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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (79736)	11/17/2000 8:59:35 PM
From: Johannes Pilch	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Well I think there was quite a great deal of finality to be gotten. Again, limiting the recount to ballots with hanging chads as well as fully punched ballots is most reasonable, and I can hardly imagine anyone effectively arguing that hanging chads cannot reasonably be considered real votes. Had Bush aimed to accommodate such a manual recount, I think the matter would be well on its way to true finality. A recount does not have to be as “arbitrary” and “subjective” as GOP supporters aim to make it appear. Moreover, I think Bush would have won despite a reasonable recount, and the Dems would not have the political leverage they will have should Bush take the helm after having blocked a recount in court. I certainly understand attempting to block counting non-punched chads as votes, and as I have said I am dismayed the Dems would even attempt such a thing, let alone succeed at it. But the GOP wants to forbid the manual recount entirely, failing to consider and even denying the ability of human reason to in part mitigate likely flaws in the overall ballot system. This sort of thing likely will be used to assault Bush’s administration should Bush succeed. Bush will not have a pretty victory as it is. One would think he would want a victory that does not on the surface appear due to a strategy that depended upon halting a reasonable manual recount. We've gone around on this quite enough. I am concerned that certain sectors of people in Florida are being made to pay for flaws in a system that have naturally resulted of an inconsistent interface between people and technology. I think the key punch system is flawed and can be greatly improved. I see a manual recount as a reasonable attempt to mitigate the flaw in this instance. You and the GOP think otherwise. I certainly think you make great points, but I yet think it makes good sense to try augmenting the capability of the ballot machines with human faculties in this case.