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Strategies & Market Trends : Steve's Channelling Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Zeev Hed who wrote (8229)	11/27/2000 5:46:11 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 30051

Hi Zeev Hed; Re "If one is going to be nit-picking those voting wrongly for Buchanan, or those not pressing hard enough, one surely should be throwing out ballots that are, according to state law, illegal." It wasn't ballots that were illegal, it was that the ballot requests were missing some information. Consequently, there are no invalid ballots to throw out (at least for that reason). My guess is that the state was faced with having to mail back 4700 applications, and the Republicans simply saved the state (and the voters) the effort (and money) by filling in the information. That would explain why the state was glad to let the pubs have a desk to do the work at - it saved them the expense of having to deal with it themselves. -- Carl

To: Zeev Hed who wrote (8229)	11/27/2000 6:09:56 PM
From: SBHX	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 30051

ot.Zeev, If I understand it, the 4700 refered to absentee ballot applications with missing information. How many of those ballots actually were returned after the applicants receive them is also not known, as well as which of the absentee ballots actually sent back are from that 4700 group. I think people would like to thrown these 4700 out if they can, but the problem seems to be : 1. They don't know how many of those 4700 were returned. 2. They don't know which ones of the 11,000 that came back were from the 4,700. 3. If there is a valid remedy, it should be done, but trying to throw out all 11,000 seems rather drastic. Is this what happened, or am I mistaken? The problem IS over applications for absentee ballots right? It's not that some worker actually handled the actual ballots and filled in missing information. Is that right? If I understand the court case correctly, the intent is to disqualify all 11,000 absentee ballots that WERE returned since no one knows which is which... I know that once conviction sets in, it is very hard to consider other scenarios, but perhaps the real problem is that almost all the smaller states have basically gone to Bush, the almost all the larger more populous ones to Gore, and Florida, being in the middle, is just sort of pulled both ways. If indeed true that there is a valid reason why most of the problem votes are for Gore, then it is indeed a very strange world we live in. Perhaps being Canadian allows me to be cynical on both these guys more than anyone else down there. SbH

To: Zeev Hed who wrote (8229)	11/27/2000 6:45:11 PM
From: Logain Ablar	Respond to of 30051

Zeev: where Republican operatives filled part of the applications (ballots?) illegally? These were applications for absentee ballots, not the ballots themselves. Apparently the applications were missing a piece of voter information (I heard a registration # but am not sure what the missing data was) and the town clerk allowed this information to be entered in versus returning the applications back to the voters. With the completed data the absentee ballot was mailed to the registered voter(s). Not sure if it was cost or time constraints but it sounds like common sense to let someone fill in the data. Since it appears the data was accurate I'm not sure what the issue is. I do not think he is helping himself by questioning the process itself Let me ask you a few questions regarding the above comment. 1) Do you think its fair the officials in Brower can use their judgement to determine whether an impresion is a vote for Gore if the remaining holes were punched in for Democrats (at least CNN was showing this on Saturday when I watched)? 2) Considering the voters take the vote and submit it in a box (the machine punches the chad) and they are instructed to chech the ballot isn't it quite plausable they looked at the ballot and didn't want the chad punched out for Gore (after all 50% didn't want him)? Personally there are times I have not voted for a candidate while voting for others on the ticket so to me its reasonable to have people not vote for the President in this election. Especially in light of the weakness in both candidates. 3) As for the old guy working the machines. If his comments were true with all the $$ spent so far isn't it plausable the Democrats would have spent $$ to verify this to support their case? 4) Palm Beach County had a written guideline on what is an acceptable chad and dimple chads were not to be counted. Do you feel it is fair for other counties in the state using the same equipement to have different standards? Since I don't think the Brower county officials can fairly determine who one voted for with the "dimple" ballots, since I feel voters should take responsibility for their actions, since the old guys story has not been written up in a law suit, and since PB had a guideline and others did not and are now trying to change the standards I can see why Bush is questioning the process. The process is flawed. Not just Florida but country wide Since we are focusing on Florida lets discuss the recount. For every solution I'm sure there is some group which will be hurt, we live in an imperfect world. At some point one has to say enough if enough. For saying Gore would win we can go back to the military ballots. Its a never ending circle. We should know Friday what the answer is. The FL leglislature will vote for the electors on Dec. 12. I guess the lesson for our children is one has to take responsibility for thier actions. Tim

To: Zeev Hed who wrote (8229)	11/27/2000 10:56:30 PM
From: Dave B	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 30051

Zeev, One of the tid bits I picked up was from an old guy that worked for year for the manufacturer of these machines, and indeed, according to him, the row used most often (the presidential row?) deteriorates with time causing weaker people (the old and infirms? is the partition of that population weighed in favor of the democrats?) no to be (easily) able to penetrate the ballot. I'll grant "confusing" possibly on the ballots, but we use the exact same paper ballots in Santa Clara County and it takes maybe 1/2 of an ounce of pressure to push through the card. Anyone who doesn't have the strength to push out the hole wouldn't have the strength to pick up the stylus. Or walk to the voting machine. Or lift up their arm. All of those activities take much more strength than pushing out the chad. You're flogging a dead horse on this "they weren't strong enough" thing. Even Gore's lawyers aren't claiming that anymore. Dave p.s. I may be wrong on this, but I believe the news reports that having been quoting the "first row" problem are talking about the card readers, not the voting machines. p.p.s. It doesn't sound to me like the 4700 ballots in Seminole County should be allowed. However, interestingly, Gore apparently hasn't contested those. p.p.p.s. Why is no one interested in counting the 175,000 ballots in California that weren't "counted"? Or the 125,000 in Illinois? Or the who-knows-how-many-ballots-weren't-counted-in-the-other-states? Maybe Gore wouldn't have won the popular vote if Republican ESP in Republican areas was matched up against Democratic ESP in Democratic areas. <G>