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To: Windseye who wrote (86930)	11/17/2000 10:46:40 AM
From: Night Writer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 97611

AP Top News at 10:10 a.m. EST Friday, Nov. 17, 2000 Nov 17, 2000 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- Judge: Fla. Can Reject Late Votes TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - A Florida judge said today the state does not have to accept hand counted presidential votes tallied after the deadline imposed by a Republican election official. Al Gore hopes the ongoing counts will turn up enough votes to overturn George W. Bush's 300-vote lead in Florida. Gore was expected to appeal. Palm Beach Officials Resume Hand Recount WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - Election workers today resumed the process of hand counting 462,350 ballots as requested by Al Gore's campaign. Palm Beach County has been at the center of the election dispute in part because critics said the design of its punch ballot was confusing. A hearing is scheduled for later Friday in Palm Beach Circuit Court on the issue of the ballot and the legality of a revote. Circuit Judge Jorge Labarga said he wanted to hear constitutional arguments about whether a second vote could even be a legal option. Bush has a 300-vote lead over Gore in Florida.

To: Windseye who wrote (86930)	11/17/2000 10:50:40 AM
From: Night Writer	Respond to of 97611

Consult the DOW and COMPX intraday charts at 10:07 for the latest poll results. NW

To: Windseye who wrote (86930)	11/17/2000 10:52:37 AM
From: Night Writer	Respond to of 97611

US Equities: Higher following Florida judge's ruling Nov. 17-MAR-- By Rebecca Byrne, BridgeNews New York--Nov. 17--U.S. stocks were higher Friday following a ruling by a Florida judge that the state does not have to accept hand-counted presidential votes tallied after the deadline. Telecom issues were lower after BellSouth (BLS) issued a profit warning after the bell Thursday. Negative analyst comments on Nortel Networks (NT) also pressured stocks in early trade.

To: Windseye who wrote (86930)	11/17/2000 10:58:06 AM
From: MeDroogies	Respond to of 97611

Nobody is asserting this. It's just a simple fact. Use something that's perforated and after playing with it for a while, you'll see how stuff falls out. The ONLY person I saw mentioning that hand counts cause chads to fall out were members of the Broward County Board of Canvassers on CSpan last night. As they played with one, a chad fell out. It wasn't a chad for the presidential candidate, but it WAS a chad. The lead member of the board pointed out that (when a cameraman showed all the chads that had fallen on the floor) many of those were unlikely to have come from the presidential voting...though SOME likely would have. It was a rather amusing little piece, in that it was live and the members of the board of canvassers were just starting their recount efforts. One thing I forgot to mention is that one of the PRIMARY reasons that the MACHINE MANUFACTURERS (so we are all aware of who is saying this) are saying for not counting votes IS falling chad in the machines themselves. Not that the machines are knocking it out (although always a possibility), but that hanging chad gets ripped off and stuck in the machines. Sort've the old "bug in the system" problem. The accuracy of the machine count, you can find on the New York Times site. Manufacturers all discuss the accuracy levels of their machines. In extreme cases, they have been known to get as low as 96% accuracy. However, by and large, the 99 to 99.99% is the industry accepted average. I agree with your point about the basis of the request for the count in Dade and Broward....and noted it in my prior response, that based on these percentages, it's possible that 34,500 to 345 votes statewide (Dade and Broward being among the larger counties, so representing a larger % of these two numbers) were not counted. Even so, IF only the votes in these 4 counties are hand counted and reverse the vote...it speaks volumes about what could be true in other counties. Therefore, a statewide recount should be mandated. In this election, it is doubtful ANY polling was accurate due to several factors. 1. While the size of the audience was considered statiscally relevant, there are questions about whether the polls were actually random. Seems that most of the responses came from people reached during the day (I am citing an article from The Economist, 3 weeks ago), which tend to be stay at home moms (typically Dems) and non-workers (again, heavily Dem). 2. The closeness of the polls, in most cases, was well within the standard margin of error (3%). Therefore, it isn't likely to tell you much of anything. 3. The VNS, an exit poll, has an excellent record, but has made some highly visible bad calls in Florida. I couldn't tell you why. That isn't to say they are consistently wrong, because they still manage to get the vast majority correct. However, they did call Florida for Clinton 8 years ago (incorrectly) and they didn't call it for Connie Mack, either (incorrectly).

To: Windseye who wrote (86930)	11/17/2000 4:23:37 PM
From: Richard Habib	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 97611

Let's talk about falling chads. Using reasonableness, what chads do you think would fall out - those fully attached or those already hanging. The criteria the counties are using to judge overvotes is uniformly that a chad already hanging is a vote. Thus chads falling out in the vast majority of the cases or perhaps in all cases wouldn't change tallies. The media with typical ignorance of tech issues & lack of common sense are unable to point this out. Error rates. MeDroogies quotes punch machine error rates in NY Times article from machine manufacturers. In a normal situation rates may result in anywhere from 99.99 to 99.75%. All of those error rates would impact the election but the crux is PB. In PB the situation is not normal. PB has a large statistical anomaly. The media is again having trouble pointing this out - in PB undervotes & overvotes is running about 27-29K r 6.7% of the vote. This is double normal rates and despite what MeDroogies believes is a large anomaly. The reasons for the anomaly are unimportant. What does matter is that under these cirumstances the machine will have much larger than normal error rates. I have no doubt that PB alone will yield additional votes numbered in the low 1000's. Because this error is the result of the specific overvote situation these votes will tend toward Gore. Hand count errors range in the neighborhood of 1 in 10,000 or 99.99% accuracy. This comes from the manufacturers of the machines who consistently state that hand count is the most accurate method of tabulating votes and that in an election at the limits of the machine reliability a hand count is the appropriate remedy. Moreover, the idea that hand count errors will tend toward one candidate or another is incorrect. Each 1 in 10,000 mistake has to be looked at in isolation. Elementary probability would indicate that each mistake will tend toward a specific candidate according to the odds 1 in however many candidates there are on the card, say 1 in 5 or 6. Thus the combined errors will be random and will not affect any one tally any more than another. Rich