To: Oral Roberts who wrote (4504 ) 12/4/2000 10:21:21 AM From: chomolungma Read Replies (2) | Respond to I believe a state-wide hand recount would put Bush ahead because Gore has shot his wad already. The Gore people know they will lose if spoiled ballots are given the "voter intent" test in heavily Bush counties.• The Washington Post notes that Duval County, which includes Jacksonville, had 27,000 spoiled ballots (9.23% of its total). The Post says that while Mr. Bush carried Duval with 58% of the vote, the spoiled ballots were concentrated in African-American sections of downtown Jacksonville. True enough, but those precincts have small populations so they don't make up anywhere near a majority of the spoilage. Fully 16,650 of the spoiled votes came in districts Mr. Bush carried by more than 2 to 1. That explains why the Gore people aren't calling for a recount of Duval. In addition, several GOP-leaning counties that used optical scanning machines but tabulated their votes at a central location rather than the precinct itself had spoilage rates that were higher than those in punch-card counties.
