Ben -
I would, too, except the errors were not uniform. Without all the problems -- jammed chad causing dimpled ballots predominately in Democratic strongholds, the butterfly ballot, understaffed precincts in minority neighborhoods, GOP personally completing absentee ballots and turning them in (how thoughtful!), driver's license registrations of minorities that "disappeared", Gore would have won by 20-30 thousand votes.
If you ever happened to listen to anything except Democratic agitprop, you would realize how ridiculous this all sounds. Jammed chad machines were an urban myth, with no evidence ever produced, a lawyer's fantasy, rejected by the court. If anyone ever expected any state's motor vehicle department to accurately maintain a database of voter registrations, or any part thereof, they expected what can never be.
If you ever thought about it, why did no Democrats ever request to be allowed to complete their mass-mailed absentee ballot request forms when they were returned incomplete? Do you think their potential voters produced picture perfect complete forms? Actually there are two answers. First, the Democratic request forms did not contain a systematic error producing an incomplete result as did the Republican omission of the voter ID line. Secondly, contrary to state voting division preferences, the Democratic forms were to be returned to the Democratic campaign headquarters itself, rather than directly to the county election office. Thus, either all the forms were received in perfect, complete condition, or the Democrats also made or caused fixes to be made, without leaving external evidence of doing so, and then passing the completed forms on to the county election office. In other words, the Democrats were fully capable of doing exactly what they accused the Republicans of doing, and much, much more besides, without leaving any tracks.
How anyone, after seeing this election, could consider getting rid of the electoral college, is beyond all understanding. Instead of 67 counties and their thousands of precincts in Florida, every precinct in America would, of necessity, be involved in any abnormality affecting a national popular vote. This is ignoring the fact that the electoral college is effectively an integral part of the overall design of the Republic of the United States.
...What really surprises me is that the entire state wasn't upgraded at once. My dad said he heard Doris Kearns Goodwin refer to this as a systematic disenfranchisement of minority voters. You know, I believe she hit the nail right on the head. Hopefully, that will be eliminated within two years, but I suspect it is going to take a lot of people getting voted out in two years before any action is taken....
The counties claimed that they did not want to spend the money. More likely, they preferred the opportunities for vote tampering that the punch cards provided.
Regards, Don |
