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To: pat mudge who wrote (14184)	11/13/2000 8:09:51 AM
From: SJS	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24042

Pat, As illogical as it sounds, there is no such thing as an honest total. You are plumbing into the depths of statistiscal improbability with this election. Not in my wildest dreams could I have ever believed this election would ride on 1 state, 1 district, and 200 votes out of millions. Challenging the concept of "punch through" and partial punch through to determine the presidency? Too much ambiguity. Therefore, the true count will forever remain in the realm of undefined........forever. Why? Because the rules of this count need concensus definition. Every ballot needs intrepretation based on those rules. It can take years to define the rules of EVERY POSSIBLE permutation of ballot punches. And then......statistically, there will be those that fall outside those rules. Forever spiralling in down....down......down. Then defining new rules to solve those problems requires you go back and recount again, to see if any marginal decisions were the wrong ones. Even with intrepretation, there will statistically be some ballots that will be argued about forever. Reminds me of the particle-wave duality problem, or the problem Erwin Shrodinger had with his cat. LOL Steve

To: pat mudge who wrote (14184)	11/13/2000 10:18:49 AM
From: Gerald Walls	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 24042

Don't misunderstand me. I want Gore to challenge every vote ever cast in Florida. I want him to recount them 20 times if that's what it takes to get an honest total. Come on. We're all big boys and girls here. Let's get past the PR and the rhetoric. I hope no one here is naive enough to swallow the "stuff" coming from either party at this time. Neither of these candidates is looking to determine "the will of the people" or to determine "an honest total" at this point. The truth of the matter is we have one candidate that has apparently won the election by an extremely small margin and another who has lost. Both candidates appear to believe that the margin is small enough that with the proper stirring the results might change. The winner wants to keep the current vote totals and has everything to lose if they change. The loser has no real idea if he should have won but has nothing to lose and everything to gain if the totals change. After all, the worst thing that can happen to the loser is that he loses by a bigger margin. This is now about getting vote totals to come out with a desired result. Everything else, the calls to determine "the will of the people," the protests of humans being less accurate than machines, the stories about the cross-eyed droolers in Palm Beach County, Jesse Jackson, etc, is Public Relations and theatrics. Nothing more. I agree with your assessment of the two camps and Bush's arrogance in crowning himself before the votes are in. His decision to get a court order to block a hand-count is another major error. Bush is using the tactic of declaring himself so sure that he is the proper winner that he feels he should proceed with the transition. He has to at this point because if he says that he may not be then he has handed Gore the ability to ask for anything he wants and Bush couldn't really complain. Bush's real mistake was not calling for a state-wide manual recount when Gore called for his extremely selective Democrat-intensive recount, believing, I guess, that these evil punch card ballots worked perfectly everywhere else in the state except Democratic strongholds. Even though it is past the 72-hour deadline to call for a manual recount (and hats off to the slick Gore team to wait long enough to call for it that the Bush team didn't have time to react), if (when) the Bush team loses their court case they should file another in state court to argue that since a manual recount is being done in a specific few areas that the only fair thing to do in a race of this importance is to grant an exception and manually recount the entire state. The court may agree since the entire Palm Beach County is now being manually recounted when the Gore team didn't request that. How can Gore object since he believes this is more accurate and he really, really wants to determine "the will of the people?" Wouldn't it be funny, though, if a glitch occurred and the recount didn't finish in time and the Palm Beach County results were thrown out?

To: pat mudge who wrote (14184)	11/13/2000 10:47:06 AM
From: Liatris Spicata	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24042

pat-OT- And while we're at at, we ought to have a good look at the kind of shenangins the Democrats have been perpetrating for years, with precious little reaction. This year in Milwaukee, one precinct (heavily Democrat, and significant recipient of the welfare state) was routinely handing out two ballots to each voter. They did this with posters for Gore/Lieberman smiling down on the voters. Good clean fun, I'm sure. I hope the Republicans stop accepting this kind of crap that the sleazebag Democrats have been perpetrating for years. To say nothing of ensuring that the institutionalized mentally retarded are "ensured their constitutional right to vote" (and given "appropriate" instructions). Here is something from Willian Bennett (FYI, I'm no fan of the neo-Nazi narco-cop) that speaks more eloquently than I can. But nothing mentioned about your novel interpretation of why Nixon declined to press for a recount in Illinois and Texan in 1960. <<Our democracy depends on people abiding by certain unwritten rules. One of them has been that presidential candidates who lose an election do not contest the loss unless there is evidence of massive fraud and abuse (which is clearly not the case in this election). If those unwritten rules are violated, it sets in motion events that could precipitate an authentic political crisis. If the Gore campaign continues down this road, it will establish precedents. Do we really want to get into the habit of contesting every state that is decided by a razor-thin margin? Do we want to arrive at a point where, in a close campaign, the losing candidate reverts to challenge after challenge? Is it healthy for our nation to endlessly search for voter grievances? Do we want to make it a commonplace practice for losing candidates to resort to manual recounts of counties that are favorable to them? Is it a good idea to force winning candidates to take actions they would rather not, so they can preserve their victories? There would be no end point to such challenges. Regrettably, and recklessly, during the past 100 hours the Gore campaign has begun to poison the wellspring of American democracy. We are beginning to see the early consequences: street demonstrations, protests, increasing acrimony and bitterness. Things will only get worse, far worse, if they prolong this ordeal. To use a favorite Gore campaign phrase, "You ain't seen nothing yet." Forty years ago, Richard Nixon had a far more compelling reason than Mr. Gore to challenge the 1960 election results, since we know fraud in Chicago and Texas helped swing the election to John Kennedy. But Nixon refused to challenge the results; the morning after the election he conceded. Nixon has been universally praised -- including by many liberals and Democrats -- for his gesture. He put his nation above his own ambitions. The same can be said of Missouri Sen. John Ashcroft, who last week graciously conceded defeat rather than pursue a court challenge after losing to a deceased candidate. But Mr. Gore has chosen a different path. Every day, it seems, he and his lieutenants pull a new trick out of their bag, challenge settled practices, and issue irresponsible threats and baseless accusations. The end game is clear: to throw sand in the machinery of democracy and destabilize American presidential politics.>> Funny how the butterfly ballot was considered totally a non-issue for years until it produced the "wrong results". But now the hive demands a re-vote. Larry

To: pat mudge who wrote (14184)	11/13/2000 11:21:38 AM
From: Dennis J Baltz	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 24042

Pat I don't think you understand that Gore has already stolen the election with the hand recount of only the 4 Democratic counties. It's over. Gore is going to win the election with his lawyers. It's a done deal. I voted for Bush but this hand recount in 4 counties will guarantee enough uncounted votes discovered for Gore to put him over the top. I feel they should either hand count all counties or none at all. That would be the only fair way of doing it. Everyone would be treated the same. All the counties in Florida had thousands of discarded votes but we're only going to recount and examine the votes in the 4 largest Democratic counties. It's a done deal. The fix is in. Dennis