The oficial position regarding the possibility of tampering with the ballots has now changed. According to the Associated Press:
Please adjust your positions acordingly. (This is not meant to offend any specific person)
wring,
I’m not completely clear about the specifics of all the allegations. In general the thought that I’ve seen expressed is that handling the ballots, especially bending in an effort to discern “the true intentions of the voter” has the potential to cause chads to become more pronounced or detached than they otherwise might be. This seems reasonable to me. Be that as it may, there have certainly been allegations of mischief by Republican observers, regardless of the fact that you may consider them unjustified, and it is therefore self-contradictory to proof the fairness of the vote counting process from the presence of these very same Republican observers.
The idea that anyone tampering the votes would have been arrested, as suggested by some, does not seem to make any sense. The police take orders in this regard from the election supervisors and it is their definition of vote tampering that would hold sway. In any event, I don’t think there have been allegations of outright vote-tampering (as is punching holes in perfectly intact ballots) - its more a matter of shading it ever so slightly, as mentioned.
And I think the Gore point is that even unbiased innaccuracies harm Gore more than Bush, because those innacuracies are happening in predominantly Gore counties.
The numbers I’ve seen (on TV, so no cite, sorry) are innacuracies of 1 or 2 out of 1,000 for optical scan and mechanical voting booths, but 32 out of 1,000 for punch cards. What I’ve read and seen elsewhere (again, no cite, but provide a correction if you can find one) is that punch cards are used more often in democratic leaning counties than in republican leaning counties. In this case, Gore loses more votes than Bush, even though the machines are unbiased.
Let’s plug in some (somewhat made up) numbers, just for fun. Assume 3 million voters for each candidate. Assume 40 percent of republicans and 60 percent of democrats vote using punch cards (this is the made up part). Assume an error or 3 percent for punch cards, and an average of 0.15 percent for the optical scan/mechanical systems. The number republican votes lost is 38,700, while the number of democratic votes lost is 55,800. Meaning Gore loses 17,100 more votes than Bush in this hypothetical example, even though we’re using unbiased machine counts.
Of course not. There is little doubt that Gore has lost out due to the fact that the Democratic counties used such ballots.
However, in order for Gore to force a recount, he must demonstrate that the recount is more accurate (i.e. give a closer approximation to the true proportion of Bush and Gore voters), not that it is merely biased in a different direction.
It’s fair in the sense that both candidates know going into any election that about 3 percent of ballots cast everywhere never get counted, mostly because of mistakes the voter made by not following instructions.
Gore had his day in court, didn’t he? I guess he’s still got a few more coming.
Don’t be so quick there, the group that is challenging and going to make “an impartial view” is Judicial Watch, a Washington group, described by its president Tom Fitton as conservative, nonpartisan and nonprofit, the group has been a frequent critic of the Clinton administration. This should not be construed as anyone’s “official” position, since it is linked only to a private group with a declared ‘conservative’ stance.
And, I do appreciate your comments to me specifically. My point is, that the allegations are coming from exactly one group of people. Not the bystanders, not the non partisan observers, not the media, but only the republican represntatives, and that no other source, not the maker of the ballots, nor any other group that has used them (other counties across the country) has stepped forward to say that, for example, “fanning” oneself with the ballots would in any way make them invalid. The only responses I’ve seen about those observations have come from other threads here from people who have used them and they stated nope, couldn’t happen that way. So, my point again, is that there’ve been allegations of wrongdoing, that if true, amount to voter fraud. But to not take them to the authorites? (and you’re incorrect that the police take their instructions from the canvassers - if a complaint is lodged, they would have to investigate, if they fail to, appeal to the county district attorney etc.)
“allegations” are coming from both sides, you know. For example, there’s allegations that repulicans in Seminole County added voter ID numbers to absentee ballots (without which they would have been invalid), and that some 4000 ballots were involved. This allegation, to distinguish it from the “manhandling” has been taken to court as a challenge to those ballots. that, to me is the difference.
Not sure just what you mean by this. I aware that Judicial Watch is a conservative group. My point is that Democrats display a great deal of sensitivity to the idea of mishandling the ballots when it’s not fellow Democrats counting them looking for votes for Al. Hypersensitivity, I might add. They objected even though Judicial Watch is not going to even be allowed to touch the ballots, but only to view them (according to CNN)
I continue to disagree with you about the police. If the head of the canvassing board deems certain behavior appropriate to do in handling ballots, it is not for the police or marshals to independently disagree with this and start arresting people.
Regarding the sources of the accusations, the media have for the most part refrained from making or refuting any allegations at all. From what I’ve seen, they’ve limited themselves to likes of “so-and-so did such and such, drawing protests from the Republican observers”. So it’s indeed likely that the media have not observed any outright cheating. But they have reported on actions that may or may not have contributed to overvotes.
The issue in Seminole County is not comparable. The facts in that case are not in dispute (though there is a bit of confusion among the general public). The issue is not about the veracity of any “allegations”, but a legal question about whether the actions committed warrant disqualification of the ballots.
As I said, put whatever slant on what’s going on that you will. You have your take; I have mine. But to any impartial observer, it would likely be evident that the process involves subjectivity and, clearly, judging by the way who is deciding what for which candidate, partisanship.
I didn’t use the word “steal.”
I believe I did in an earlier thread, but I’ve since backed off of that. As Chris Matthews (a Democrat for whom I have a lot of respect, because he seems to have zero tolerance for bullshit) has said repeatedly on his MSNBC show: Whatever some individual partisans may have done wrong notwithstanding, neither candidate nor his main surrogates is trying to steal anything. This is just hardball politics, pure and simple.
I disagree with you that people will regard Bush in a similar light to Gore if he comes out ultimately victorious. To some degree, yes, but not even close to the same degree as if Gore litigates his way to an overturning of the certified vote.
Democrats and hard-core Gore-supporters view Bush as illegitimate, I’m sure. But not most Americans. The polls I’ve seen since Bush was certified the winner seem to bear that out, not that I’m a big fan of polls.
The basic fact is, under the rules that “the game” has always been played under, Bush won. Won again on the recount. Even won when some of the rules were modified or altogether changed in ways that clearly benefited Gore.
That kind of thing resonates with non-partisan Americans. Winning a vote of the people by lawsuit doesn’t.
Again, Izzy, it seems contradictory to me that the Bush stance has been that “handling” of these ballots somehow makes them less valid, so now, “handling” of these ballots (some one is going to be touching them in order for them to be viewed)is ok if it’s done by conservatives? And why now? their stated view is “for posterity’s sake”, so, wait til mid December after all the court wrangling.
Re: police etc. If they believe a crime has been committed, it is their sworn duty to investigate it. Period. So, some one claims the banks’ been robbed, the bank president says “no, no, it’s all a mistake” and the cops won’t investigate? wrong. What may in fact have happened is that the allegation was made that handling the ballots in whatever way was tantamount to voter fraud, the cops asked the prevailing authority (ie those who’ve HANDLED those same ballots for years) and were told "no, it couldn’t’ and were shown how it wouldn’t. Or, like me, they could have rejected the arguement based on their own experience with those ballots. (we used to get sample ones every year for my son to “vote” on, they’d last in his room for months, and trust me, “manhandling” doesn’t begin to cover what my son could do to them)
I think you should also check out that suit in Seminole County a bit closer. Seems that After the absentee ballots in question arrived at their office, Seminole’s Supervisor of Elections, Sandy Goard, allowed “two GOP operatives” to enter in the voter ID number on ballots that had been declared invalid because they lacked the voter ID #. See This link This would invalidate 14,000 absentee ballots and swing the election back. Now, back in the old “PBC” ballot threads, the Republican stance was that if the voter screwed up, the ballot should be invalid. Seems to me that if the voter screwed up by not putting their voter ID# on, as required, the ballot should have been invalid, and to allow one party access to these ballots and allow them to re-validate ballots in this manner, seems, well, wrong.
The source of accusations, to me is very much the issue. There are multiple folks observing, yes, the media has taken the stance “this person said this”, “this person did that” but they have not reported anything like wholesale vote tampering. Nor has any other observers. And the few specific allegations that I’ve heard have been quickly recinded (like the ‘taped ballots’ one for example), which is why I’m not taking them seriously. However, these Seminole Co. ballots, that was just a little buzz a while back, and is in court. So, again, to me there’s a very clear difference.
I don’t think the Repubs are as worried about the ballots being messed up now, as the counting is over. The Dems,by contrast, are trying to force yet another recount of these same ballots, with a looser dimpled ballot standard.
We are at an impasse regarding the police issue.
You are mistaken regarding the Seminole County issue. It was the applications that were fixed, not the ballots. There is now a legal question as to whether this renders the ballots themselves invalid.
Sure Milo I put a “slant” on it, you’re “impartial”. Got it. Of course, an impartial viewer might just say “two people saw a vote, one who doesn’t want to, doesn’t”. But, you’re right, I’m “slanting” my view.
You have your opinion on things, as I have mine. You don’t think that people will look at the Florida election and remember: roadblocks with ID checks set up in minority neighborhoods outside the polls? 14,000 absentee ballots in Seminole County and 2 GOP operatives were allowed to mark the voter ID on them After they’d been recieved, but before counting (which means the voter did not correctly use the ballot - these had been singled out as invalid, but these people were allowed to change them to make them valid see link in my above statement)? We won’t remember the gleefull hoards of people wearing t-shirts that proudly claimed “my grandma knows how to vote, how about yours?” we won’t remember the busloads of congressional aids that were given free plane trips, room and food allowances to go to Florida for those “spontaneous” demonstrations? Maybe.
Thank you, by the way, from backing off of the statement “steal”. Hardball politics sure, on both sides. But “steal” - and especially when senior party members are quoted (as in Mr. Engler). That’s irresponsible and inflamatory. Whatever happens, the country will need to cooperate with it’s own citizens first. And inflamatory oratory on either side does nothing to help forward that end.
Izzy, yes, you’re correct, it was application for the ballot vs. a ballot (the site that I listed above was ambigous, I spent some time searching for more information, and was about to post that correction: here’s the details: Here . However, the applications for the ballots had been deemed invalid. and only GOP members were afforded the opportunity to add voter id #s to allow for ballots to be sent as requested.
Without a valid application for an absentee ballot, no ballot would have been sent. same difference.
Judicial Watch is more than that. Tom Fitton is only the figurehead; the power and money behind it is well known to be Larry Klayman. The group specializes in filing suits against Clinton and members of his administration, most notably arranging the Paula Jones suit (remember that?). Klayman is also the power behind the Southern Legal Foundation, now trying to get Clinton disbarred. A quick Web search on Klayman will turn up a long list of this stuff. The PBC suit, to which he’s apparently entitled under the Freedom of Information Act, looks like the start of the anti-Gore suits he’d undoubtedly be filing if Gore wins.
Klayman calls himself a “gadfly”, but I would use “harasser” instead. Take your choice, depending on your orientation.
According to the person who allowed it, no Democrats asked for this.
a judge will decide this. A legal analyst that I read said it was highly unlikely that a judge would toss out legitimate votes because of violations in creating the applications. We’ll see.
No, Florida law provides for a recount in any election where the margin is less than 0.5 percent, right? The law presumes greater accuracy for a manual recount - the contester doesn’t have to establish that to the state government, although he might have to in the court of public opinion.
Interesting definition of fair. The 3 percent of ballots everywhere which don’t get counted is an average, and includes the errors from the punch cards. Since the democrats have more of these punch card errors, and the republicans have fewer, there will still be more democratic votes not counted than republicans. But when Gore tries to get them manually counted to eliminate the punch card error as provided for under Florida law, as established prior to the election, suddenly it’s not fair anymore.
I have been working on letting go of Gore pulling htis out, I’ve been trying to adjust to the idea of Bush. But today’s events have re-energized me. I am truly outraged and disgusted.
Gore offers a scenario that allows all the votes to be counted and court cases dealt with in 8-9 days, tops.
Bush sez no, let’s keep having hearings and strech this out as long as we can, shall we?
Legislature meets to discuss the fact that the challenges to the election could push us up to Dec 12, and leave all of Florida out of the electoral process, so they better just toss out the election results as a failure and assign their own slate of electors to lock it up for Bush.
Not only are they skanky, they are pathetic. It’s not enough to do everything imaginable to stop the count, now they want to throw out the count that certified their man and install their own electors as insurance?? Throughout this process, their unwillingness to trust anything or anyone that did not lock this up in Bush’s favor has been unfortunate at best. But this is truly an outrage.
Sorry, folks, but under these circumstances, I can never and will never accept Bush as my president. And I know I’m not alone in this.
A. It was my understanding that Palm Beach would not have counted.
B. A partial hand recount could, by the laws of random occurences, unfairly advantaged one candidate over another.
C. Palm Beach alleged more than sufficient time to complete their hand count by the court-mandated deadline. Their counters should have worked all night a bit earlier if they were having trouble.
D. A partial recount could lead to more hanky-panky by pushing the alleged Gore ballots ahead of the alleged Bush ballots in the manual recount order. Just another opportunity for discretionary results.
A. By which Democratic new source was this information divulged?
B. If I were a Democratic election board leader, I would never have taken that chance and done WHATEVER needed to be done to get the hand recount completed by the deadline. Off with that idiot’s head as far as I am concerned, but you can’t blame the Florida SOS for his/her/their incompetency.
C. Perhaps she didn’t really know if she would accept the partial results. Maybe she was wrestling with the moral and legal implications of a partial recount.
I didn’t catch it, I have grown weary of Gore’s pissing and moaning about the Will of the People and Every Vote Counting, when his every move violates his commitment to those goals. Didn’t Gore win that court case for further time to count ballots? How long shall we count them Stoid? Shall we push the electoral college back until Gore gets his version of the Will of the People? Palm Beach had PLENTY of time to complete their hand count by their own admission on the date of the court decision. They are incompetent and showed it once again. How many incompetent people does it take to put Gore in office? We may never know, but the number grows every day.
I doubt you’ll be shocked. Since the official count was made, giving him Florida and the Presidency, why would he not declare his victory? (BTW, what happened? I tuned out) This is kind of like winning the football game, clock out of time, game won, but the opposing coach is talking to the umpires and wants them to hold up declaring the win while they look at replays of the game. (Sorry, someone else’s analogy to a football game led me to this more accurate scenario)
Hmmm… The election board repeatedly saying that Bush won the vote doesn’t prove anything… Your neighbor is an idiot, move far away before your brain is infected by the same neural degeneration.
incomplete results… every vote is never counted in any election. Some people should be taught how to vote, but there never has been and never will be a 100% accurate and complete count of voter intent.
defying Florida law… they were called on that one, the courts did the right thing and upheld Florida law, even writing some of their own law to permit a later date for inclusion of hand recounts. No laws were broken to my knowledge, except perhaps for the aforementioned deadline.
Actually, no, that is incorrect. He keeps saying that he’s won, in spite of the evidence against him, and then wants to set the ground rules for counting ballots to prove his allegation, which has been disproven time and time again. He opposes the Counties that don’t see things his way rather than letting them follow Florida law to determine whether they will conduct a recount and how they will conduct it, which by Florida law is to their discretion. He can’t even get along with his own Party. He can’t accept that he, with his Godlike intellect could lose to the likes of GW Bush. It is just too much for his pompous ass to handle, so he is in a state of denial. The attorneys are there for the money, remember that the next time you donate to the DNC.
Not yet anyway, that is why Gore is still protesting. BTW, there were rumours of hanky-panky, but I never saw non-partisan sites on them, so I didn’t believe them.
As it should be. Coming off one of the most highly approved presidencies of the century and a very strong economy, very low unemployment, he should have been able to walk in. But instead, this pompous ass distanced himself from the only reason he was ever a candidate for anything above a Tennessee Senator. People don’t like him. People don’t particular like Bush, but they DISLIKE Gore.
A wife, mother and boss, all Democrats, all think Gore is a pompous ass. They all think Bush is an idiot, and I agree with them there, but a likable idiot is apparently preferable to an unlikable egocentric jerk.
The Floridian voters apparently disagree with you both.
So we should give the Presidency to the candidate who wants it most? Then Perot should be the incumbent!
I don’t think you will find any more rabid support for Bush than you will for Gore. Some fanatics on both sides, but not that many.
The held Congress for decades. Eight years of oval office isn’t really that much, if that is what you mean.
Huh? That is pretty disingenuous. Now you are blaming the Democrats as well as the Republicans for Al Gore’s loss. All for their own purposes of course. I mean it couldn’t be that Al Gore is really an asshole who alot of people genuinely don’t want in office could it?
I should think that the Presidency of the United States should mean more to ANYONE than a personal landmark. I would genuinely prefer the person in the race to do something for their country than the pompous ass who thinks he is entitled because he put in the time, while not addressing to the level of mere mortals (aka Bob Dole perhaps, but much worse)
Yes, he doesn’t seem at all bothered by Gore’s attempts to steal this election from him does he? :rolls eyes
Isn’t a lark a kind of bird?
Well, to some who will never accept him as their President, no matter what the laws of our country say.
The sheer nature of politicians. Please show me one who is not.
No
maybe, more disliked, no real reason to be pissed at him, he didn’t really do anything over the past 8 years.
Well, if that isn’t the pot calling…
Yes, I haven’t seen any Gore supporters in the streets. :rolls eyes
Of course if there weren’t any Gore supporters, I guess he should accept that maybe he LOST, the dumb ass.
No, it became a pretty Partisan and pick the lesser of two people you don’t want as your President election.
Well, at least the uninformed masses in your house.
Didn’t know Clinton was running.
Ahh yes, the illegal things that happened that the Republican fanatics couldn’t get pushed through the system. Yes, that is why people conspired to vote against Gore, it was because they wanted revenge on Clinton. Stoidela, you really should demand a refund for the pile of shit you were sold.
Using laws and silly things like that which only get in the way of Gore’s Presidency.
At least they pretended to have some?
or teacher!
With silly things like the law and numbers of votes and things like that.
Which is an impossibility. There is a margin of error. Every vote will never be counted. Furthermore, his simple and unwavering principle was NEVER to have every vote counted completely, it was to declare himself President of the United States of America. He requested hand counts of less than half of the punch balloted population with a 61:39 Dem:Rep population to decipher the will of a 52:48 Dem:Rep population of punch card ballot voters. He sent out notification to the counters not to count overseas ballots while crying that the rules shouldn’t apply to him, but should apply to potential Bush votes.
I’ve heard more than one person say words to the effect of, “How dare that evil Secretary of State not give Palm Beach County more time on Sunday? They only needed two more hours.”
I, collectively and symbolically, hereby smack those people upside the heads.
The Secretary of State attempted to exert the lawful authority she had granted to her by the Florida Legislature (Remember those people? They’re elected – Really! With ballots and stuff! And, despite what some of you may have come to believe since Nov. 7, they make laws.)to certify election results at certain deadlines as mandated by statute.
The Gore camp fought this. A Circuit Judge in one of the counties (rightly, IMO) said, in effect, “Get out of my face. The law is the law; the deadlines are there; and it’s legally Harris’ call.”
As we all know, the Florida Supreme Court then overturned this. They set their own deadline. They said the counties in question could submit their hand counts by 5 p.m. Sunday; or, if the Secretary of State’s office was not open on Sunday, by Monday morning.
Harris made the determination, as set forth in the Supreme Court’s order to her to open the office on Sunday. For those who maintain she did this to undermine the hand-count process; A) Did she make this decision Sunday morning? I don’t think so. B) She didn’t set the deadline; the Florida Supreme Court, who Al Gore and his merry band of lawyers wanted to get this issue to so badly, did.
Now it appears that the Stoidelas of the world are pissed that Harris didn’t violate a very specific deadline given to her by the Florida Supreme Court.
And you wonder why some of us maintain the standards the Gore camp want to follow shift like the desert sands?
Here’s what your Governor, John Engler, had to tell columnist Robert Novak about the fair and accurate ballot counting in Broward County they witnessed in the counting room over the weekend.
Of course, Novak is a conservative and Engler a Republican governor, so this didn’t really happen.
Thanks, Milo. It’s about time somebody said this (I hadn’t watched much of Chris Matthews prior to this election, but I am now a huge fan, precisely because of his “zero tolerance”).
This whole freaking mess is ugly and sad, but it’s not theft, on either side. Both men honestly believe that they won, and neither one of them is going to back down.
Even if the EC votes go to Bush, Gore won the popular vote. Not by a huge margin there either, but he did take it. Even if Bush had easily taken Florida, without all this bulls***, would we be fussing anywhere near as much?