Dave,
One more thing, Re: "Bush chose not to dispute votes himself where he thought the results were off. If he has, there could not have been a territorial advantage."
What's fundamentally wrong in this, though it appears somewhat fair on the surface, is that there is NO DOUBT hand-counting would recover votes in Bush territory too. That is, it's not a matter of if "he thought" results were off...the results ARE off, everywhere these machines are used, and the law MUST by all common rules of fairness demand all counties be counted, or not at all.
To bring this point up as Gore has, is to recognize that the ONLY fair way is to count ALL the ballots in all the counties where applicable.
Truly, had these machines and the votes they lose been considered completely, full state-wide hand-counting in a close state-wide race would have been written into the law like Gimme putts in Golf. It is not. Nor was a recognition of this problem within the laws as they exist at all, save if fraud and machine failure were indeed the only reasons allowed for these counts, under current law as Bush contended. In fact, there is at least one case where, the ruling came down that mere closeness is NOT ENOUGH to justify such counting...see Secretary Harris's brief to the FSC.
Dan B |
