>> But 94% are against Gore getting these four counties in alone.
>>Gore, as is well known, has sought exactly that and suggested it would give him a fair victory, all along.<<
I think your 94% is probably a great exaggeration, since that reaction seems irrational. Gore got recounts in those four counties by making a timely request for such a recount, as the Republicans had the right to do as well.
The Republican cries of "selective recount" seem to me to have two complete answers:
(1) The Bush forces had an unimpeded opportunity to request whatever recounts they wanted by the 72-hour deadline Friday night after the election, but they didn't -- undoubtedly they made the tactical decision that Friday that they'd rather bash at the Gore recount efforts than have ballots recounted in whatever counties might be more favorable to Bush. Shouldn't they be expected to live with their tactical decisions like most adults have to? My sense is that the adults on the Florida Supreme Court take about this attitude to the "selective recount" argument.
(2) In any event, Gore's offer last week to agree to a statewide recount robs the "selective-recount" whine of any force it otherwise had.
Is there any principled argument as to why these aren't complete answers?
>> "Altho the public thinks Bush is handling it better they seem to support Gore's position on manual counting by a large margin [60% to 37% ]"
>>That would refer to statewide counting. <<
The public's favoring manual recounts (statewide or otherwise) is based, I think, on pretty straightforward reasoning:
(1) the punchcard ballot system is cheap to buy and to run, and quick to count - you feed the ballots through the machine and it gives you a count for the various races in time to get the results on the 11:00 o'clock news, so we can understand why election officials bought a lot of them and haven't replaced them with better, more expensive technology;
(2) the punchcard system isn't terribly accurate - error rates up to 4% on some estimates, but surely at least 1/2 to 1% -- no problem if the election goes 55-45, but unacceptable as a final result in a near tie, like Florida (on 6 million votes, a 1% error rate is 60,000 votes, more than 60 times the current "official" margin for Bush);
(3) you therefore need to go on to a more accurate count, and you get that by looking at the individual ballots in a hand recount, which people understand is pretty routine, and more accurate, at least when conducted in public as is being done under Florida law. |
