Skeets, thanks for your reply. I think I lumped in those absentee ballots in one post but in another I mentioned that they clearly should have been counted. I also agree that a statewide recount, or at least the chad-precincts in their entirety -- should have been lumped together as a problem area for recounts. Gore did miss the boat there, and I agree, it is cherry picking and thus unfair. I don't think the scanner precincts needed to be hand-recounted as well, but I'd throw them in for sake of argument.
I do have a problem with the lack of standards for the recounts. Overall, I actually think that Gore would be doing a service to his party and the country by capitulation and saying, yeah, there were many screwups in Florida (and probably elsewhere in the US). This count is as accurate as is reasonable under the circumstances, and now every effort should be made to bring the entire US up to a reliable standard. If they can spend hundreds of millions of dollars getting elected, they can affort it! Many states have already upgraded, and many have partially upgraded.
--Ben |
