Well, Jim,
It looks like Bush is our next president. I wish I had read your post before I spent 45 minutes hunting up the Palm Beach statistics.
Your right, the voting machines roughly speaking have a reliability of approximately .9973. The commission in palm beach ordered a manual count because, in the words of the statute, the 'outcome of the vote' may be effected. The Florida law on elections is surprisingly detailed on these points.
But the only way that the Palm Beach Vote Tally will effect the 'outcome' is that it would be the only county, or less than all counties, hand counted. So logically, the only way to legally determine the "outcome" is to hand count all the ballots. Which in statistical theory, if Bush now has a 951 vote lead would increase his lead to ~983.
There is no fraud, there is not even a little hankie-pankie, which is the object of the electoral laws of the State of Florida. I think a court if asked to would order a recount of the entire state based on the above reasoning.
Or in technical language, I guess those little nubbies or what ever they are called eventually fall out about equally no matter which candidate.
There is what, a .0037(?) possibility that a different result will be obtained by a hand count.
And in a completely unrelated event, Disney has announced that Epcot Center has opened a new park, Lawyerland. |
