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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (39422)	11/10/2000 10:56:36 AM
From: Bill Shepherd	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

OT During all this flap about the format of the ballot, and whether Gore votes were mistakenly made for Buchanan, the debate seems lopsided... I will concede that it is conceivable that a voter intended to vote for Gore, but punched the wrong "hole" on the ballot. HOWEVER, it is equally conceivable that a voter might have intended to vote for Bush, but similarly punched the Buchanan "hole" -- given that the Buchanan hole was exactly in the middle of the two. Nobody has yet proven any form of voter fraud...only possible voter errors, and in this close of a race, I bet that the errors are equally spread between Gore and Bush. I think this whole episode is reflective of a major difference between the two parties. The dems expect the government to hold their hand through everything, and protect them from any form of mistake or studip act--apparently even "post-election-my-guy-didnt-win-so-I-deserve-a-second-chance" problems. Oblig. AMAT thought: Tito, I hope that once the distraction of the election is over, those staircase workers begin their construction in earnest! Regards, Bill Shepherd

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (39422)	11/10/2000 11:51:47 AM
From: Math Junkie	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

"My sister cut out a copy of the exact butterfly ballot from her newspaper in KY and asked my niece(who is 7) to choose Al Gore. She did it in 6 seconds. And her vision is far from perfect- she wears glasses." I looked at the reproduction of the ballot, and I didn't find it confusing either. But I am hearing allegations that there were physical ballots where the "holes didn't line up". I'm not sure what they're referring to, unless they're saying that the holes in the ballot card were misaligned with the holes in the device that you insert it into. So looking at a reproduction may not be sufficient to decide the issue. "Al Gore said he would respect the constitution; he is not doing that. Instead, he is attempting to steal this election using litigation." I'm hearing a lot of allegations of activities that would disenfranchise people. Things like, when people asked poll workers for help with the alleged ballot problems, they were not helped. Some voters have alleged that when they told poll workers that they had mistakenly marked two names, the poll workers just said "That's OK," and put the ballot in the ballot box anyway. There are also stories of people being prevented from voting altogether. There is a story of a substantial group of college students being told, when they went to their usual polling place, that it had been changed, and then when they went to where they were told to go, they were told that they were not registered to vote there. There are stories of blacks being prevented from voting. Is there anything to these stories, or all they all just "sour grapes"? Darned if I know. But the Constitution provides us with a means for such claims to be carefully and impartially considered in court, and rather than just sweeping it all under the rug, it would be better to allow that process to reach its logical conclusion. Otherwise, we would be no better than Serbia under Milosevicz. "BTW, the Dems have proven much more adept at using litigation IMO to arrive at their desired outcome, whatever it may be." I don't know who is "more adept" at using litigation to achieve their political ends, but the Republicans certainly showed plenty of willingness to try in the last couple of years. I see no reason for saying that one party is worse than the other in that regard.