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Politics : Al Gore vs George Bush: the moderate's perspective -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: energy_investor who wrote (8087)	11/30/2000 12:28:32 PM
From: Math Junkie	Respond to of 10042

How does adding voter ID numbers add up to anything other than a technical violation, particularly when you consider that the request cards lacked a space for the voter to enter the number? It seems to me that the Florida legislature ought to make it required procedure, not a crime. It wouldn't help for this election, but at least it would be a sane policy for the future. To do otherwise would be elevating form over substance. Government officials should be trying to help people get registered, not setting up roadblocks. Now if they did it for Republican voters, but not Democratic ones, that would be a problem. However, during a recent hearing, a Seminole County official said that the Democratic Party had supplied request forms to their voters with the ID numbers pre-printed on them. If that turns out to be true, perhaps it would persuade the judge not to adopt drastic measures as relief. From watching the judge work, she seemed very competent and straight-arrow. Also, I heard a Republican politician on TV who, although he was concerned about the appearance of conflict of interest, said that he didn't have anything bad to say about this judge.

To: energy_investor who wrote (8087)	11/30/2000 1:49:22 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10042

Well, the difference between a plaintiff complaint, in which allegations are voiced, when compared to the actual facts of the matter as displayed by the evidence and the circumstances, can oftentimes be very stark. I would like to see a copy of the complaint, so if you could provide a link, I would appreciate it. But again, if the references that I've been citing are correct, the original "manipulation", or error, was made by the governmental officials who oversaw the printing of those absentee ballots. This is not simply a matter of a voter not following instructions and leaving off their Voter ID #. They were NOT PROVIDED a place to put it, nor seemingly were they told it was required in order for the ballot to be valid. Simply put, a voter cannot cast a valid vote if the election office sends them a non-valid ballot. Thus, these disenfranchised voters would have EVERY REASON TO SUE and force the government to count their votes. At it's heart, due to this governmental printing error, these ballots should have been accepted anyway and not cast out. The fact that people were being "nit-picky" and blaming the voters for what was a governmental error, it only makes sense that the GOP folks would be outraged enough to step in and protect those voters from being disenfranchised. Again, people who voted electronically were informed of what standards needed to be met in order for their vote to count (remove hanging chads...etc). If they screwed up their ballot and punched the wrong chad, they merely had to ask for a replacement ballot. Absentee ballots, so long as they are properly dated and signed (with waivers for military folks on the actual postmarks), should be confirmed and counted. They are not in anyway to be compared with anonymous ballots that were not counted due to human errors at the polling booth that the voter CHOSE not to correct at that time. Regards, Ron