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Politics : Why is Gore Trying to Steal the Presidency? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Carolyn who wrote (1286)	11/19/2000 9:05:17 PM
From: Ellen	Respond to of 3887

If you knew for certain - had facts - that would be more helpful I think. However, with each county having their own standards that doesn't lend itself to a comfortable sense of uniformity across the counties. Each county can only follow their own standards. No matter how hard these people try to do - or do - their best, no one will be completely satisfied I fear. I believe that is part of the confusion over standards - the fact that the individual counties have their own standards. dailynews.yahoo.com Sunday November 19 6:51 PM ET Miami-Dade Sorts Ballots By Machine By RACHEL LA CORTE, Associated Press Writer MIAMI (AP) - Miami-Dade County used machines Sunday to begin sorting 654,000 punch-card ballots, separating those with clear punch holes from ballots in question. The process, using the same machines that counted ballots after the Nov. 7 presidential election, was intended to reduce the amount of time needed for the full hand recount that begins Monday. The machines culled undervotes - when a ballot contains no vote for a candidate in a particular race or when no vote could be detected - from 502 of the 614 precincts. Officials wanted the ballot sorting so counters don't have to use their discretion to determine whether a questionable vote should be counted. Canvassing board members want to be the only ones judging questionable ballots. The county had about 10,750 undervotes. Officials planned to start the hand count and the remainder of the sorting at 8 a.m. Monday. ``It's going fairly well. I think it will save a great deal of time over the next couple of weeks,'' elections supervisor David Leahy said. He said he hopes the counting will be complete by Dec. 1. After a worker loads a stack of ballots, Leahy said the machine stops at each ballot without a presidential pick. The card is then removed and set aside, and the process resumes. On average, a machine is stopping after every 61 ballots. Moments before the sorting was to begin, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Margarita Esquiroz rejected the request by backers of Texas Gov. George W. Bush (news - web sites) to stop the process. They argued that the machines could degrade or compromise the ballots. Rep. John Sweeney, R-N.Y., observed the start of the sorting and was not pleased. ``Our observers are counting hundreds of new chads, loose or falling,'' he said. ``This is more than foolhardy. It is reckless.'' Leahy said no chads were falling that shouldn't be falling. ``If any chads are falling off then they are hanging chads and are clearly votes already,'' he said. ``If a chad falls off, it doesn't make it any more or less a vote. It's a vote already.'' Still, Republicans say they were troubled by what they saw. ``At the very least if there's going to be another recount, there needs to be clear guidelines,'' Rep. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, said before the sorting began. ``It's simply not fair. The eyes of the world are on Florida and Miami-Dade County, and they don't like what they see.'' Bob Mulholland, campaign adviser for the California Democratic Party, said the Republicans have one agenda: ``Pray and lie.'' ``Whatever they file, whatever they say, translates to delay,'' said Mulholland, who came to South Florida after serving as a monitor at the manual recount in Volusia County. Miami-Dade County spokesman Mayco Villafana said the board has not set any standards for what will be done with the undervote ballots. He said members will decide on a ballot-by-ballot case whether to consider using duplicates - a plan Republicans oppose. Sweeney said making a duplicate calls into question the integrity of the ballot. ``They're creating a new ballot,'' he said. ``That's an outrage.''