Actually, it's very common for elections to be contested and for the results to be adjusted as the result of a review process. Usually, though, this involves throwing out ballots that are invalidated for some reason. I'm not certain what kind of precedents there are, if any, for re-votes in the event of faulty ballots, voting machines, etc.
This is definitely the U.S. strangest election I've seen in my lifetime, and I expect it'll stay that way for the rest of my days on God's green earth.
For what it's worth, I think it's atrocious that the media "called" Fla for Gore before the polls closed in the western panhandle. In fact, I think it's terrible that the media cover the elections at all until the polls throughout the nation (even Alaska) are closed. Several times in the coverage yesterday, various talking heads were informally "giving" states to Bush or Gore hours and hours before the polls had closed. It was an abomination -- clear cases of the media and the political spinmeisters trying to shape election results while the polling was still in progress.
Also FWIW: the situation in St Louis sounds troubling, too, although I haven't yet looked at it very closely because it didn't have a bearing on the presidential election. I can sympathize with the election officials who wanted to keep those polls open to accommodate their overflow; but when the appellate court ordered those polls closed, they should have been closed. |
