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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dave Gore who wrote (105028)	12/8/2000 12:15:40 AM
From: Dan B.	Respond to of 769667

Dave, Re: "Dan, you are saying that FL law does not allow a candidate to ask for a recount in a county where he/she believes the results are suspect?" No...I'm not saying that. Re: "That's news to me. And if you are right, then why was he allowed to do it? I haven't heard Bush people even complain about that specific thing either." I am saying that territorial advantage was never intended by the law or the legislature, and rightly so. Of course suspect localized results would be rightly looked into. But if the problem pointed out is one which exists state-wide(as is the case here), the law never intended less than fair statewide counting and resolutin of the problem. On this point, I direct you to the Bush 11th circuit case, the first case he filed, becuase it specifically addressed this point early on. Re: " Bush chose not to dispute votes himself where he thought the results were off. If he has, there could not have been a territorial advantage." The idea that fairness in counting votes, might be altered by the strategies of candidates after the vote is taken, was never intended, and should not ever be intended in law. This would serve to protect the equal weight of all the votes. Re: "You're going to have to explain to me why Gore was allowed to do what he did in those counties if it was illegal, Dan." Bush believed hand-counting vote-recovery methods(whatever the chad standard..this stuff is small potatoes compared to my main point here) could only be gotten in the events you've heard Republicans outline all too often, i.e. fraud and/or machine failure. The reason Gore was allowed to do it was because the local Canvassing Commissions allowed it, and certain courts interpreted it as allowable under the law(and they were often on the right track in simple terms of counting valid votes, they just didn't consider ALL the votes fitting the description, as they intrepreted the law). Members of the Fla. Supreme Court are seeing the point I see, and Bush rightly made this point very quickly, in his very first suit which followed the suits by Gore voters concerning Palm Beach. Dan B

To: Dave Gore who wrote (105028)	12/8/2000 12:34:01 AM
From: Dan B.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

Dave, One more thing, Re: "Bush chose not to dispute votes himself where he thought the results were off. If he has, there could not have been a territorial advantage." What's fundamentally wrong in this, though it appears somewhat fair on the surface, is that there is NO DOUBT hand-counting would recover votes in Bush territory too. That is, it's not a matter of if "he thought" results were off...the results ARE off, everywhere these machines are used, and the law MUST by all common rules of fairness demand all counties be counted, or not at all. To bring this point up as Gore has, is to recognize that the ONLY fair way is to count ALL the ballots in all the counties where applicable. Truly, had these machines and the votes they lose been considered completely, full state-wide hand-counting in a close state-wide race would have been written into the law like Gimme putts in Golf. It is not. Nor was a recognition of this problem within the laws as they exist at all, save if fraud and machine failure were indeed the only reasons allowed for these counts, under current law as Bush contended. In fact, there is at least one case where, the ruling came down that mere closeness is NOT ENOUGH to justify such counting...see Secretary Harris's brief to the FSC. Dan B