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To: cheryl williamson who wrote (37839)	11/15/2000 8:24:46 PM
From: chitral	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 64865

Cheryl I have used punch cards to run programs and tabulate data. All too often I would have to rerun the cards over and over again to get it to run right, be it bad punch cards (chits missed punched or cards that were misshaped) or a bad machine (broken light, alignment errors, or trying to pull two cards at once). The limitation of the machine IS an accuracy problem. Putting too much faith in a machine is courting disaster. In my view, a hand count is necessary for verification purposes, especially when the the difference between the two counts is far smaller than the normal plus/minus error of the machine. As for intent, it should not be the job of the machine or the hand-counter to decide intent. And to Florida Law, I don't know what it really says...I have seen only interpretations of it from both sides. And in any case laws are forever being rewritten and reinterpreted, even the constitution. If they weren't we wouldn't need a court system. Chitral

To: cheryl williamson who wrote (37839)	11/16/2000 5:51:43 AM
From: JDN	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 64865

Dear Cheryl: At the VERY LEAST IMHO if another recount is necessary they should BATCH PROCESS the cards. Take a bunch (100 1000 whatever) inspect them for hanging chads, if the chads are loose shake them off, then run them through the machines one batch at a time. At the end, compare the totals to the total cards processed to make sure ALL VOTES ARE COUNTED and record the vote. Its INSANITY to expect HUMANS (see my earlier post as to which humans will be doing all this) to accurately over 5 DAYS to count and count and not make errors intentionally or not. JDN

To: cheryl williamson who wrote (37839)	11/16/2000 10:11:50 PM
From: Dan B.	Respond to of 64865

OTOTTO cheryl, Hey, JDN too, first, JDN had an excellent idea in removing the loose chads, and sending the ballots through the machines. This would kick out dimpled ones, however. I could say someone stuck the stylus next to a candidate and decided not to push through for him/her. This may even be likley when considering the undecided folks standing there voting, but this argument may not be worth waging even if it's quite plausible. Best, is just to recognize that handcounting these things DOES recover votes, and like it or not, if the oversight is/was proper at all times, it's going to be fairly fairly done. Best, is to consider that you can't rightly call such a vote recovery method fair when it is employed to the benefit of only one candidate, where the other candidate could benefit if the same method were employed on all state ballots. The Federal courts won't allow it, you can bet I'd say, and the American People can and will understand this. My Guess now is, the Federal courts will give the State the task of deciding whether the hand-count goes statewide, or the vote goes in to Congress as it is. Dan B