rich4:
Glad to have you here to debate the issues. It's been too one sided here for the past 24; welcome aboard.
First, to say that Bush supporters do not FAVOR democracy is start off here on the wrong foot. That's simply not true. I think ALL Americans cherish democracy, and our democracy can only preserved if the rules of law are upheld.
Recognize that there are rules that govern elections. This is something that Al Gore's Democratic campaign have clearly shown that they do not respect as evidenced last week by the early comments by his campaign manager the dis-honorable William Daley. He basically came into the State of Florida and said, and I paraphrase, "we don't care about the results, we are gonna be here and demand a recount of the vote until we win, and if necessary, we will go to court.
Now let's talk about the rule of law. If the Democrats had adhered to the rule of law that would first note that the election held on Nov. 7 was the complete and exclusive jurisdiction of the State of Florida, not the Democratic Party, not Warren Christopher and his team of lawyers. If the Democrats held any respect for the rule of law they would have kept their ugly butts out of Florida and let the Florida Election Code rule the day, that is, require a mandatory recount.
Instead, the Democrats blew into town, blew into Palm Beach, brought the Reverend and instigated hysteria about how the ballot was illegal, how voters were turned away at the polls. All bogus BS, and nothing but a PR attempt to gain favor with America's public. It hasn't worked.
. . . all you folks want to stop the vote sorting process in it's tracks because you like the outcome as it stands today.
This is simply not true. I, and I am willing to bet many others here support the first recount, and the reasonable of each board to conduct a one percent manual account when the CIRCUMSTANCES merited it. But I think what really got many people uneasy were the tactics the Democratic party was taking to instill their will, their desires into the process, and then witness the blatant subjectivity and selectivity available to an overly democratic makeup of the canvassing board. It soon came to a realization that such a process could not possibly be objective, and one where more important than process, was the goal, to find enough votes for Al Gore.
In short, what is taking place with a manual recount is NOT a simple RE-COUNT of the vote, but rather a FISHING EXPEDITION in search of votes for Al Gore. How can the American people trust such a process? How can such a process be representative of a democracy?
You, of course, would like to believe that the machine count was fraught with defects. It is true it is not a perfect system. What is IMPORTANT to consider before judging the integrity of the machine count is to compare its accuracy with the accuracies of other voting districts that use machine counting. By accuracy, I include the statistical history of rejecting unreadable ballots due to no holes punched or two holes punched where there should be only one. In short, in many counties throughout the county that use the hole-punch system like that in Palm Beach County typically rejects about 5 percent of the ballots submitted. While this is unfortunate, it is statistically common, and no basis to overturn a machine count result. Of course, you think otherwise. Why? 'Cuz Al Gore didn't win.
What you fail to understand, and appreciate, is that a manual count is not going to provide a more accurate account of the will of the people than the machine count because of the inherent bias of the officials who are responsible for interpreting the intent of the voter expressed by a chad, whether swinging, hanging, or even impregnated. There MUST BE rules to determine an read of hole-punched ballot, but there ARE NONE, yet the manual count continues. |
