As a former official of the Michigan Department of State, which oversees elections in Michigan, I have several misgivings about not only the conduct of the Florida voting but also the effort to cut off all recounts arbitrarily. Unlike other voting systems, including the old fashioned mechanical voting machine, the punch card ballot used in Palm Beach County contained no safety feature that would prevent voting for two candidates for a single position. A mechanical interlock has been standard on old fashioned voting machines for at least 100 years.
I do not understand why Bush, who approved amendments to the Texas election laws in 1997 authorizing hand counts, now disapproves of hand counts in Florida.
I do not understand why a vote must be certified BEFORE even the absentee ballots have been counted fully. Is this a way to guarantee everyone a vote? Here in New York State, where I currently live, the Republicans challenged a state-wide election for Attorney General in 1998. The incumbent Republican was behind by more than 10,000 votes and got a court order impounding all the ballots. As the absentee votes began to be tallied, the margin became even greater, but still the Republican incumbent refused to concede. This went on for the better part of a month until finally he was told that if he conceded what was an obvious loss, he would not be prosecuted for alleged criminal misconduct while in office. Only then did he concede, thereby saving himself from prosecution and probably from being disbarred.
All things considered, the Republican attitude in the current matter seems pretty typical. |
