Really? where have you been? I’ve been out in public, listening to the radio, reading threads here. I hear constant refrains about “whining democrats” who will “sue, and count and recount until they get the results they want”, and still make snide comments about the inaccuracy of hand counts(despite the point you make here )etc. etc. read some of the other election threads. The venom is on both sides (IMHO). **
I’m with you here.
On the bright side, I’ve also seen posters here willing to concede partisan stuff on both sides. This gives me hope for the future, since, whoever’s at the WH, we all have to still cooperate WITH each other.
So far no one has mentioned something I saw on the news the other night that deeply disturbed me.
Evidently, the Republicans spent some serious money “assisting” in the distribution of absentee ballots. This included filling out the recipient’s address and other pertinent information so that all the individual had to do was mark the candidate of their choice, sign the ballot and mail it in.
However legal this may be, I cannot but feel that there is an element of “tampering” here in that a significant sum of money was spent in “preprocessing” and “facilitating” the desired voter outcome. A “hands off” approach to voter balloting is far more desirable than one which provides any opportunity for interference or impropriety.
To repeat, there is no indication that the Republican have violated any law whatsoever with the actions cited above. Nonetheless, I am unable to dismiss these efforts as ethical and have a very uneasy feeling about such a campaign technique.
Any takers on this? You especially David B or any other legal eagles.
Zenster: Could you possibly cite the article, or network that aired the piece? This sound like it’s worth digging into.
As far as elected officials recusing themselves go, exactly how far down the totem pole are we going to go? When we have Larry the janitor as acting SoS?
The SoS is acting within the purview of her office, by the letter of the law. How is that partisan?
Well, the issue of “how far down the totem pole” do we go is moot since Ms. Harris declined to recuse herself at all.
The issue, Ex tank is not simply of party affiliation. After all, damned near all of our elected officials have party affiliations. The issue is two fold. This person has the power of “discretion” in her office. That’s by law. However, she’s also chosen to take on an outside interest in the outcome of this election by serving as the co-chair of the Bush campaign, and an active role in that matter. This is an example of a conflict of interest. She has a personal interest in the outcome of the election AND she has the duty to decide while using her “discretion” the rule of law in this election.
For example, if a law maker will be deciding which car company will get a governmental contract, and they DRIVE that certain vehicle, that wouldn’t be a conflict, but if they were a stock holder or a close relative was an executive with that car company, it would be.
this does not mean that she did not have the authority to make the decision she did. What it DOES mean is that she made a decision that was favorable in a situation where she has a clearly demonstrated personal interest.
Doesn’t matter that she’s republican - she could have had 43 Bush signs in her lawn for all I care. but the fact that she took such an active and conspicuous role in the campaign, and was co-chair means that she LOST the “assumption of impartiality”. She should have recused herself from this decision.
If it was such an obviously right decision in the first place, why then, did she risk exactly this argument and not allow her second in command to take the role?
There is an ethical concept that holds that, in the context of a potential conflict of interest, one should avoid even the appearance of impropriety. Applying that concept, SOS Harris should have recused herself the moment it became clear that the vote was close and that her decisions may have an impact on the result of the election. I’m not saying that any decision she has so far made was unethical, or even incorrect. Instead, she should realize that she is not the appropriate person to be making those decisions. ExTank, the point here is that the law in the State of Florida allows the SOS to exercise his/her discretion. That means that the SOS can decide how to act - in this case, whether to accept hand counted results or not. In such a case, conflict of interest principles require that the person making the decision not have a bias or an interest in the outcome, or have the appearance of having a bias or an interest in the outcome.
I believe you have misunderstood this issue. Both the Republicans and the Democrats assisted in the distribution of absentee ballot applications. However, whereas the Democrats sent theirs out all completed, the Republicans, in some instances, left the voter ID number off the application. To rectify this, election officials in the county (Republicans) allowed Republican Party officials access to the applications after they had been recieved from the voters. They then filled in the necessary ID numbers.
This matter is currently the subject of a Democratic Party lawsuit, seeking to disqulify the 4,700 ballots, or, if they cannot be identified, all Republican absentee ballots in the county.
And you sound like a … never mind, we’re not in the Pit.
Since you didn’t understand my comments the first time around, I’ll go slower this time.
Of course Jeb is partisan–only an idiot would think otherwise; hence my use of the phrase “semblance of impartiality,” which means “appearance of impartiality.” Get it? My point is that when it became apparent that big problems were brewing in Florida, Jeb recused himself and, AFAIK, has not injected himself into the process of sorting things out at all. I don’t doubt that the various people involved–Katherine Harris, Butterworth, the local canvassing boards, etc., have high-minded ideas about impartiality, but I don’t think anyone involved in the process (except the various judges), on either side, has elevated impartiality above partisanship.
If handcounts are more accurate (and given the various reports of problems over the past weekend, I have my doubts) why are machines used at all? I’m sure there is a thread addressing this question but I haven’t seen it. Could it be the realization that machines don’t err in favor of Democrats OR Republicans?
It is disingenuous of you to suggest there is agreement on what constitutes a valid vote in the counties currently conducting manual recounts. My point is that by handling of the ballots, chads are dislodged that may or may not have indicated a vote for Gore or Bush (and, in all likelihood, had nothing to do with either of them). My point is that there are votes being county TODAY that did not constitute a valid vote during the count and first recount. My point is that subjective standards are being used to try to ascertain the intent of voters who did not properly indicate their selection for President.
I think we’re splitting semantic hairs on the word “impropriety.” I interpret that word to involve some sort of intentional improper act (such as stuffing a ballot box with votes for one candidate), as opposed to mere “irregularities”; i.e., high numbers of elderly voters being unable to figure out the ballot.
I never suggested Judge Lewis’ ruling couldn’t be appealed. I merely set forth the standard of review the Florida Supreme Court will utilize. They are an appellate court. That means they review the lower court ruling to determine if it is correct or not–they don’t receive new evidence. In this instance, the standard is whether Ms. Harris acted arbitrarily in determining that the numbers from the hand recount will not be included in the final certified numbers. They may disagree with her decision, but she does have broad discretion in this area. Unless they determine she acted arbitrarily, her decision will stand.
And one for the peanut gallery: so if the whole thing gets thrown to Congress, should Lieberman recuse himself from voting for VP? [for those of you who are humor impaired, that was a weak, Monday morning attempt at a “joke.”]
jumblemind - thanks for the compliment! Nice to know when I’ve actually said things in a way that hung together.
Sua - thanks for the concise comment on conflict of interest and the appearance of impropriety. Hadn’t seen you in awhile - but then, I’ve been here only intermittently lately myself. Glad to see you haven’t dropped off the face of the earth!
The notion that there are degrees of partisanship, and that people show various levels of being able to separate their rational judgment from their partisan hearts to see if the other side might have a valid point, doesn’t seem to have crossed some people’s minds in this debate.
Because machines are far faster and cheaper, and most of the time, they’re good enough for gummint work. You only want to go to the trouble and expense of a manual count if the election really might turn on the machine count’s margin of error.
By all accounts I’ve heard, any chads dislodged in handling would have had to be partly knocked out anyway. To me, that would indicate that the voter had tried to punch out that hole - had tried to vote for that candidate - but simply hadn’t put as much ‘oomph’ into it as some of us might.
OK, I’ll concede that my statement that “no one” has elevated impartiality above partisanship was overly broad. But I have seen more partisanship (on both sides) than I am comfortable with. Ms. Harris’ activities in the Bush campaign certainly harm her credibility, as do Mr. Butterworth’s activities on behalf of Gore. The flip-flops by the canvassing boards on whether to have recounts, along with changing standards halfway through the recount also bother me because partisanship seems to be driving those flip-flops. My real point is that I don’t think either party has the moral high ground here. Perhaps we can just agree to disagree on that point and, at least with regard to Ms. Harris, the Florida Supreme Court will determine that one of us is “right” and the other is “wrong.”
Re hanging chads: I have no problem with those ballots being included in the hand recount because I agree that the voter attempted to vote and didn’t put enough effort into it. I do have a problem with the canvassing boards attempting to ascertain voter intent from a dimpled or pregnant chad or from other marks or indentations on the ballot. If the voter’s intent is not clear from the ballot, the vote shouldn’t be counted. This question is, of course, entirely separate from the question of whether any such hand count had to be completed by last Tuesday.
One last question: If Harris recuses herself, who would certify the vote? Presumably everyone else in her office is a political appointee rather than an elected official leaving the decision in the hands of someone with no accountability to the citizens of Florida.
There’s another reason to use voting machines - the type of error introduced is random - common mode noise. In an election this close, random factors WILL determine the winner - the result is far closer than the real margin of error in this election. But at least it was random. The Gore team is now attempting to replace random error with a biased counting system that will STILL be noise, but with a bias towards their guy.
I would like to point out how wrong it is to change your vote-counting criterion in the middle of a count, as Broward county did yesterday. This is incredibly biased. First, Broward county said they wouldn’t do a hand count. Then, under pressure from the Democrats, they did a partial recount, and based on that result said that the machine count error was not high enough to warrant a full count. More pressure from Democrats. Then they agreed to do a full count, and their standard was two corners detached.
Now, they have realized that Gore wasn’t picking up enough votes, so in mid-stream they changed the requirement to count ‘pregnant’ chad. Do you see how this can introduce bias? What if it had turned out that there were a lot of pregnant chad ballots for Bush? Then they could have stayed with the ‘swinging door’ chad rule.
When you give the (Democratic) election committee the power to choose which counting method to use AFTER they have inspected the ballots, you introduce a lot of bias.
I originally thought that the Republican’s claim that a hand-count would open the process to ‘mischief’ was silly - hand counts have been done for a long, long time, and rightfully so.
But there’s a big difference this time - the hand count is being attempted with an army of partisans fighting and shoving to get the count swayed in their favor. Bad news.
** Good. would you be so kind, please to try and convince the rest of that side that bags of dislodged chads aren’t evidence of a crime??? etc.
Again, please understand the concept of conflict of interest. A person taking the position of co-chair of a campaign has a higher level of interest in the outcome. It’s reported that she even traveled to other states to campaign for him. That presumes a high level of interest, to the point of a potential conflict. This is different than the person who may have a sign in their yard etc.
Regarding who would instead make the ruling. Don’t know the structure of that particular office, BUT, in my state, the office of SoS has mostly civil service employees.
And my problem was with her, personally, as SoS and co-chair of a committee to elect. Her own staff have not been identified as having such a level of conflict.
I understand the concept of a conflict of interest and the appearance of impropriety that exists with regard to Ms. Harris. My question is who, legally, can step into her shoes and handle this situation? She is an elected officer of the executive branch of Florida. This isn’t the same as a judge recusing himself or herself where there are any number of other judges who can step in and take over. This isn’t the same as a senator or representative recusing himself/herself from voting where the remaining members can vote on a particular matter. This isn’t a facetious question: constitutionally/legally, who, if anyone, can step into her shoes? It’s not unreasonable to say she should recuse herself but someone has to certify the election results and I’m trying to find out who that would be if she were to recuse herself.
I don’t know, KSO, but I’ll bet there’s something about it in the state statutes. I’m sure it’s occurred to people before that an elected state official might have need to step aside from a decision they’ve got an interest in, and there’s surely a law that covers it.
