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Politics : The Left Wing Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MulhollandDrive who wrote (382)	12/7/2000 6:06:34 PM
From: Don Pueblo	Respond to of 6089

Not at all! Not at all. If I were able to speak to him personally, I would ask him what he means by that. This goes back to my original complaint about the language used regarding votes. With your permission, I will state it again. The crux of the "all votes should count" argument has been the intention of the voter. The 'voting machine' kicked out thousands of ballots not only in Florida but in other states as well. The argument has been that these ballots have "not been counted", and that human beings needed to observe these ballots to discern the "voter's intention". All I did was look up the words in the dictionary. voter: one who votes vote: 1. A formal expression of preference for a candidate for office or for a proposed resolution of an issue. 2. A means by which such a preference is made known, such as a raised hand or a marked ballot. As far as intent, I tend to look at this from a legal standpoint. I could be wrong, but that's the way I look at it. intent: Law. The state of one's mind at the time one carries out an action. What I conclude from this (and remember, this is just my personal opinion) is this: A "vote" must be considered as a formal expression of the intent of the voter; it is something that is "made known". I conclude from this definition that if there is a question about the 'formal expression', or the 'made known', that we go into a gray area immediately. In other words, at the point at which we assume that the voter's intent is not formal or made known, we have removed ourselves from the definition of the word "vote" and have gone into the realm of subjective analysis. Once we agree to accept the subjective analysis, ( and I am not saying I agree with the premise) then we have to examine intent. The problem for me is that per the definition, subsequent intent, by legal definition, follows an action. In other words, if some guy intends to commit a crime, but never actually commits a crime, then he cannot possibly be guilty of a crime based on the fact that he simply intended to do it. You need an act to surmise the intention. If the rules regarding what a "vote" is in Florida (for example) are that the voter must push a stylus through a card to show the act of voting (that's what the rules are), then trying to determine the intent of a voter who failed for whatever reason to perform that act is totally impossible simply because there is no way to determine subjectively what the person's intent was if he did not exercise the act of voting in the first place! Now, I accept the fact that these voting machines MAY have been faulty in SOME cases in SOME counties in SOME states, but I simply cannot accept an argument that a voter who fails to go by the rules at the time of the election can have his failure to act evaluated subjectively at some later date in order to discern what his intention would have been had he actually completed the act of voting, which he did not. I could argue that a ballot that has not been properly acted upon by the voter is not a vote, but simply a ballot, and that if someone tells me that 10,234 "votes" have not been counted, I can simply say, "If you know exactly how many ballots there are, then they must have been counted! They are ballots, and the voter made an error, and that's the end of it." The Florida Supreme Court has this misunderstanding between "vote" and "ballot", and I saw it today! Thank you your Honor, I rest my case. Cheetos? Ginger Ale?