RE: "What I am interested in is the decision to permit selective recounting"
The Judges only answer the question they are asked. That was not the question asked before the Judges. (Courts are weird this way).
The question before the Judges was: do they allow handcount as mandated under 5C (even though this conflicted with the "arbitrary" Tue deadline?)
RE: "given that it seems evident a hand recount consistently changes the result by a small margin in favor "
of the candidate w/ the lead in that county.
RE: "Apparently, because the margins are so small, you could get whichever result you wanted in Florida just be selecting which counties are recounted."
Yes
RE: "Therefore, to allow any recount which demonstrably favors one party is effectively rigging the election."
Yes, which is why my loyalty on this issue is first to accuracy:
Bush can (and should) file a request for a state-wide count. Even though the deadline has passed, I believe there is (in my own words) an equal-rights-between-votes statute that would override any deadline.
However, this may not be a good strategy for Bush to pursue because his Rep counties used (overall) better polling equipment that (I'm told) was more reliable, so Bush would not be expected to gain in Rep counties as much as it did Gore in Dem counties - so a statewide recount may not be expected to help Bush. Gore won in the exit polls, so this data gives more insight as to what the true results of a statewide manual recount could be. So, (from the standpoint of Rep Party) it's probably not worth the risk to lose in this way.
The most strategic thing to do (assuming a statewide manual recount wouldn't give him enough ballots to win), would be to not request a statewide manual recount, in order to leave an element of doubt in the mind's of American voters, so the country feels like they owe something to the Reps.
However, I think Bush would be doing a diservice to this country, if he does not file a request for a statewide manual recount today even though he may know in advance this won't gain him many ballots.
I'd like to see Bush file for a manual recount in the 3 most Rep counties.
And I'd like the real winner to win, whomever he may be. Since Gore won the exit polls, I suspect Gore is the true winner, especially since 15,000 ballots in PBC could have been Gore's votes. In fact, I believe this could be the real reason why the Dems are fighting this hard.
Amy J |
