PT,
Your are either just plain ignorant or just a blatant proponent of the old axiom, "Tell a lie long enough and loud enough and soon people will believe it."
Regarding Florida, Gore's request for one hand recount in four popularous
counties, which used error-prone voting machines, was both prudent and
reasonable and allowable under Florida law. WRONG. There is no mandatory recount manually under Florida law for the reasons you state.
You see, the problem is that
Gore never got his recount in those four specified counties. WRONG.He got the recount the Democratic canvassing boards and the democratic Florida Supreme Court allowed him.
worldnetdaily.com
ELECTION 2000, Day 22
Gore contests
'protest votes'
Democrat official says
thousands
of blank prez ballots
'very normal'
By Paul Sperry
© 2000 WorldNetDaily.com
The thousands of ballots with
no votes cast for president in
Palm Beach and Miami-Dade
counties -- ballots that Al
Gore claims hold uncounted
votes for him -- are "very
normal" for such large
counties, a Democratic
elections official in Florida
told WorldNetDaily.
In fact, they are known in the
state as "protest votes," said
Nick Frilling, information
services director for the
supervisor of elections in
Baker County, Fla., which has a
Democratic-controlled
canvassing board.
"It's usually somebody who
won't vote for any of the
above," said Frilling, a
registered Democrat who's been
analyzing voting results and
voter habits since 1988.
Florida has certified George W.
Bush the winner of the state's
key 25 electoral votes.
Officially, Bush got 537 more
votes than Gore in the Sunshine
State.
But Gore is contesting the
outcome. He and his surrogates
contend that "thousands of
votes have not been counted" in
Palm Beach and Miami-Dade
counties.
According to Gore spokesman
Doug Hattaway, some 9,000
ballots are "sitting there" in
the Miami-Dade County elections
office with potential votes for
Gore.
Counting machines recorded no
presidential votes on the paper
ballots, because no holes were
fully punched for Gore, Bush or
other presidential candidates
-- although holes were punched
for candidates in down-ballot
races. Races left blank are
formally called "undervotes."
In a surprise, Miami-Dade
election officials last week
nixed plans to recount the
ballots by hand. The Gore camp
wants to force a hand recount
of the pile of ballots in the
hopes of ginning up votes for
Gore.
Hattaway claims that possibly
"thousands" of voters tried to
vote for Gore but didn't apply
enough pressure to the stylus
to perforate the so-called
"chad" next to Gore's name on
the ballot. Their intent would
appear as a "dimple" on the
Gore chad, he claims, if only
canvassing board members would
manually inspect them.
Hattaway also claims another
800 votes for Gore lie in a
cache of some 4,000 undervoted
presidential ballots in Palm
Beach County.
"We know at least 800 sitting
in that pile are for Gore,"
Hattaway said.
He claims the chads next to
Gore's name on those 800
ballots also are dimpled. But
Palm Beach County canvassing
board members, all Democrats,
have agreed not to count
dimpled chads as votes.
Frilling says it's not unusual
for Miami-Dade, the state's
most populous county, and Palm
Beach, the state's
third-biggest county, to have
thousands of undervotes in the
presidential race.
"That would be a very normal
number for them," he said.
"In these bigger counties,
you're going to see those kinds
of numbers," Frilling added.
"It wouldn't be uncommon to see
at least 10,000 people who just
don't care" about the
presidential race.
Miami-Dade's roughly 9,000
undervotes accounted for just
over 1 percent of the 625,443
presidential votes cast in the
county.
Undervotes in Palm Beach made
up just under 1 percent of the
total 433,186 presidential
votes cast in that county.
Typically, 2 percent of voters
in presidential races skip past
the White House contest
altogether, according to
Election Data Services in
Washington.
Frilling points out that Baker
County in Northern Florida also
falls in line with the average.
In fact, it had an even greater
share of voters pass on the
presidential race than
Miami-Dade and Palm Beach.
Baker County had 134 undervotes
in the presidential race.
That's nearly 2 percent of its
total 8,154 presidential votes.
Frilling explains that voters
often skip the national race
because they're more interested
in local races, or they don't
think there's enough difference
between leading presidential
candidates to bother casting a
vote at the top of the ticket.
"They think, 'I'll be happy
with whomever gets in,'" he
said. "You see that a lot,
too."
Frilling argues that a dimpled
chad is not a clear sign of a
vote.
Chads are already perforated on
all four sides, he explains,
and light could shine through
regardless of whether a stylus
touched it. And even if a voter
touched a stylus to a chad, it
doesn't necessarily mean he or
she intended to punch it.
"There may be no voter intent
at all to vote for a
candidate," he said.
If some voters did, in fact,
have a hard time punching out
the chads in Palm Beach and
Miami-Dade counties, Frilling
blames the type of device used
by the counties. Both use a
small, hand-held stylus.
He says that several years ago
when Baker County used punch
ballots, voters punched out
chads with a lever, which
reduced the chances of a
partial perforation.
"We didn't have the little key
like they're using to punch
them out with" in Palm Beach
and Miami-Dade counties,
Frilling said. "I think that
allows for more error than with
what we had, because you had to
actually push the lever down
and it would go all the way
through."
He added: "With these punch
ballots like they have down
South, you may run into a few
that would be a dimpled or even
a hanging chad that would be
counted as a no-vote" when run
through the counting machine.
Most counties in Northern
Florida, including Baker
County, have switched to more
modern -- and accurate --
voting methods. The most common
one lets voters pencil in
bubbles on a card. Voters then
feed the cards into
computerized optical scanners.
Still, if the stylus prevented
voters from punching holes for
Gore, Frilling says that it
would prevent them from
punching holes for candidates
in other races, too.
He says it will be hard for
Gore to claim votes on cards on
which there are no partial
perforations for down-ballot
candidates. "You would think
there'd be at least one or more
on a card," Frilling said.
"It's hard for me to believe
that they're going to have one
(dimple) for president but
wouldn't have one somewhere
else."
In fact, the thousands of
ballots with the blank sections
for president include
machine-counted votes for
congressional and local races,
as well as various state and
county initiatives.
"A lot of times, people go to
the poll but say, 'You know,
I'm not going to vote for
president. But I know the
senator and he's helped me,' or
'that's the person I call when
I need help and he's been there
for me,' " Frilling said.
"The senator and congressman
and races like that are more
important to them than
president," he said. "A lot of
times, we'll see where they
vote just for local races, too.
They think the national races
don't affect them anyway, but
the local races do, so that's
what they're really interested
in."
Putting a brave face on
Sunday's official tabulation in
favor of Bush, Hattaway claims
Gore might not even need the
hand recounts in Palm Beach and
Miami-Dade counties.
"We're ahead right now" by nine
votes, Hattaway asserted
yesterday.
He arrives at that unofficial
number by adding Palm Beach
County's partial manual recount
of 215 extra Gore votes with
Miami-Dade County's partial
manual recount of 157 Gore
votes. At the same time, he
subtracts 174 Bush votes
restored Sunday by several
other counties that had
previously ruled them out.
By law, Florida's secretary of
state cannot accept partial
recounts. Palm Beach failed to
meet Sunday's court-ordered
deadline, and Miami-Dade
stopped recounting last week.
Hattaway insists his figure of
174 Bush votes does not include
any overseas military ballots
that were restored after
initially being disqualified on
legal technicalities advised in
a five-page memo to county
canvassing boards by Gore
lawyer Mark Herron. |
