Dear god. What makes you believe the re-counts are any more accurate than the initial count? Is it because the outcome better fits your own desired results? That’s pathetic. How do you decide when the count is “right?” When Gore finally has more votes? I think you’ve lost your objectivity.
These punch card reading machines are sold with the understanding that they have as much as a 10% margin of error. One graphic I saw showed that counties where they use punch cards have 30 times the rate of no votes for President than the rest of the state. The fact that these counties are heavily Democratic is irrelevant. I would say that that is pretty darn inaccurate.
Also, any argument against the “accuracy” of the hand counts is a red herring. Florida Law allows this. It is legal.
Last time I checked Republicans believe that local control should take precedence over Federal control. Let the Banana Republic of Florida take care of this. 300 votes is nothing. Any lead Gore may garner may evaporate with the Overseas ballots.
Have you stopped beating your wife?
You’re right, Stoid. I should better adhere to the rules of genteel debate in a thread titled, “Why is Bush Such an Idiot?” Definitely some open minds there willing to discuss the issues and work to a mutual conclusion.
While I’m back here, care to answer the following two questions?
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Why should ballots in Florida be treated in a manner that’s different from the way they’ve ever been treated in past elections?
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Why should one state, and one county in one state, have its votes treated in an extra-special way from the rest of the 50 states and the hundreds and hundreds of county’s across the country?
It seems to me that the machine counts are unable to read 100% of the ballots that are fed through them. (This is probably true wherever machines are used to read paper ballots.) Therefore, I believe that the machine count should be seen as a statistical count of the ballots cast, not an actual numerical count. In cases where the variance between first and second place is large enough, we can be reasonably sure that an actual count would not change the result. However, a small difference, as we have in this case, is statistically zero. In a case like that, the machine count is no better than a coin toss.
Personally, I doubt that a hand count is any more or less accurate than a machine count. It is obvious though, that a human can read some ballots that a machine cannot. (As for the humans being biased, etc., the proportion of additional Bush/Gore votes found by hand count is similiar to the proportion found by machine in that county. The only difference is that the humans were able to count more ballots.)
Which is why I have to agree, that it is certainly unfair for an actual counting of ballots by hand to occur only in those areas that favor a particular candidate. Ideally, there should be a hand count conducted statewide. What will actually happen, of course, will be determined by what the law requires/allows.
Anyway, I’m not an expert statistician, so this is just my opinion. I never really studied statistics, in fact I failed multivariate calculus by the skin of my teeth. So if anyone with a firmer grip on statistical analysis has a comment, I’d love to hear it.
It seems to be common among his supporters. Charley Reese, in his Sunday column in the Orlando Sentinel, states that the Clinton/Gore administration was one of the sleaziest ever, and that anyone who votes for Gore is equally sleazy. Then he goes to list the people who tend to vote Democratic: blacks, Jews, (Reese’s hatred for Jews is legendary; he’s an admirer of Pat Buchanan) unionists, feminists and gays, implying that all these people are sleazy. He has also stated that the Pope should ex-communicate any Catholic who voted for Gore because of Gore’s pro-choice stand!
I found myself thinking exactly that almost daily during the campaign. But apparently some combination of us that adds up to 48% either can’t see through his hypocrisy, can and still think he’s the better candidate, or will vote for anyone who spews out the words “tax cut” frequently enough.
Why not a hand count?
Machines are notorious for misreading paper ballots - it’s essentially a statistical sampling of the vote. We have (or should have) sufficient time before December 18th.
Objections are specious and self serving. Roll call votes are common in Congress, the legislatures, and right down to the local town councils. (No, no, let’s always go by the ayes and nays, roll calls are so time confusing.) IIRC, the GOP was adamant that the 2000 Census include no statistical sampling but include only the returned Census forms. Sampling would have been quicker and cheaper.
I doubt that the hand recount will change the result much but since this is what the Gore camp want’s they’ll have to abide by the results.
I believe that the absentee ballots should also be counted by hand, when tallied they’ll give Bush a 2000-3000 edge.
Let’s say Florida or a Federal judge bans the hand count:
We’ll spend the next four years debating a stolen election. Partisan politics will get even worse. Senator Lott’s comment that Hillary Clinton might get struck by lightning before becoming a Senator (a call for NRA whackos perhaps?) makes any reconciliation even less likely.
Bush starts out as hypocrite (well I always believed he was anyway) by decrying Gore’s threat of lawsuits by being the first one into court.
Bottom line:
Even with a hand recount, Bush wins. Gore might pop up ahead when hand count people count dimples as votes (seems ok by me - why should not punching with full force invalidate your right as a citizen) but Bush wins big with absentees.
The 19,000 double voters are out of luck. Tough noogies. IIRC , even back in ancient Greece, they never counted spoilt ballots (Hey who put this green rock in the voting urn?)
Gore concedes and drifts into Dukakis land. Never has a candidate with so many advantages bumbled his way to defeat. Yes, he might win the popular vote but that’ll just put him in the Sam Tilden closet of fame.
Bush joins his Dads as a one term president - pretty much what you’d expect from someone applying for a job by saying how little he’d do.
Florida moves into the 20th century and buys electronic voting machines for all its counties.
We all move on with our lives. 
I assume that everyone wants an accurate election, accurate being measured as ‘the closest approximation to the will of the people we can get.’
Now, if I said that after we held the election we are going to go into areas that voted heavily for the Republican, and in THOSE AREAS ONLY we are going to hand-count the ballots because the machines are inaccurate, do you think that would make the election itself more ‘accurate’? Would it more closely reflect the will of the people?
This is the crux of the problem. Punch cards are used all over the country. Yes, they have error, but that error is RANDOM. That means that it cancels out, given a large enough sample set. For example, if I flip a coin I have no way of knowing whether it will land heads or tails. But if I flip it 100 million times, I can say with near certainty that it will come up heads about 50% of the time. But if I get selective about how I score heads vs tails (i.e if it lands on something so it’s slightly at an angle, I reject it if it’s heads, but call in an inspector if it’s tails to make a judgement call), then I can guarantee that I’ll score more tails than heads. Because I’ve introduced BIAS.
That’s what’s happening in Florida. Punch cards are used all over, but the Gore camp has managed to single out a few, heavily Gore-favored areas to be selectively more ‘accurate’.
And that makes the election biased, and that’s why Bush’s people are going to court.
I love it, a few posters can get together and decide that the alomost 50,000,000 who voted for Bush are idiiots. Yup, the couple of you are truly enlightened. You have the true and pure candidate in Al Gore, who will rail against Tobacco companies, right after he tells us he’s grown it all his life (from where? the frikin penthouse?).
Yes, those who voted for Gore picked the one and true leader, and those who voted for Bush voted for an idiot, and are therefore also idiots 'cause they did not see through his thinly veiled disguise.
Al Gore of course is a self made man, whith integrity and intelligence. Al Gore did not have daddy to thank for anything. He has achieved a life in public service, with the incredible record of flip flops to show for it.
Al Gore is of course more intelligent than Bush, although the grades they got in school were about the same, and of course Gore did not get kicked out of any schools.
Al Gore is the frickin answer to our prayers. He will not behave in such silly ways as George Bush does. Al will have integrity above all, as he accepts donations from all sources, then tells us “I had no ideaaa it was a fund raiser” - well duh, how bright do you have to be or how dumb do you think we are?
Screw this nonsence of proclaiming that Bush is an idiot in contrast to Gore. They will both tell us anything they think we want to hear to get a vote. Period. Neither is ‘better’ than the other, and only stark supporters of either one would claim such a thing.
We were supposed to pick a leader in the election, and we have seen everything but leadership. Anyone who states that one party is behaving better than the other is full of it.
Lets at least have some honesty and balance in the GD.
Good question. Here in Fairfax, VA, we used a big, easy to read electronic thingamajiggy. The letters were 3/4 inch tall and you pushed a clearly marked box, and a light came on next to your candidate. If you made a mistake, you could fix it before hitting the big “vote” button (about a 3" by 4" button)
Oh, to clarify, this wasn’t a computer screen. It was a large (several feet by several feet) white board with a flexible plastic cover on which were printed the various voting thingies. Underneath the plastic were buttons, I assume.
I think that they are both telling us that being President is not about leading and helping, but about gaining power and control.
Duh…‘Cause the whole freakin’ election has come down to a few hundred votes difference in Florida, that’s why, silly! You are welcome to recount by hand all the ballots cast in my state of New York, but I can guarantee it won’t change the result! And, if Bush wants recounts in Iowa and Oregon and Wisconsin, then by all means, he should do them. But, I should warn you that those states are not nearly as close as Florida and Bush would have to win Wisconsin, and 2 out of three of New Mexico (which he likely has won), Iowa, and Oregon in order to win.
The idea behind re-counts is that it is silly to demand accuracy of <0.01% the first time because it would waste a lot of time and the election will likely be won by more than that amount! But, if it does end up that close, then the ballots need to be tallied more accurately. (True, one can argue that there is no mandate in that case anyway…But, we have to have a winner so might as well make it as fair as possible.)
The problem is the recount actually is bad for accuracy, because its only done in a few democratic states.
Fairness and Justice means equal treatment. Going over one state, county, and ballot by tooth and nail when ballots in other states are tossed aside is not fair or just.
I keep hearing about the need to recount them until the right results come in. That is ludicrous! When are the results right? When your candidate is in the lead? T
You count all the votes the same way and accept the outcome. I guess in the Democrats eyes the only votes that matter are the ones that will give them the election.
In Cook County IL, 6% of the ballots were double punched. In Palm Beach County, FL, guess how many were double punched? 6%. Is that unusual? These milkshakes can play 15 bingo cards at the same time but can’t look at an arrow to direct them to the hole.
Excuse me oblong, I’ve obviously been listening to the wrong sociology lectures, but what the heck is a ‘milkshake’?