What thousands of votes? Everyone who went to the poll had an opportunity to vote. Over 95% of them had absolutely no problem at all in handling the difficult task of pushing a pin in a card for their candidate. The other 5% (in an absolute worst case scenario) did not follow the rules set forth by the Democrat officials.
On the other hand, the rules for absentee ballots were so difficult to meet, nearly 75% of them failed to properly accomplish the task. Now, you tell me, which procedure is apt to be more difficult to accomplish and prevent citizens the right to vote? The one in which hundreds of thousands of people accomplished the task at 95% accuracy. Or the one in which 75% of a couple of hundred people failed to understand?
Further, in the case of the 95% accurate voters, we are now jumping through every hoop in the circus in an attempt to ascertain the 'intent of the voter', by using completely subjective measurements which grossly favor one candidate.
If the state of Florida voted 49% for Bush and 49% for Gore, the subjective measurement system should mirror the will of the majority of Floridians. Otherwise, the process is a ruse which subverts the will of the majority. At the very least, these subjective measurements results should mirror the specific county results.
Counting only Democratically controlled precincts over and over until we invent enough 'intents of voters', is nothing less than fraud, which is an extremely dangerous precedent to set in a Republic founded on the principles of Democracy, liberty, justice and fairness.
Regarding the military vs civilian overseas absentee ballots. It's really quite simple. If the rules are going to be strictly enforced regarding military ballots, then the same rules should be strictly enforced regarding punch card ballots. Those rules clearly stated it was the responsibility of the voter to remove all chad material after punching the hole.
If the rules regarding punch card ballots are NOT going to be enforced, and we are going to jump through glass to invent new standards in order to do everything we can to ascertain the 'intent of the voter'. Then that same principle should apply to EVERY absentee overseas ballot. Each one should be gone through as painstakenly as the Broward votes have been gone through, in order to ascertain the 'intent of the voter'.
If Gore and company do not agree with this fairness doctrine. Then at the very least, the military ballots which have been thrown out simply because they were missing post marks, or some other minor arbitrary requirement, (which I have no idea of what it might be here), should be investigated by the precincts and written evidence should be accepted from the parent commands which the ballots came from.
If a Commanding Officer of some Destroyer cruising along the Straits of Hurmuz provides written evidence that the mail was sent before the deadline. That should be good enough for the state of Florida. After all, every Naval Officer over the rank of LCDR is automatically given official Notary status in the United States because of long standing tradition they are trustworthy honest individuals. |
