Thoughts on Florida and Bush
Chris Miller
very nearly made me ill. First of all, there is no cause for the
Republicans on this newsgroup to engage in the petty name-calling and
blanket insults against Democrats that they seem to enjoy so very much. I
don't recall the exact quotes, but there have been plenty of patently absurd
claims that (for example) only an idiot could vote Democratic. By espousing
this prejudice, all you do is reinforce the stereotype of Republicans as
close-minded, bigoted, and unwilling to entertain any opinions that threaten
their precious beliefs. I very much don't want to believe this of all
Republicans, or even of those that feel the need to contribute their venom
to this newsgroup, but your incessant and unfounded attacks do you a
terrible discredit.
Second: if potential voters were intimidated, if there was a problem with
the ballots, or if any of the other various allegations and irregularities
turn out to be true, then something was wrong with this election. I am not
so naive as to think that none of these problems have happened before, but
it is clear that this election, because of its closeness, merits tighter
scrutiny. To suggest that investigating these allegations amounts to Gore
being a sore loser is to lose sight of the fact that the electoral process
may have been contaminated. If the two candidates' positions were reversed,
I have no doubt that Bush would want an investigation (as we can see by his
camp's contemplation of pursuing recounts in other states). Gore won the
popular vote (although he did not win mine), and it was never at all clear
that Bush had won, despite the numerous incorrect projections by the news
media. To suggest that the only honorable thing to do is to retire from the
race, even though he possesses the lead and has great reason to believe that
he has additional voter support that was illegally hindered from making its
voice heard, is absurd. Were it Bush in his position, the same venomous
Republicans that have already lost my respect on this thread would be
screaming about the criminal misconduct of those damn idiot Democrats and
demanding that the entire election be put on hold until a full federal
investigation under a committee of Congressional Republicans was carried
out.
Yes, there are a number of curious and questionable things happening in this
election, on both sides. Yes, there is much to debate here. But to sink to
the level of stereotyping, name-calling, and hurling accusations of fraud
across the aisle should be beneath us. I wish it were. Democrats are
hoping that Gore wins. Republicans are hoping that Bush wins. Don't
deceive yourself into thinking that, if it were you, or if it were your
supportee in the other man's position, that things would be handled
differently. For all of our sakes, please try to maintain a little dignity
as we wait out this difficult time.
Seti Alpha
"Chris Miller" <ctm...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote in message
news:sYHO5.451$bc7....@news-west.eli.net...
> The previous and immense thread mistakenly titled "Opinion on Bush's Win"
> very nearly made me ill. First of all, there is no cause for the
> Republicans on this newsgroup to engage in the petty name-calling and
> blanket insults against Democrats that they seem to enjoy so very much. I
> don't recall the exact quotes, but there have been plenty of patently
absurd
> claims that (for example) only an idiot could vote Democratic. By
espousing
> this prejudice, all you do is reinforce the stereotype of Republicans as
> close-minded, bigoted, and unwilling to entertain any opinions that
threaten
> their precious beliefs. I very much don't want to believe this of all
> Republicans, or even of those that feel the need to contribute their venom
> to this newsgroup, but your incessant and unfounded attacks do you a
> terrible discredit.
Actually, I think there's been plenty of bashing from sides on this NG,
cloaked as opinion.
Jms at B5
primarily Democratic county. The republicans defend it by saying that it's
nothing new, they threw out 15,000 votes in '96 from that same county.
Pardon me, but...this by them is a defense?
1) If the ballot in this county led to 15,000 votes being tossed out, does that
not suggest something's wrong with the ballot?
2) Shouldn't the voting public in that county have been *informed* that 15,000
votes of theirs had been tossed out? Shouldn't they have been notified about
this before *right now*?
3) It was wrong before. It should have been corrected before now. That it was
wrong then, doesn't make it right now.
Or was it simply more convenient and politically expeditious not to tell the
citizens of this county that 15,000 of their votes were going in the ashcan on
a regular basis?
jms
(jms...@aol.com)
(all message content (c) 2000 by
synthetic worlds, ltd., permission
to reprint specifically denied to
SFX Magazine)
Mike Vanpelt
Chris Miller <ctm...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
>The previous and immense thread mistakenly titled "Opinion on Bush's Win"
>very nearly made me ill. First of all, there is no cause for the
>Republicans on this newsgroup to engage in the petty name-calling and
>blanket insults against Democrats that they seem to enjoy so very much. I
>don't recall the exact quotes, but there have been plenty of patently absurd
>claims that (for example) only an idiot could vote Democratic.
I've been pretty lightly skimming The Unpleasantness, but the
only accusations of idiocy I've seen are directed towards those
who could not figure out that an arrow pointing from a name to
a punch hole in a ballot signified which hole you should punch
to vote for that candidate. I haven't noticed anyone calling
those who *sucessfully* voted for Gore idiots.
>By espousing this prejudice, all you do is reinforce the
>stereotype of Republicans as close-minded, bigoted, and unwilling
>to entertain any opinions that threaten their precious beliefs.
>I very much don't want to believe this of all Republicans, or even
>of those that feel the need to contribute their venom to this
>newsgroup, but your incessant and unfounded attacks do you a
>terrible discredit.
Phbbt. JMS started it, with his grossly offensive screed that
the Republicans are a bunch of racist crooks who are robbing The
People of their rightful candidate.
I'm heartily sick of hearing Hollywood entertainment types, who
can tell a good story, but are utterly divorced from reality,
making these kinds of slanderous assaults against anyone who
disagrees in any slightest respect with their Revealed From On
High dogma.
If I am a bit testy in my messages in this thread, that's why.
It's not just JMS; he's not the worst offender by any means. But
he's part of that crowd, and on political matters, the Hollywood
Left Hive Mind dictates, not anything resemlbing sentience.
>Second: if potential voters were intimidated, if there was a problem with
>the ballots, or if any of the other various allegations and irregularities
>turn out to be true, then something was wrong with this election.
So if someone punches his ballot for two candidates, what do you
suggest as a remedy? Remember, there isn't any way to link the
ballot with the person who cast it. (At least, there had *BETTER*
not be!!)
--
Yes, I am the last man to have walked on the moon, | Mike Van Pelt
and that's a very dubious and disappointing honor. | mvp.at.calweb.com
It's been far too long. -- Gene Cernan | KE6BVH
Paul Harper
Another boring foreign politics thread. Ah well - it's what the
"ignore thread" option is for in Agent, I suppose...
Paul.
--
A .sig is all well and good, but it's no substitute for a personality
" . . . SFX is a fairly useless publication on just
about every imaginable front. Never have so many jumped-up fanboys done so
little, with so much, for so long." JMS.
JMarien3
>
>What I love is the latest regarding the 19,000 ballots thrown out in a
>primarily Democratic county. The republicans defend it by saying that it's
>nothing new, they threw out 15,000 votes in '96 from that same county.
>
>Pardon me, but...this by them is a defense?
>
>1) If the ballot in this county led to 15,000 votes being tossed out, does
>that
>not suggest something's wrong with the ballot?
>
>2) Shouldn't the voting public in that county have been *informed* that
>15,000
>votes of theirs had been tossed out? Shouldn't they have been notified about
>this before *right now*?
>
>3) It was wrong before. It should have been corrected before now. That it
>was
>wrong then, doesn't make it right now.
>
>Or was it simply more convenient and politically expeditious not to tell the
>citizens of this county that 15,000 of their votes were going in the ashcan
>on
>a regular basis?
>
> jms
>
I'm probably going to regret this, but I'm going to throw my two cents in, for
good measure. Mind you, none of this election discussion has anything to do
with B5 (which is what this newsgroup is about) not even SF in general, but
anyway ...
I'm a fairly private person, but to put everything to follow in context, I will
say that I voted for Gore in a non-contested state. Don't really like the
fellow that much, but disliked Bush more. It was indeed a "lesser of two evils"
vote. I'm not a pessimist by nature, and I don't generally take that approach
in elections, but I did this time. The choices were what they were, you make
the best of them, and vote---period. So there's no question about it: I do
*not* want Bush in the White House.
Now, onto the Florida situation ...
It looks like, after all the recounts, Bush will win. Assuming the overseas
votes go generally Bush's way (which seems likely, as they are largely
military-people's votes), that will stick. I see this as a fact that, like it
or not, needs to be accepted.
The controversial ballot: it WAS confusing. I've seen it. I can see how some
could misread it and vote wrongly. I know it happened before, too. But, and
here's the key thing: was it illegal? Was it so "bad" as to cross over the
legal line? Yes, a judge will likely decide this and is obviously better
qualified than I am, but my gut tells me that the ballot, while obviously not
welll designed, was not illegal. Voters do have an obligation to to be informed
in advance and take their time, etc., etc., and this should not be overlooked.
Yea, I've heard some of the stories. And I suspect many (most?) are true, but,
when this gets into the courts, I do not see that the Democrats will win this
case. Sorry, guys, but that's the reality as I see it.
Personally, I feel sorry for the judge who gets this case. It's a potential
powder-keg. That judge will be in a lose-lose situation. I don't think there's
any constitutional way that a County re-vote will ever be ordered. And the
political fallout if that happened would be enormous, more so that letting the
election stand as is.
So that no one misunderstands me: yes, Gore won the national vote. Yes, I think
that Gore lost up to 19,000 votes in that County due to the ballot layout. Yes,
that means that Gore should have been the rightful winner of Florida and thus
the Electoral College---and thus the winner to the keys to the Oval Office.
But I think the reality is that he'll be robbed this victory. He'll not prevail
in the courts.
But you also need to think this through. How far will Gore take this? You see,
guys, it won't necessarily end in the courts. Think about it.
If Bush gets Florida, he's got 271 electoral votes. Does anyone know if Florida
is one of the states which requires by law its Electoral College voters to vote
for the state's *certified* winner? Some states require that; some don't.
I have yet to see anything in the news media (including newspapers) looking at
this beyond the current squabble. Because, you see, if Gore loses in the
courts, will he bring the fight into the Electoral College? Will he try to get
some of the Electoral College voters to switch, under the idea that the
election was rightfully his? All he would need is for *two* (or more) College
voters to switch over.
Folks, this could get REAL messy, real quickly. If this scenario plays out and
Gore does not drop the matter for the "good of the nation" and brings his fight
into the Electoral College, we are in for one hell of a consitutional crisis.
And if he succeeded in doing that and won the Electoral College vote, then
*that* vote would get challenged and end up in the Supreme Court.
This could tear the country apart like nothing since Watergate/Nixon. Stay
tuned.
Final note: I am not advocating any action either way for Gore, at this time. I
am just pointing out the slippery road the country's on right now. As I said,
this may not end in a Florida court and could end up being a full-blown
consitutional crisis. Consider this a warning.
Richard Tibbetts
>[snip]
>
>Another boring foreign politics thread. Ah well - it's what the
>"ignore thread" option is for in Agent, I suppose...
But unfortunately the result *will* affect us outside the USA, as
whoever wins will become the "leader of the free world".
But we're being treated like Democrats in Florida ;-)
--
Richard Tibbetts
http://www.primepeace.ltd.uk/
Evan P. Herberg
[ Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set. ]
[ Some characters may be displayed incorrectly. ]
[MODERATOR'S NOTE: personal attacks (flames), trolls, spam are not
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----CLM]
Indeed -- I keep wondering -- as I have in the past on other topics -- in
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alleged "moderated" group, what one has to do to have a post disallowed? I
remember thinking while reading the thread "Gee -- I wonder if Mac, Seti, or
Mike gets a little misty when President Clark's ultra-conservative regime
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through on a moderated group -- but as it's far tamer than some of what I've
already read -- who knows?
>===== Original Message From "Chris Miller" <ctm...@ugcs.caltech.edu> =====
>The previous and immense thread mistakenly titled "Opinion on Bush's Win"
>very nearly made me ill. First of all, there is no cause for the
>Republicans on this newsgroup to engage in the petty name-calling and
>blanket insults against Democrats that they seem to enjoy so very much. I
>don't recall the exact quotes, but there have been plenty of patently absurd
>claims that (for example) only an idiot could vote Democratic. By espousing
>this prejudice, all you do is reinforce the stereotype of Republicans as
>close-minded, bigoted, and unwilling to entertain any opinions that threaten
>their precious beliefs. I very much don't want to believe this of all
>Republicans, or even of those that feel the need to contribute their venom
>to this newsgroup, but your incessant and unfounded attacks do you a
>terrible discredit.
>
>Second: if potential voters were intimidated, if there was a problem with
>the ballots, or if any of the other various allegations and irregularities
--
Evan P. Herberg
her...@cs.und.edu
Wesley Struebing
>[snip]
>
>Another boring foreign politics thread. Ah well - it's what the
>"ignore thread" option is for in Agent, I suppose...
>
Deal with it, Paul. At least it's only every four years...It seems at
times it's the only thing that energizes us.
(grinning and ducking...Hey! Get them Narns outa here!)
--
--Take care; faith manages!
--
--Wes Struebing
--
--+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
-- str...@americanisp.com
-- ph: 303-343-9006 / FAX: 303-343-9026
-- home page: http://users.americanisp.com/~struebing/
Mac Breck
[ Some characters may be displayed incorrectly. ]
It's right to throw out those 19000 invalid ballots NOW, and change things
before the NEXT regular vote. The 19000 ballots are water under the bridge.
They're invalid, and gone. The key is to change the ballot configuration
before the NEXT election.
If they hold a revote, people could change the way they voted because they
know the way the election went. This could artificially skew things, and
give one county unprecedented power over the rest of the USA. The voters
were not meant to have the foreknowledge they have now.
If necessery, recount every ballot in every state, and then let the chips
fall where they may. I can live with that solution. Can you?
Mac
James Bell
> What I love is the latest regarding the 19,000 ballots thrown out in a
> primarily Democratic county. The republicans defend it by saying that it's
> nothing new, they threw out 15,000 votes in '96 from that same county.
>
> Pardon me, but...this by them is a defense?
>
> 1) If the ballot in this county led to 15,000 votes being tossed out, does that
> not suggest something's wrong with the ballot?
No, it suggests that less than 1/4 of 1% of the people make a mistake on it.
Pretty good ballot if you ask me.
>
> 2) Shouldn't the voting public in that county have been *informed* that 15,000
> votes of theirs had been tossed out? Shouldn't they have been notified about
> this before *right now*?
A) This is public information. No secrets have been kept.
B) The votes are not "tossed out" as the Democrats would have people believe.
Many if not most of the thrown out ballots this election and last time were
mistakenly punched and *discovered by the voters themselves* who then went and
exchanged them for new ballots upon which they then voted. Very few of these
19000 were votes that people thought they cast but actually weren't. (Source -
CNN)
Naturally, this fact is ignored by those who don't like the outcome of the
election and just want something to whine about.
>
> 3) It was wrong before. It should have been corrected before now. That it was
> wrong then, doesn't make it right now.
It was *never* wrong. The ballot is simple and easy to understand...period.
Naturally an extremely small number of people will make an error. Most of these
caught it themselves and corrected it before actually finalizing the casting of
their vote.
>
> Or was it simply more convenient and politically expeditious not to tell the
> citizens of this county that 15,000 of their votes were going in the ashcan on
> a regular basis?
Again, you are speaking from false and partisan assumptions. First, the knowledge
is public. Second, the votes are *not* going into the ashcan. Just the mistaken
ballots are. Most of the people who screwed up their ballots *did not cast them*
but rather exchanged them for new ballots to cast correctly.
Jim
majro...@hotmail.com
>What I love is the latest regarding the 19,000 ballots thrown out in a
>primarily Democratic county. The republicans defend it by saying that it's
>nothing new, they threw out 15,000 votes in '96 from that same county.
>
>Pardon me, but...this by them is a defense?
Yes, because this means that there is nothing new this year.
>
>1) If the ballot in this county led to 15,000 votes being tossed out, does that
>not suggest something's wrong with the ballot?
The butterfly ballot was not, IIRC, used there last election - the Democrat
county elections officer changed it this year to make it less confusing and more
readable. I haven't seen what happened last time, but I speculate that,
although the names were all on the left, the printing was rather tiny & the
elderly could not read them.
>
>2) Shouldn't the voting public in that county have been *informed* that 15,000
>votes of theirs had been tossed out? Shouldn't they have been notified about
>this before *right now*?
What makes you think that they weren't? I don't know the details of the
procedures in the county, but it may have been entered into public record. It
just wasn't an issue, so it was picked up by the media only this year.
>Or was it simply more convenient and politically expeditious not to tell the
>citizens of this county that 15,000 of their votes were going in the ashcan on
>a regular basis?
15,000 votes went to a trashcan when all the names were on the left. 19,000
votes went to a trashcan when the names were on the left & right in an election
with a significantly higher turnout. I doubt that the left/right issue made a
significant difference here.
Joe, even assuming the ballot is illegal, what remedy would you recommend? A
re-vote would be highly unfair - although any Buchannan/Gore voters would be
able to 'correct' their mistake, all Nader voters would, as well. A simple
revote would hand the state to Gore even if 100% of all Buchannan voters meant
to vote for Buchannan & 100% of double-punchers were idiots who would
double-punch again.
A judicial reassignment of the vote cannot be as precise as would be desired in
this election - many Buchannan/Gore voters aren't sure now about for whom they
voted, so there may be no evidentiary baasis for even a reasonable range of
votes to reassign.
(Note, the followup-to is this ng & sender, in hopes that the email client will
default to adding an email reply. If it doesn't, this is a statement of intent.
:))
Chris
pfh...@gdi.net
(Some of address has been ROT13'd as a spamblock.)
James Bell
James Bell wrote:
> Jms at B5 wrote:
>
> > What I love is the latest regarding the 19,000 ballots thrown out in a
> > primarily Democratic county. The republicans defend it by saying that it's
> > nothing new, they threw out 15,000 votes in '96 from that same county.
> >
> > Pardon me, but...this by them is a defense?
> >
> > 1) If the ballot in this county led to 15,000 votes being tossed out, does that
> > not suggest something's wrong with the ballot?
>
> No, it suggests that less than 1/4 of 1% of the people make a mistake on it.
> Pretty good ballot if you ask me.
My bad on the math here. The 1/4 of 1% is in relation to the entire state. As
someone else posted, it is around a 5% error rate. Still not bad in light of the
rest of my post
>
> >
> > 2) Shouldn't the voting public in that county have been *informed* that 15,000
> > votes of theirs had been tossed out? Shouldn't they have been notified about
> > this before *right now*?
>
> A) This is public information. No secrets have been kept.
>
> B) The votes are not "tossed out" as the Democrats would have people believe.
> Many if not most of the thrown out ballots this election and last time were
> mistakenly punched and *discovered by the voters themselves* who then went and
> exchanged them for new ballots upon which they then voted. Very few of these
> 19000 were votes that people thought they cast but actually weren't. (Source -
> CNN)
>
> Naturally, this fact is ignored by those who don't like the outcome of the
> election and just want something to whine about.
>
> >
> > 3) It was wrong before. It should have been corrected before now. That it was
> > wrong then, doesn't make it right now.
>
> It was *never* wrong. The ballot is simple and easy to understand...period.
> Naturally an extremely small number of people will make an error. Most of these
> caught it themselves and corrected it before actually finalizing the casting of
> their vote.
>
> >
> > Or was it simply more convenient and politically expeditious not to tell the
> > citizens of this county that 15,000 of their votes were going in the ashcan on
> > a regular basis?
>
Rob Perkins
> 1) If the ballot in this county led to 15,000 votes being tossed out, does
that
> not suggest something's wrong with the ballot?
The Republicans were so irresponsible when they pointed this out. But they
did it to say that the invalid 19,000 are in line with what has happened
there in the past.
Was the ballot in '96 also a butterfly layout? If the ballots were
different, and the same percentage of ballots were rejected in both
elections, then I'll agree that the process needs reexamining, but I will
also insist that those rejections were probably statistically even. That is,
just as many Bush votes were disqualified.
I want to point out that it '96, *I* voted a ballot in Summit County, Ohio
that looked almost exactly the same as the ballot under scrutiny in Palm
Beach. My candidate had the second position on the left, with the punch hole
for him third from the top. I did a double take to make sure I was hitting
the right hole, BUT, I don't consider that to have been "confusing", any
more than remembering to stop at a red left turn light when the main light
is a green circle is "confusing".
>
> 2) Shouldn't the voting public in that county have been *informed* that
15,000
> votes of theirs had been tossed out? Shouldn't they have been notified
about
> this before *right now*?
It was probably published in a report of the election by the election board
in that county when the votes were counted. Problem is, nobody researches
the public record if there's no point to it. That is, "Clinton won, so why
bother; I have a life to live!"
> 3) It was wrong before. It should have been corrected before now. That
it was
> wrong then, doesn't make it right now.
Hear, hear. But, do we go back and redo the '96 election because of it? If
we don't, why do we need to insist on a re-vote for the '00 election, just
because the guy who prevailed in that county isn't the guy who got the
statewide majority?
Rob
Paul McElligott
jam...@naxs.com wrote:
> No, it suggests that less than 1/4 of 1% of the people make a mistake
on it.
> Pretty good ballot if you ask me.
>
Excuse me, but where did you get your math from. The 19,000 discarded
votes were Palm Beach County alone. We have six million votes across
67 counties. Average that out, and you get approx. 90000 votes per
county. Obviously, Palm Beach is bigger than that, but I don't know
how big right now. Let's say a half-million people voted in Palm Beach
County. That means almost 4 percent of the votes were tossed out. In
an elect separated by tenths of a percent, this is huge.
What gets me is the blatant dishonesty of the Republicans with regard
to the 3000 Buchanan votes. They say, "Well, he get 8000 votes in '96,
so obviously he has enough supporters to get 3000 votes this time."
Wrong.
The '96 election was the Republican primary. There are more than
enough Republicans in Palm Beach for Pat to get 8000 votes. But this
year, he was not a Republican, so most of the people who voted for him
in '96 probably voted for Bush this time and there were only about 300
Reform Party voters in the county. Maybe, just maybe, there were some
independent voters who also went to him, but logic suggests that the
vast majority of them went to someone else. So, there is no way in a
fair election that Pat Buchanan could get 3000 votes.
--
Paul McElligott
http://www.terrafed.com
Note: No toads were strangled in the posting of this message.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Iain Rae
>
> On 10 Nov 2000 07:58:41 -0700, jms...@aol.com (Jms at B5) wrote:
>
> >What I love is the latest regarding the 19,000 ballots thrown out in a
> >primarily Democratic county. The republicans defend it by saying that it's
> >nothing new, they threw out 15,000 votes in '96 from that same county.
> >
> >Pardon me, but...this by them is a defense?
>
>
> >
> >not suggest something's wrong with the ballot?
>
> county elections officer changed it this year to make it less confusing and more
> readable. I haven't seen what happened last time, but I speculate that,
> although the names were all on the left, the printing was rather tiny & the
> elderly could not read them.
>
> >
> >votes of theirs had been tossed out? Shouldn't they have been notified about
> >this before *right now*?
>
> procedures in the county, but it may have been entered into public record. It
> just wasn't an issue, so it was picked up by the media only this year.
>
> >citizens of this county that 15,000 of their votes were going in the ashcan on
> >a regular basis?
>
Sorry, don't know if you wanted all replies or just Joe's, you got mine
anyway.
> 15,000 votes went to a trashcan when all the names were on the left. 19,000
> votes went to a trashcan when the names were on the left & right in an election
> with a significantly higher turnout. I doubt that the left/right issue made a
> significant difference here.
I'd argue that 5% of ballots regularly being spoiled means there is a
problem with the way the voting system is working, irrespective of who
wins or loses (what we're hearing on the news over here is that the
earlier vote was with a smaller turnout which makes it worse)
>
> Joe, even assuming the ballot is illegal, what remedy would you recommend? A
> re-vote would be highly unfair - although any Buchannan/Gore voters would be
> able to 'correct' their mistake, all Nader voters would, as well. A simple
> revote would hand the state to Gore even if 100% of all Buchannan voters meant
> to vote for Buchannan & 100% of double-punchers were idiots who would
> double-punch again.
Justice is blind (or should be) if the law governing this states that
the (county) election is null and void and there is a revote then the
revote takes place with whatever conditions are laid down in law ( this
happened at the General election over here in 1997 in one constituency).
Conceivably, if the law allows it, they could go back and poll the
people that voted for buchanan or spoiled their vote. Possibly all that
can be done legally is for those people who complain that they
misunderstood the ballot to have their vote corrected, in which case
there's going to have to be a lot of people taking out lawsuits for Gore
to win.
Possibly the law simply says tough luck a spoiled ballot is a spoiled
ballot(1)
Bottom line is if the people who set the law foresaw that there might be
a problem with the ballot paper and that people might complain then the
law should lay out what has to be done.
>
> A judicial reassignment of the vote cannot be as precise as would be desired in
> this election - many Buchannan/Gore voters aren't sure now about for whom they
> voted, so there may be no evidentiary baasis for even a reasonable range of
> votes to reassign.
I'd be surprised if it is impossible to trace back individual ballots to
people (it's possible in the UK) otherwise how do you prevent the people
who run the elections from making the numbers up?
(1)Or perhaps not, there's the possibly apocraphal story of a ballot
paper which had an X in the Box for a BNP (ultr-right wing party)
candidate and a swastika drawn over the name of another candidate who
happened to be Jewish. The ballot was passed to the returning officer
who commented that the regulations stated that a ballot marked with more
than one cross was spoiled. A swastika was an unusual cross but a cross
nevertheless and declared the vote spoilt. :)
Iain Rae
Computing Officer
Dept. Civil & Offshore Engineering
Heriot-Watt University
Mike Vanpelt
It looks like the networks, newspapers, and Democrat Party
activists have been lying to us since Wednesday.
In article <3A0C3D2B...@naxs.com>, James Bell <jam...@naxs.com> wrote:
> B) The votes are not "tossed out" as the Democrats would have
> people believe. Many if not most of the thrown out ballots this
> election and last time were mistakenly punched and *discovered by
> the voters themselves* who then went and exchanged them for new
> ballots upon which they then voted. Very few of these 19000 were
> votes that people thought they cast but actually weren't. (Source - CNN)
....
> Again, you are speaking from false and partisan assumptions.
> First, the knowledge is public. Second, the votes are *not* going
> into the ashcan. Just the mistaken ballots are. Most of the
> people who screwed up their ballots *did not cast them* but rather
> exchanged them for new ballots to cast correctly.
As has been pointed out all along, anyone who messed up their
ballot could take the messed up ballot to the poll worker, the
messed up ballot would be thrown away, and the voter would be
given a new ballot.
Now we find out that this year's "19,000", and 1996's "15,000",
discarded ballots *INCLUDED* all these ballots from people who
thew away one ballot, got another one, and voted.
Jonathan Biggar
>
> What I love is the latest regarding the 19,000 ballots thrown out in a
> primarily Democratic county. The republicans defend it by saying that it's
> nothing new, they threw out 15,000 votes in '96 from that same county.
>
> Pardon me, but...this by them is a defense?
>
> that not suggest something's wrong with the ballot?
Yes it does, and the responsible person to fix it is the Election
commisioner in PBC, who is a democrat.
>
> 2) Shouldn't the voting public in that county have been *informed* that 15,000
> votes of theirs had been tossed out? Shouldn't they have been notified about
> this before *right now*?
Sure, it would have been a good idea. Perhaps we should make sure every
voter has a trained person in the booth with them to make sure they
don't make mistakes. Wouldn't that make you feel better?
> 3) It was wrong before. It should have been corrected before now. That it
> was wrong then, doesn't make it right now.
Sure it's not fair. But throwing the election to Gore isn't fair
either.
> Or was it simply more convenient and politically expeditious not to tell the
> citizens of this county that 15,000 of their votes were going in the ashcan on
> a regular basis?
How much notification do people need? The election materials always say
that you need to take care that your ballot is filled out right and that
if you have any questions ask someone, and if you mess up your ballot
you can get a new one.
That's reasonable care. What you are doing is just whining.
--
Jon Biggar
Floorboard Software
j...@floorboard.com
j...@biggar.org
Brian Stinson
I could be wrong on this point ( I haven't looked it up to be sure), but as
I understand it, it was the same county in 96, but not the same type of
ballot. The implied point was that the problem was not with the ballot, but
must lie somewhere else.
jms at B5" <jms...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20001109232152...@ng-fx1.aol.com...
> What I love is the latest regarding the 19,000 ballots thrown out in a
> primarily Democratic county. The republicans defend it by saying that
it's
> nothing new, they threw out 15,000 votes in '96 from that same county.
>
> Pardon me, but...this by them is a defense?
>
> 1) If the ballot in this county led to 15,000 votes being tossed out, does
that
> not suggest something's wrong with the ballot?
>
> 2) Shouldn't the voting public in that county have been *informed* that
15,000
> votes of theirs had been tossed out? Shouldn't they have been notified
about
> this before *right now*?
>
> 3) It was wrong before. It should have been corrected before now. That
it was
> wrong then, doesn't make it right now.
>
> Or was it simply more convenient and politically expeditious not to tell
the
> citizens of this county that 15,000 of their votes were going in the
ashcan on
> a regular basis?
>
Chris Miller
> only accusations of idiocy I've seen are directed towards those
> who could not figure out that an arrow pointing from a name to
> a punch hole in a ballot signified which hole you should punch
> to vote for that candidate. I haven't noticed anyone calling
> those who *sucessfully* voted for Gore idiots.
I refer to comments like (paraphrasing from memory) "the democrats have
created a new breed of idiot". A lot of people have it in mind that to be a
democrat is to be stupid. While I don't begrudge them that opinion, this NG
is not the place to express that kind of blanket prejudice.
> Phbbt. JMS started it,
Someone in another thread referred to a "Did not! Did too!" playground
squabble. It seems they were more right than they knew. ;-D Seriously, I
agree that the hyperbole about stolen elections is premature, although again
everyone is entitled to their opinion. But it seems that the Bush camp,
having had a taste of victory, is quick to say that the "stately" thing for
Gore to do would be to concede. Bush isn't concerned with ensuring that the
election is fair and that the voice of the people has been heard - he wants
to benefit from the election whether it was legal or not. He's terrified
that investigations and recounts will reveal that the American people want
Gore to be the president, so he and his supporters are quick to decry these
legitimate questions as sour grapes. Now, would Gore be so concerned about
these irregularities if it weren't HIS victory on the line? Of course not.
But I must agree with those few rational voices on both sides who say that
any complaints should be made to and decided by a judge (or several), and
when the chips fall where they fall, that's it.
> So if someone punches his ballot for two candidates, what do you
> suggest as a remedy? Remember, there isn't any way to link the
> ballot with the person who cast it. (At least, there had *BETTER*
> not be!!)
For that, nothing. There have been a number of different complaints on a
number of different issues, and we on this newsgroup are not in the best
position to decide what, if any, remedy is appropriate. How should we
handle double-punches? Are sworn affidavits appropriate? Should they be
thrown out? I don't have the legal expertise to know. If anyone on this
group is trained in law and wants to weigh in, I'm sure we'd all love to
hear your comments.
Adam Michaud
>> 1) If the ballot in this county led to 15,000 votes being tossed out,
>does that
>> not suggest something's wrong with the ballot?
>No, it suggests that less than 1/4 of 1% of the people make a mistake on it.
>Pretty good ballot if you ask me.
We're talking about 15,000 people just in Palm Beach County. About
430,000 people voted in this election in that county, and the turnout
there was probably decidedly lower four years ago, but even using that
number, that's almost 4%, not 0.25%.
>B) The votes are not "tossed out" as the Democrats would have people believe.
>Many if not most of the thrown out ballots this election and last time were
>mistakenly punched and *discovered by the voters themselves* who then went and
>exchanged them for new ballots upon which they then voted. Very few of these
>19000 were votes that people thought they cast but actually weren't. (Source -
>CNN)
That's a bad misreading of what CNN is saying. These 19,000 votes are
votes that went into the ballot box; ballots that are ruined and then
replaced by a fresh ballot are disposed of, not put in the ballot box.
These are 19,000 votes that people thought they were casting (for
whoever), that were declared invalid because they were double-punched.
That's *probably* the right thing to be done with them, but that's not for
me to decide. Nevertheless, it is certainly worrisome that that many
ballots were actually cast and then cancelled, regardless of the
legalities of the situation.
And the 15,000 number repeatedly quoted by Bush's campaign represents
*all* ballots that were discarded four years ago, through "overpunching"
(double-punched ballots), "underpunching" (ballots that did not have a
machine-readable vote for president -- this is frequently because the
voter didn't press hard enough/far enough, and is highly prevalent in
senior-dominated areas), and several other (fairly uncommon) problems.
The 19,000 from this year is just overpunching; counting all ballot
problems, the total this year is closer to 30,000.
>It was *never* wrong. The ballot is simple and easy to understand...period.
>Naturally an extremely small number of people will make an error. Most of these
>caught it themselves and corrected it before actually finalizing the casting of
>their vote.
4% is not an extremely small number; it's freakishly high, compared to the
presidential ballot in the rest of the country. It's also much higher
than the rate of double punching for any other race on the Palm Beach
ballot. (To be fair, there are several possible reasons for this, not all
of which involve confusing ballots or actual fraud or impropriety.) And
this *does not* count those that caught their error, voided their ballot,
and voted again.
>ballots are. Most of the people who screwed up their ballots *did not
>cast them*
>but rather exchanged them for new ballots to cast correctly.
If you have actual citations for this, I would be happy to see them; from
everything that's been reported to this point (at least, in the mainstream
national media), this did *not* happen.
And this isn't even considering the reports of election judges who refused
to give a new ballot to some voters who requested them. (For my own part,
I'm not sure how far to believe these reports, which is precisely why, for
the moment, I'm *not* considering them. Besides, it sounds like there are
plenty of other problems to deal with anyway. :-)
Adam
Ryan Bloom
to some of my "liberal" friends :)
Scott Johnson
: This is a really, *really* important bit of information.
: It looks like the networks, newspapers, and Democrat Party
: activists have been lying to us since Wednesday.
I think he misheard CNN. The news articles I read have all said that the
19000 figure is the number of double punched ballots, and the total number
of ballots thrown out or otherwise invalidated is closer to 30000. According
to what I've heard, that's the count that was 15000 in the 1996 election,
and which the Republicans have been deceptively trying to compare to the
19000 figure.
--
Scott Iekel-Johnson sco...@eecs.umich.edu
Dept. of EECS, Univ. of Michigan http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~scottdj
(734) 763-5363
Finger for PGP public key.
Scott Johnson
: This is a really, *really* important bit of information.
: It looks like the networks, newspapers, and Democrat Party
: activists have been lying to us since Wednesday.
As a reference to back up my previous post, see
http://www.salon.com/politics/wire/2000/11/10/mechanical/index.html
19,120 ballots were double punched this year. An additional 10,582 recorded
no choice for president (perhaps because of the "chad" (or incompletely
separated paper stub from the punched hole, which has been mentioned a
number of times on the news)).
lisa_c...@my-deja.com
Win"
> very nearly made me ill. First of all, there is no cause for the
> Republicans on this newsgroup to engage in the petty name-calling and
> blanket insults against Democrats that they seem to enjoy so very
much. I
> don't recall the exact quotes, but there have been plenty of patently
absurd
> claims that (for example) only an idiot could vote Democratic. By
espousing
> this prejudice, all you do is reinforce the stereotype of Republicans
as
> close-minded, bigoted, and unwilling to entertain any opinions that
threaten
> their precious beliefs. I very much don't want to believe this of all
> Republicans, or even of those that feel the need to contribute their
venom
> to this newsgroup, but your incessant and unfounded attacks do you a
> terrible discredit.
>
Much like your implication that stereortypes all Republicans? Get over
it. We are all indivduals, disagree on some things, but at least we
can be civil. IF not, as my mother always told me, there is no point
to say anything. For someone who doesn't want to believe all these
negative things of Republicans, you certainly seem to enjoy listing
them!
At this point, due to 1,000,000 absentee ballots in California - yes 1
million - it's not even totally clear Gore won the popular vote. IF he
did, good. If he won the FL recount, fine. I may not be thrilled, but
I'll accept it. There are some fairly serious allegations on BOTH
sides of irregualarities, not just in FL, but in other states, and not
just in the Presidential election. COnsider the polls being kept open
late in St. Louis due to a judge's order. Yet the loser in that race -
a Republican - is not contesting the results, though from what I
understand he'd hve a pretty good legal claim. The fact is, Gore's
people, and some of them who aren't, just Democrats acting on their
own, aren't waiting for the recount, they seem to be trying to enflame
things before that's even in. For the sake of the country and peace,
this should not be done. Allegations should be investigated, attempts
to fix them, espceially in the future should be made, but for example
the idea of another election in Palm Beach is absurd. Consider all the
people who did not go to the polls due to weather, work, etc. To be
fair, the ENTIRE elction should be run over. This can't and should not
be done. When a student of mine says "I didn't do well on that test,
can I please take it again?" I say no. To do otherwise is to open a
Pandora's box which is impossible to deal with.
As far as the popular vote, sorry, the CONSTITUTION, remember that?
says it's the electoral vote that counts. If you don't like it, either
work to change it in the future, or move somewhere that is more of a
strict democracy (I'm not even sure such places exist, but those are
your options.)
As for what Bush would do, I can't say, not being him, but a person who
many people consider to be a far worse individual, Richard Nixon, faced
a very similar situation in 1960. And it's quite likely if he had
pushed about irregularities in Illinois, the election results may have
been different. He did not. Take thaqt as evidence.
> Yes, there are a number of curious and questionable things happening
in this
> election, on both sides. Yes, there is much to debate here. But to
sink to
> the level of stereotyping, name-calling, and hurling accusations of
fraud
> across the aisle should be beneath us. I wish it were. Democrats are
> hoping that Gore wins. Republicans are hoping that Bush wins. Don't
> deceive yourself into thinking that, if it were you, or if it were
your
> supportee in the other man's position, that things would be handled
> differently. For all of our sakes, please try to maintain a little
dignity
> as we wait out this difficult time.
>
>
I would suggest that you do the same. If you did not expect a reply
such as mine, read what you wrote again and really think about it!
Lisa Coulter
Hoping for a peaceful, swift resolution, that is as just as possible,
to this situation.
John Pennington
>
> What I love is the latest regarding the 19,000 ballots thrown out in a
> primarily Democratic county. The republicans defend it by saying that it's
> nothing new, they threw out 15,000 votes in '96 from that same county.
>
> Pardon me, but...this by them is a defense?
>
This might be hilarious if the possible consequences weren't so serious. Here we
have democrats(and Joe) squealing like stuck pigs because ballots were thrown out.
And implying that the Republicans were somehow responsible. Yet this is a "primarily
Democratic" county, where the elected and election officials should be "primarily
Democratic"! Are we to believe that these officials are ALL Republicans?! NO
Democrats?!
Ha! So who really dropped the ball here?
> 1) If the ballot in this county led to 15,000 votes being tossed out, does that
> not suggest something's wrong with the ballot?
>
> 2) Shouldn't the voting public in that county have been *informed* that 15,000
> votes of theirs had been tossed out? Shouldn't they have been notified about
> this before *right now*?
>
> 3) It was wrong before. It should have been corrected before now. That it was
> wrong then, doesn't make it right now.
>
> Or was it simply more convenient and politically expeditious not to tell the
> citizens of this county that 15,000 of their votes were going in the ashcan on
> a regular basis?
>
"Politically expeditious" for whom? You are implying that only Republicans knew
of the discarded 15000 ballots and kept quiet. Again if this is a "primarily
Democratic"
county with "primarily Democratic" officials, it looks to me like the Democrats
shot themselves in the foot!
James Bell
> In article <3A0C3D2B...@naxs.com>, James Bell <jam...@naxs.com> wrote:
>
> >> 1) If the ballot in this county led to 15,000 votes being tossed out,
> >does that
> >> not suggest something's wrong with the ballot?
>
> >No, it suggests that less than 1/4 of 1% of the people make a mistake on it.
> >Pretty good ballot if you ask me.
>
> We're talking about 15,000 people just in Palm Beach County. About
> 430,000 people voted in this election in that county, and the turnout
> there was probably decidedly lower four years ago, but even using that
> number, that's almost 4%, not 0.25%.
I realized that and corrected that error before you posted this. My correction is a
couple posts upthread.
> >B) The votes are not "tossed out" as the Democrats would have people believe.
> >Many if not most of the thrown out ballots this election and last time were
> >mistakenly punched and *discovered by the voters themselves* who then went and
> >exchanged them for new ballots upon which they then voted. Very few of these
> >19000 were votes that people thought they cast but actually weren't. (Source -
> >CNN)
>
> That's a bad misreading of what CNN is saying. These 19,000 votes are
> votes that went into the ballot box; ballots that are ruined and then
> replaced by a fresh ballot are disposed of, not put in the ballot box.
> These are 19,000 votes that people thought they were casting (for
> whoever), that were declared invalid because they were double-punched.
Let me say this again: *NO* they were *NOT*. All the tossed out ballots were thrown
into the *same pile*. The pile totaled 19000 ballots. It is unknown how many came
from the ballot boxes and how many came from replaced votes.
> That's *probably* the right thing to be done with them, but that's not for
> me to decide. Nevertheless, it is certainly worrisome that that many
> ballots were actually cast and then cancelled, regardless of the
> legalities of the situation.
A 4 or 5% error rate is not bothersome, especially in light of the fact that many if
not most of those were corrected before cast.
> And the 15,000 number repeatedly quoted by Bush's campaign represents
> *all* ballots that were discarded four years ago, through "overpunching"
> (double-punched ballots), "underpunching" (ballots that did not have a
> machine-readable vote for president -- this is frequently because the
> voter didn't press hard enough/far enough, and is highly prevalent in
> senior-dominated areas), and several other (fairly uncommon) problems.
> The 19,000 from this year is just overpunching; counting all ballot
> problems, the total this year is closer to 30,000.
I've been following this fairly closely and haven't heard such a thing. Since this
totally contradicts my post, which has CNN as a source, could you post a source
please? Thanks.
> >It was *never* wrong. The ballot is simple and easy to understand...period.
> >Naturally an extremely small number of people will make an error. Most of these
> >caught it themselves and corrected it before actually finalizing the casting of
> >their vote.
>
> 4% is not an extremely small number; it's freakishly high, compared to the
> presidential ballot in the rest of the country. It's also much higher
> than the rate of double punching for any other race on the Palm Beach
> ballot. (To be fair, there are several possible reasons for this, not all
> of which involve confusing ballots or actual fraud or impropriety.) And
> this *does not* count those that caught their error, voided their ballot,
> and voted again.
As I said, I was basing my post on the news I heard on CNN. (that a small % of the
19000 were actually cast votes). You might be correct but without a source for your
numbers, how can we be sure you're not just a partisan?
> >ballots are. Most of the people who screwed up their ballots *did not
> >cast them*
> >but rather exchanged them for new ballots to cast correctly.
>
> If you have actual citations for this, I would be happy to see them; from
> everything that's been reported to this point (at least, in the mainstream
> national media), this did *not* happen.
I cited CNN. You have yet to cite anyone. I'm not saying you're wrong. In fact, I
wouldn't be surprise if the same network, CNN, said what you are saying, too. Fact
is, there is so much confusion around this and so much anecdotal stuff thrown in, who
knows what to believe? I really don't think that ballot is confusing, though.
> And this isn't even considering the reports of election judges who refused
> to give a new ballot to some voters who requested them. (For my own part,
> I'm not sure how far to believe these reports, which is precisely why, for
> the moment, I'm *not* considering them. Besides, it sounds like there are
> plenty of other problems to deal with anyway. :-)
Yeah. There is too much anecdotal evidence all over this. The protesters and
campaign spokespeople aren't helping any either. If everyone would just shut up and
let the election commission do their job, this would get solved more smoothly. I
find the court actions annoying, too. The day a judge chooses a president is the
last day of credible governance in this country.
Jim
majro...@hotmail.com
>majro...@hotmail.com wrote:
>> 15,000 votes went to a trashcan when all the names were on the left. 19,000
>> votes went to a trashcan when the names were on the left & right in an election
>> with a significantly higher turnout. I doubt that the left/right issue made a
>> significant difference here.
>I'd argue that 5% of ballots regularly being spoiled means there is a
>problem with the way the voting system is working, irrespective of who
>wins or loses (what we're hearing on the news over here is that the
>earlier vote was with a smaller turnout which makes it worse)
Well, the 5% figure means that it's nothing unusual. I'm not positive on this,
but I _think_ a different style of ballot was used in 1996, and if that is the
case then it was not the ballot that caused the double punching.
If, the ballot confused people, they had the opportunity to go to the poll
workers and get their questions answered. Yes, they could not bring
friends/translators in with them, but if you allow that you allow a large degree
of in-the-booth campaigning - might as well invite the candidates themselves.
>
>
>>
>> Joe, even assuming the ballot is illegal, what remedy would you recommend? A
>> re-vote would be highly unfair - although any Buchannan/Gore voters would be
>> able to 'correct' their mistake, all Nader voters would, as well. A simple
>> revote would hand the state to Gore even if 100% of all Buchannan voters meant
>> to vote for Buchannan & 100% of double-punchers were idiots who would
>> double-punch again.
>Justice is blind (or should be) if the law governing this states that
>the (county) election is null and void and there is a revote then the
>revote takes place with whatever conditions are laid down in law ( this
>happened at the General election over here in 1997 in one constituency).
I'm not sure what legal remedies are available on this, but I think that judges
have a wide discresion - they could do nothing, throw the county's results out
(w/o a revote), order a revote, or assign votes to Gore in a statistical manner.
I can see the headlines now: "Gore Wins! (+- 3%)"
>
>Conceivably, if the law allows it, they could go back and poll the
>people that voted for buchanan or spoiled their vote. Possibly all that
>can be done legally is for those people who complain that they
>misunderstood the ballot to have their vote corrected, in which case
>there's going to have to be a lot of people taking out lawsuits for Gore
>to win.
Because of the secret ballot in the US, votes are untraceable to the person
beyond the fact that they voted. The opnly way to poll Buchannan voters
exclusively would be to request afidavits (sp) from every voter in the county,
and even this probably will not work: may people were initially unsure which
bubble they punched, and all the negative media attention may have improperly
reinforced the "memory" of them punching the wrong one.
A revote would have to be done on a county-wide or state-wide basis. Although
the votes can be limited to who voted the first time, you will not get anywhere
near the same numbers.
Firstly, you do actually have to schedule the revote far enough in advance to
get absantee ballots back out to everyone, putting it at least 2-4 weeks away.
This allows time for serious campaigning by candidates, giving Fla. a
disproportinate amount of campaign $$$ that it didn't have before.
Secondly, and most importantly, the citizens now already know the results of the
election in the rest of the country, and will change their votes as appropriate.
Many Nader voters voted for him (presumably) upon the assumption that either
Bush or Gore would win by a large enough amount that their vote wouldn't matter.
Since that assumption has been proven false, a large percentage of Nader voters
are likely to vote Gore, and nothing is there to stop them.
In this case, a "revote" does not mean "allowing all people who voted again to
clarify their vote," it means "handing Gore the election even if all Buchannan
voters meant to vote for Buchannan."
Buchannan got 6,000 votes or so in that county in the 1996 primary, and a Reform
party senate candidate got 3,100 votes or so from that county this time. The
3,600 votes for Buchannan may only consist of a couple hundred confused
Democrats.
>> A judicial reassignment of the vote cannot be as precise as would be desired in
>> this election - many Buchannan/Gore voters aren't sure now about for whom they
>> voted, so there may be no evidentiary baasis for even a reasonable range of
>> votes to reassign.
>
>I'd be surprised if it is impossible to trace back individual ballots to
>people (it's possible in the UK) otherwise how do you prevent the people
>who run the elections from making the numbers up?
Quite impossible, and equal party representation in poll workers. And checking
for discrepancies between # of ballots received & # of votes cast.
Adam Michaud
>I cited CNN. You have yet to cite anyone. I'm not saying you're wrong.
>In fact, I
>wouldn't be surprise if the same network, CNN, said what you are saying,
>too. Fact
>is, there is so much confusion around this and so much anecdotal stuff
>thrown in, who
>knows what to believe?
CNN and MSNBC have at various times said all of the things I was
maintaining. Of course, I have heard many of the things you're saying
from CNN, so I guess they're not the best source to be looking at right
now.
I also asked a local election judge what was generally done with soiled
ballots; she said it varies by location, but that she was under the
impression that they were usually destroyed or set aside if the voter
actually asked for a new ballot, and she didn't think that they were ever
counted. Take that for what you will; this was in Cook County, IL
(chicago), so even if she's right, it might be different in Florida. I
doubt anyone in this discussion is completely qualified to say (and, for
that matter, I'd guess a lot of the media reporting on it aren't qualified
to say -- some of them are actually admitting this).
Adam
Dan Riley
> A 4 or 5% error rate is not bothersome, especially in light of the
> fact that many if not most of those were corrected before cast.
4% is significantly higher than other Florida counties.
> Adam Michaud wrote:
> > The 19,000 from this year is just overpunching; counting all ballot
> > problems, the total this year is closer to 30,000.
>
> I've been following this fairly closely and haven't heard such a
> thing. Since this totally contradicts my post, which has CNN as a
> source, could you post a source please? Thanks.
Miami Herald,
http://www.herald.com/content/archive/news/yahoo/digdocs/058333.htm
down near the end of the article:
Republicans have dismissed the claims of confusion, noting that
the past presidential election, with a lower turnout, saw nearly
15,000 votes invalidated in the county.
But that figure includes ballots where no vote was cast in the
presidential race.
If such ``undervotes'' are taken into account, the number of
invalidated ballots in Palm Beach County rises to 29,000.
Also includes comparisons with other Counties.
--
Dan Riley d...@mail.lns.cornell.edu
Wilson Lab, Cornell University <URL:http://www.lns.cornell.edu/~dsr/>
"History teaches us that days like this are best spent in bed"
Dan Riley
> I'm not sure what legal remedies are available on this, but I think
> that judges have a wide discresion - they could do nothing, throw
> the county's results out (w/o a revote), order a revote, or assign
> votes to Gore in a statistical manner.
A couple of interesting mesages[1] on Phil Agre's RRE mailing list[2]
argues they don't--according to those messages, the decision in
Beckstrom v. Volusia County Canvassing Board (1998) removes that
discretion. The most relevant quote from the decision is:
"[I]f a court finds substantial noncompliance with statutory
election procedures and also makes a factual determination that
reasonable doubt exists as to whether a certified election
expressed the will of the voters, then the court . . . is to void
the contested election, even in the absence of fraud or
intentional wrongdoing."
[1] http://commons.somewhere.com/rre/2000/RRE.Florida.Common.Law.a.html
[2] http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/people/pagre/rre.html
> I can see the headlines now: "Gore Wins! (+- 3%)"
We're already seeing this in the big changes in the recounts--it seems
pretty clear to me that the number they're trying to measure is about
the same size as the errors in the counting procedures. Certainly as
a physicist I would not consider the election results to be of
publishable quality.
Jonathan Biggar
> I also asked a local election judge what was generally done with soiled
> ballots; she said it varies by location, but that she was under the
> impression that they were usually destroyed or set aside if the voter
> actually asked for a new ballot, and she didn't think that they were ever
> counted. Take that for what you will; this was in Cook County, IL
> (chicago), so even if she's right, it might be different in Florida. I
> doubt anyone in this discussion is completely qualified to say (and, for
> that matter, I'd guess a lot of the media reporting on it aren't qualified
> to say -- some of them are actually admitting this).
Sure, they aren't counted by putting them in the tally machine, but you
can be certain that they are counted to verify that there is no
shenanigans with the vote. The vote count needs to be audited to be
sure that the number of registered voters who cast a vote + the number
of spoiled ballots = the number of total ballots used.
Pål Are Nordal
[ Some characters may be displayed incorrectly. ]
"Evan P. Herberg" wrote:
>
> Now -- I wouldn't expect a post like that to get
> through on a moderated group -- but as it's far tamer than some of what I've
> already read -- who knows?
And to think I hear on other groups that they don't read rastb5mod
because it's far too tame for their tastes...
--
Donate free food with a simple click: http://www.thehungersite.com/
Pål Are Nordal
a_b...@bigfoot.com
majro...@hotmail.com
>majro...@hotmail.com writes:
>> I'm not sure what legal remedies are available on this, but I think
>> that judges have a wide discresion - they could do nothing, throw
>> the county's results out (w/o a revote), order a revote, or assign
>> votes to Gore in a statistical manner.
>
>A couple of interesting mesages[1] on Phil Agre's RRE mailing list[2]
>argues they don't--according to those messages, the decision in
>Beckstrom v. Volusia County Canvassing Board (1998) removes that
>discretion. The most relevant quote from the decision is:
>
> "[I]f a court finds substantial noncompliance with statutory
> election procedures and also makes a factual determination that
> reasonable doubt exists as to whether a certified election
> expressed the will of the voters, then the court . . . is to void
> the contested election, even in the absence of fraud or
> intentional wrongdoing."
Hm... very interesting stuff. The second part of that clause, the 'reasonable
doubt' one, is almost certainly true in this case. Now the argument will have
to be whether the ballot was illegal... back to square one, in other words. :)
Also, is 'void the contested election' supposed to imply a revote or simply a
revocation/nullification of the election results, w/o a revote. (IE, all these
ballots didn't happen).
According to the local paper, there's already a push for uniform ballot laws in
the state now, and a secondary push for proportional allocation of the state's
electoral votes (which, IMO, if applied nationwide would do more than anything
to curtail excessive campaign spending/soft money, b/c shifts of a few
percentage points cannot cause a huge shift in electoral college votes, but
that's a matter for another thread.)
Paul Harper
<ric...@primepeace.ltd.uk> wrote:
>But unfortunately the result *will* affect us outside the USA, as
>whoever wins will become the "leader of the free world".
Naughty Richard - mustn't make Paul laugh when he's got a mouth full
of coffee :-)
"Leader of the Free World" - I love that. Sounds like something you'd
see on a cereal packet: "Uncle Sam Krispies. Leaders of the Free
World: Buy One Get One Free. Pictures at 11, and now for a word from
our sponsors..."
Sounds just like a couple of B5 episodes.
Spare me.
Paul.
--
A .sig is all well and good, but it's no substitute for a personality
" . . . SFX is a fairly useless publication on just
about every imaginable front. Never have so many jumped-up fanboys done so
little, with so much, for so long." JMS.
Andrew Swallow
<pa...@harper.net> writes:
>
>>But unfortunately the result *will* affect us outside the USA, as
>>whoever wins will become the "leader of the free world".
>
>Naughty Richard - mustn't make Paul laugh when he's got a mouth full
>of coffee :-)
>
>"Leader of the Free World" - I love that. Sounds like something you'd
>see on a cereal packet: "Uncle Sam Krispies. Leaders of the Free
>World: Buy One Get One Free. Pictures at 11, and now for a word from
>our sponsors..."
>
>Sounds just like a couple of B5 episodes.
>
>Spare me.
>
Would you be happier with 'The Leader of the FEE World"? <g>
Andrew Swallow
Paul Harper
>1) If the ballot in this county led to 15,000 votes being tossed out, does that
>not suggest something's wrong with the ballot?
It rather depends upon whether it's a primarily Democratic country
because of, or inspite of the 15,000 missing votes.
Works both ways, but yes, it does hint at fraud by one or other of the
camps.
Paul (posting from the UK, and therefore not really caring who wins
either way).
Richard Tibbetts
>On 10 Nov 2000 12:21:57 -0700, Richard Tibbetts
><ric...@primepeace.ltd.uk> wrote:
>
>>But unfortunately the result *will* affect us outside the USA, as
>>whoever wins will become the "leader of the free world".
>
>Naughty Richard - mustn't make Paul laugh when he's got a mouth full
>of coffee :-)
>
>"Leader of the Free World" - I love that. Sounds like something you'd
>see on a cereal packet: "Uncle Sam Krispies. Leaders of the Free
>World: Buy One Get One Free. Pictures at 11, and now for a word from
>our sponsors..."
Dontchajustluvem? "Leader of the free (sorry Free) World" when it
comes to exports (sorry, Free Trade), but not when it comes to paying
their dues to the UN (or even remembering where most of it is, what it
or it's people are called, or who's troops are keeping the peace
there).
>
>Sounds just like a couple of B5 episodes.
>
>Spare me.
I wish. Today's moan - every time I spell check something I have to
remember that I speak "International" English!
--
Richard Tibbetts
http://www.primepeace.ltd.uk/
Maia Bernstein
> As far as the popular vote, sorry, the CONSTITUTION, remember that?
> says it's the electoral vote that counts. If you don't like it, either
> work to change it in the future, or move somewhere that is more of a
> strict democracy (I'm not even sure such places exist, but those are
> your options.)
The funny thing is that before the election, quite a few pundits were
predicting that Bush would get the popular vote and Gore would win the
electoral college. AND: a representative of the Bush campaign said in an
interview that if Bush won the majority of the popular vote but lost the
election, they would "fight"--in fact, that they were preparing to do so.
Amazing how quickly their belief in the "will of the people" disappears
when the shoe's on the other foot.
Paul Harper
<ric...@primepeace.ltd.uk> wrote:
>I wish. Today's moan - every time I spell check something I have to
>remember that I speak "International" English!
No such language. It's "flavour", "colour" and so on.
Other spellings are from the language "USAsian".
Paul.
lisa_c...@my-deja.com
<Pine.GSO.4.10.100111...@konichiwa.cc.columbia.edu>,
> > says it's the electoral vote that counts. If you don't like it,
either
> > work to change it in the future, or move somewhere that is more of a
> > strict democracy (I'm not even sure such places exist, but those are
> > your options.)
>
> predicting that Bush would get the popular vote and Gore would win the
> electoral college. AND: a representative of the Bush campaign said
in an
> interview that if Bush won the majority of the popular vote but lost
the
> election, they would "fight"--in fact, that they were preparing to do
so.
>
> Amazing how quickly their belief in the "will of the people"
disappears
> when the shoe's on the other foot.
>
>
Interesting. I hadn't heard that, but given the insanity on both sides
of this situation, I wouldn't be at all surprised. At this point, my
personal feeling is I'm glad the Electoral College exists. It may not
be perfect, but at least it guarantees a reasonable and constitutional
way to end this. And we needn't worry about not counting votes by
accident - there's only 535. OTOH, I have herd that if certain states,
including FL, do not have there electors chosen by Dec. 18, the election
will proceed without them at all! Although I see the necessity, I can't
help but (cynically I'll admit) wonder if that isn't the plan in this
and other states. I've heard it will take 230 - 40 days to really do a
recount in FL and this might very well, if it's allowed to go on, bump
up against the electoral college deadline.
Lisa Coulter
Andrew Swallow
<ric...@primepeace.ltd.uk> writes:
>
>Dontchajustluvem? "Leader of the free (sorry Free) World" when it
>comes to exports (sorry, Free Trade), but not when it comes to paying
>their dues to the UN (or even remembering where most of it is, what it
>or it's people are called, or who's troops are keeping the peace
>there).
>
Simple, they want a free world not an expensive one. <g>
Andrew SWallow
John Morrow
jms...@aol.com (Jms at B5) writes:
>1) If the ballot in this county led to 15,000 votes being tossed out, does that
>not suggest something's wrong with the ballot?
Yes, it does. That is why the ballot was redesigned. The Democrat who
redesigned the ballot used the "butterfly" configuration because it allowed
her to make the type for the candidates names larger and, in theory, easier
to read. The intent was good. The execution was bad. Hindsight is 20/20.
No foul.
>2) Shouldn't the voting public in that county have been *informed* that 15,000
>votes of theirs had been tossed out? Shouldn't they have been notified about
>this before *right now*?
County Democrats knew about this. They tried to redesign the ballot
to fix the problem. They accidentally made it worse. Again,
hindsight is 20/20. No foul.
>3) It was wrong before. It should have been corrected before now. That it was
>wrong then, doesn't make it right now.
They did attempt to correct it. They created the "butterfly" ballot that
everyone is demonizing. They fixed a small type problem and replaced it
with a confusing punch hole problem. Again, hindsight is 20/20. But the
attempt by Democrats was to fix the problem. They screwwed up. But still
no foul.
>Or was it simply more convenient and politically expeditious not to tell the
>citizens of this county that 15,000 of their votes were going in the ashcan on
>a regular basis?
I find it interesting that you can find a conspiracy in Florida where
there clearly isn't one yet seem totally unconcerned about Wisconsin
where there are tales of bribes for votes and college students voting
a half-dozen times for Gore. You don't seem concerned about the
Republicans who left the polls in the Florida panhandle because the
state was called for Gore by the networks before the polls closed.
And you ignore Duval County (which went for Bush) which tossed out
*22,000* presidential votes for double voting. See:
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/111100/met_4586641.html
for details. That ballot had the candidates split across two pages
and people voted on both pages. It happens. Hindsight is 20/20.
Still no foul. Bush probably lost as many votes in the panhandle and
in Duval County as Gore lost in Palm Beach County.
JMS, I've seen how you approach an issue when you give both sides the
benefit of the doubt that they have good intentions and how you
approach an issue when you treat one side as a caricature and the
other side as a saint.
When you do the former, your writing is strong and compelling. When
you do the latter, your writing is weak and preachy. You can usually
pull off the former but I've seen the latter crop up in both B-5 and
Rising Stars. When one side is simply evil and the other side beyond
reproach, you've left the real world and entered Joe's Fantasyland of
black and white. You are doing that here, as well.
Personally, I'll take one _Passing Through Gethsemane_ over a hundred
episodes like _By Any Means Necessary_ any day. And I think that all
of the weakness of the latter lies not in the subject matter or
situation but in the fact that the bad guys are straw men placed
conveniently in the way of the good guys so they can be knocked down.
John Morrow
JBONETATI
episodes like _By Any Means Necessary_ any day. And I think that all
of the weakness of the latter lies not in the subject matter or
situation but in the fact that the bad guys are straw men placed
conveniently in the way of the good guys so they can be knocked down.
John Morrow>>
The way you write the above you seem to be under the impression that JMS wrote
"By any Means Necessary". He didn't. Kathryn Drennan did and I don't think
you can hold JMS responsible for the writing of his Significant Other (I refuse
to say Spousal Overunit <g>)
Jan
Scott Johnson
: jms...@aol.com (Jms at B5) writes:
: >1) If the ballot in this county led to 15,000 votes being tossed out, does that
: >not suggest something's wrong with the ballot?
:
: Yes, it does. That is why the ballot was redesigned. The Democrat who
: redesigned the ballot used the "butterfly" configuration because it allowed
: her to make the type for the candidates names larger and, in theory, easier
: to read. The intent was good. The execution was bad. Hindsight is 20/20.
: No foul.
It has been quoted numerous times that the ballot was redesigned so they
could use bigger type. I can't imagine that had anything to do with most
of the 15,000 invalid ballots from the previous election.
John Jasen
> What I love is the latest regarding the 19,000 ballots thrown out in a
> primarily Democratic county. The republicans defend it by saying that it's
> nothing new, they threw out 15,000 votes in '96 from that same county.
>
> Pardon me, but...this by them is a defense?
I don't know, why don't you ask the DEMOCRATS who run the board of
elections in West Palm Beach?
> 2) Shouldn't the voting public in that county have been *informed* that 15,000
> votes of theirs had been tossed out? Shouldn't they have been notified about
> this before *right now*?
See above.
> 3) It was wrong before. It should have been corrected before now. That it was
> wrong then, doesn't make it right now.
>
> Or was it simply more convenient and politically expeditious not to tell the
> citizens of this county that 15,000 of their votes were going in the ashcan on
> a regular basis?
See above.
--
-- John E. Jasen (jja...@umbc.edu)
-- Some elections you just can't buy. For others, there's GORE 2000