Joe,
re: Is it fair for Gore to cherry pick 4 Democratic counties with 4 Democratic canvassing boards, making up rules about dimples as they went, to decide the close elections? Please, answer this question.
No. But you neglect to mention that the Republicans had every opportunity to name other counties to recount. Or that, in the absence of their selection, our "out of control supreme court" decided that it was only fair to Bush to recount the undervotes in all counties.
Bush won. Why would he ask for a recount? It was up to Gore to ask for a fair count. He asked for an unfair recount. Gore's offer for a statewide recount came after the deadline set by the law.
Is it fair for the local boards to set the "dimple" standard? I think so. I would rather have it in their hands than in the hands of a larger partisan political body. Most states have the same laws that allow locals to set the standard. In PBC, they changed it several times, and finally settle on the most conservative approach, rather than the liberal approach they started with. Then they went back and recounted all the votes so the standard was consistent. If they had stayed with the liberal standard, Bush might be trying to overturn Gore's election at this point. Would you rather have had them not change their mind? Please answer my question.
You are completely wrong. PBC had a rule of no dimples since 1990. It was issued by Mrs. LaPore. That's how they started to count. Gore sued them to include dimples. Later on they settled on a somewhat more liberal approach, NOT the most conservative approach.
The running total was about even to slightly for Bush (surprisingly) before they changed to the "somewhat more liberal" approach. But to be fair, I don't find the new PBC standard to be unreasonable or outright unfair. The problem with it is that it was "new", decided on during the counting.
The Broward county was the one that was completely unreasonable and unfair.
Joe |
