What if, the voter started to vote, then pulled back, deciding NOT to vote for any candidate? This may well be the intent. It is hard to not conceive this outcome, since the two are so evenly matched. I often considered only voting for the local fellows....Intent and action are often 2 very different things....hence the problem of manipulation of these votes
Couldn't agree more. But this is the problem. The voting machines used seem to be accurate to approximately two nines (I'm no expert here and it would be VERY interesting to hear rudedog give his opinion) or about ~.9958.
That means that if the entire vote of Florida is recounted there should be about ~38 votes more for Bush.
Your concerns about "mischief" in the count is well understood, but it appears that the Election Committee in Palm Beach was very straight forward. The recount disclosed no surprises no mass conspiracy to disenfranchise anyone.
Florida law provides a procedure, Amy J was kind enough to provide a linc right to the statutes, to reasonably eyeball the physical ballot. And it looks like they took their duty very seriously. There is even a provision to review the initial eyeball. And I would assume that if part of the ballot is dimpled and part is punched that it would be resonable to presume that dimples haven't been counted. But one thing is evident from the sample physical test, the ballots seem to be statistically screwed up, ie there are just as many dimples for each candidate that there should be. But I am guessing, THEY WILL NOT COUNT the dimples, and you are right, they should not. But they are authorized under Florida law to discern the intent of the voter.
BUT, there is a cuter problem. PB must certify by Tuesday afternoon or the vote from the entire county may not be counted. That would of course give bush about a 100k lead.
What I am hoping will come out of this is that the market will realize that this is business as usual. IF that is the case, I think Florida law will have held up well under a very severe test, I think Clinton will speak to this on Monday, and then the Naz can go up 4 or 500 points. |
