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Strategies & Market Trends : Zeev's Turnips -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Zeev Hed who wrote (217)	11/29/2000 11:07:42 AM
From: Carl R.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 644

All I know, Zeev, is that whenever they count these cards there seems to be a pile of chads left behind. If these cards can be safely handled without dislodging chads, as you claim, then I guess the only assumption left is that the chads left behind on the floor are the result of handlers deliberately altering ballots. I do know that it is supposedly not difficult for people handling the ballots to dislodge additional chads, and that observers from both sides are very particular about who they will allow to handle the ballots and how they want them held. Regarding the dimpled/pregnant chad debate, my wife, who has more time for this stuff than I do, watched some TV reporter who attempted to show how easy it was to create a dimpled or pregnant chad, but he couldn't do so because he kept punching the chads out cleanly. LOL In your argument you seem to imply that you support counting dimpled chads. I have no problem with counting the partially detached chads with two or more strands broken, but I have a major objection to counting dimpled or pregnant chads. I have used this type of machine, by the way, and don't recall it taking any particular amount of force to make the punch. I can't guarantee that my ballots didn't have some partially detached chads, but if you insert the stylus you can't leave behind a pregnant or dimpled chad. There really isn't any room for doubt as to whether you have punched through or not. In my opinion a pregnant or dimpled chad probably represents someone who inserted the stylus and thought about voting for someone, but who then thought the better of it. People have said that if the voter voted the straight Republican (or Democrat) ticket on the other issues but left a pregnant chad on Bush (or Gore) that we should conclude that he intended to vote for Bush (or Gore). To the contrary, I think we should conclude that the voter knew how to punch a hole, and was capable of doing so, but decided not to. A pregnant or dimpled chad is not an Act of God, but simply an act of an indecisive voter who changed his or her mind and decided not to cast that particular vote. Now I suppose if you found a ballot that had no clean votes but only pregnant chads for the straight Republican or Democrat ticket, maybe then you could conclude that the voter was incapable of punching out chads, but I don't think that is what they are trying to do. I note that you didn't address my other question. If there was a statewide recount and Gore won by 400 votes, should it be final? And why? Or should there be a yet another recount? When do you stop? 3 out of 5? 4 out of 7? With as high a margin for error as this process has (whether using manual or machine counting), and as close as this election was, there is no reason to accept any particular count as the "final and accurate" count, is there? Carl