Someone on this thread a long time ago stated that Gore should have requested hand counts in all of the counties which used the punch-card voting systems. In retrospect, this would have been a most ingenious and more balanced approach, aiming right to the heart of the matter: deficient voting machines.
But, remember, the whole nation was already disappointed it didn't have a winner after election day. So the pressure was on for an expedient resolution. Further, why count the whole state when the Legislature already had made provsions whereby recounts could occur in specified counties only?
The claim that Gore cherry-picked counties was, and still is, part of the Bush public relations campaign. Unfortunately for Gore, this sunk into the public's consciousness.
Anyway, under the circumstances, Gore, opted for the recount in Volusia County which mistakenly tallied the socialist candidate with 10,000 votes--so something was definitely wrong there; and the three largest counties where punch-card marchines were in use.
I suppose, at the time, Gore thought he'd simply get the recount since the kind of recount he requested was sanctioned under Florida law. But who would have known Florida's secretary of state would do her utmost to prevent Gore's recount from happening, particularly since the Legislature's statutes clearly noted he could have one?
Yes, looking at this retrospectively, there's lots of things Gore could have, perhaps should have, done. But I think you have to consider the environment under which he made his request.
If the secretary of state had used her discretion properly, and accepted the recount tallies up until the deadline for the military absentee ballots, time would have been sufficient to have enabled the recount within the existing Floridian statutes and the nation never would have seen this problem and the people of Florida would have, as accurately as possible, known who won their state's 25 electoral college votes.
And there couldn't have been that much of a problem with the way Floridians counted their votes, as they've been doing so in elections since statehood. The attack on the way Florida counted its votes was nothing less than a defensive ramification put forward by the Bush camaign in order to assure that recount results didn't reach the public domain.
Finally, I don't know if I can ever forgive Bush for preventing his opponent from having a recount, and ultimately prevailing in preventing votes which never were counted from being counted. Because this is what happened, I'll never consider his presidency legitimate. And, regardless of media pandering, I won't be alone in this opinion. I'm confident historians will enjoin my side of this argument. |
