vacuum, independent of all others. To judge the proper course of action which is justified, one must consider the outcome in context of all the issues.

40

Aren’t you the same guy who said Bush would win in a landslide? :stuck_out_tongue: