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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: benwood who wrote (86534)	12/9/2000 11:03:58 PM
From: Don Lloyd	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 132070

Ben - I would, too, except the errors were not uniform. Without all the problems -- jammed chad causing dimpled ballots predominately in Democratic strongholds, the butterfly ballot, understaffed precincts in minority neighborhoods, GOP personally completing absentee ballots and turning them in (how thoughtful!), driver's license registrations of minorities that "disappeared", Gore would have won by 20-30 thousand votes. If you ever happened to listen to anything except Democratic agitprop, you would realize how ridiculous this all sounds. Jammed chad machines were an urban myth, with no evidence ever produced, a lawyer's fantasy, rejected by the court. If anyone ever expected any state's motor vehicle department to accurately maintain a database of voter registrations, or any part thereof, they expected what can never be. If you ever thought about it, why did no Democrats ever request to be allowed to complete their mass-mailed absentee ballot request forms when they were returned incomplete? Do you think their potential voters produced picture perfect complete forms? Actually there are two answers. First, the Democratic request forms did not contain a systematic error producing an incomplete result as did the Republican omission of the voter ID line. Secondly, contrary to state voting division preferences, the Democratic forms were to be returned to the Democratic campaign headquarters itself, rather than directly to the county election office. Thus, either all the forms were received in perfect, complete condition, or the Democrats also made or caused fixes to be made, without leaving external evidence of doing so, and then passing the completed forms on to the county election office. In other words, the Democrats were fully capable of doing exactly what they accused the Republicans of doing, and much, much more besides, without leaving any tracks. How anyone, after seeing this election, could consider getting rid of the electoral college, is beyond all understanding. Instead of 67 counties and their thousands of precincts in Florida, every precinct in America would, of necessity, be involved in any abnormality affecting a national popular vote. This is ignoring the fact that the electoral college is effectively an integral part of the overall design of the Republic of the United States. ...What really surprises me is that the entire state wasn't upgraded at once. My dad said he heard Doris Kearns Goodwin refer to this as a systematic disenfranchisement of minority voters. You know, I believe she hit the nail right on the head. Hopefully, that will be eliminated within two years, but I suspect it is going to take a lot of people getting voted out in two years before any action is taken.... The counties claimed that they did not want to spend the money. More likely, they preferred the opportunities for vote tampering that the punch cards provided. Regards, Don

To: benwood who wrote (86534)	12/10/2000 5:25:23 PM
From: Skeeter Bug	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

ben, it is sour grapes, imho, for the demos to complain about their own system for voting. seriously. how about cleaning out the chads b4 the election, guys and gals? how about lobbying for better equipment and threatening this type of issue IF there was a close election in the FUTURE. wrt the absentee ballots, you have misstated what actually occurred. the pubs made an error on the applications. they corrected that error. the intent of the voter IS NOT in doubt. no dimpled chads counted here. should 25k votes not count b/c of a clerical error far removed from the voter? a democratic african american judge believes they should be counted. i give her a lot of credit. the reasonableness and intellectual honesty she displayed is far above that of gore, bush and either supreme court. the pubs should be ashamed of themselves for trying to assassinate her character prior to this case. they OWE her an apology! al gore misstated this issue, too. the FACT is that the democratic applications had no such error to fix. oh, and al gore forgot to mention that folks who voted for gore using the republican application also had their application number corrected. sinister plot or serial exaggeration? btw, ben, do you have evidence, concrete evidence, that folks who wanted to vote were prevented from voting? understaffed or not, if everyone gets their vote, who really cares? i have heard a lot of worthless allegations and no proof (allegations which fit nicely into a grinding ax). ben, george bush is no shining ray of light. however, pointing out george's stink without mentioning al gore's stink ia absurd. 1. gore tried to cherry pick a win in florida by hand counting his 3 largest counties. 2. gore says he wants to "count every vote" when he doesn't. he only wants to count votes in democratic districts. 3. gore totally misstates the application # change and turns it into something it isn't - a sinister plot against democrats. this after giving his view credibility by saying he was "following" the case. he's either ignorant or a liar. based on past history, i have a hard time believing he's ignorant. possible, but not probable. what's your explanation? 4. gore did request a hand recount of the state just before his case went to the fl supreme court (before he knew they were sympathisers (sp???)). it is a shame al must be backed deep in a corner before doing something right. now let's move onto the democrats in the fl supreme court. they ruled against the voter and said voter's rights were paramount. how is cherry picking hand counts right for the voters? it is FUNDAMENTALLY WRONG TO EVERY VOTER TO CHERRY PICK HAND COUNTS IN ORDER TO BOOST ONE CANDIDATE'S VOTE TALLY! THIS CAN'T BE MORE CLEAR! it doesn't matter who does it. screw 98-99% of the state voting precincts BECAUSE voter intent is paramount? this is unreasonable and the feds should shut this crap down. the fl supreme court ought to be ASHAMED for trying to get their BOY elected in this fashion. now we get the democratic fl supreme court trying to legis;ate a win for gore. it is CLEARLY AGAINST THE LAW for partial results from a county's manual count to be included. the court CHANGED LAW AFTER THE ELECTION. ask yourself who benefits? miami dade will not finish their hand recount, yet the partial count counts in the final tally. ben, guess what? miami dade went 53% for al gore. the precincts counted went nearly 75% for gore. IT IS NOT RIGHT TO EXCLUDE THE PRECINCTS THAT REDUCE THE 75% WEIGHTING TO 53%! this is WRONG! this IS al gore and the democrats!!! now, onto the fl legislature. yes, their attempt to finalize this issue ahead of the courts is WRONG. however, somebody, somewhere, ought to figure out what the REAL deadline is b/c fl can't lose its electors. since bush won fairly 3 times (albeit, not the most accurately) to al gores 0, i'd expect, if push came to shove, that bush electors should be sent. btw, bush did win 3 different fair counts. he didn't manipulate those wins. the voters supported him. the issue isn't whether those counts were fair. they were fair. each was conducted under the rules prior to the election - one with the help of judicial interpretation. if bush wins, he did so fairly. having said that, these fair election results are NOT the most accurate election results. i think accuracy is paramount so a statewide hand recount based on a single standard should have been used. too bad neither side wanted it in time. would al gore's "cherry pick counties and sue canvassing boards to ease up on their standards so i get more votes" approach lead to fair election results? ben, i think you know the answer. bush is selfishly avoiding the most accurate tally while holding on to 3 fair victories (he won regardless of what katherine harris did or did not do so please don't hang your hat on her unless you can prove different results - we agree she is a hack). al gore, on the other hand, is trying to rig the system to get elected (screw the voter intent, count my counties only). and you bash bush w/o a word about al baby'as sins? AMAZING! come on... ben, you aren't being reasonable, imho. the democratic glasses have to come off to see the reality, as painful as it might be. both parties are the SAME. they act the SAME. they take care of their network at tax payer expense the SAME. they screw joe six pack the SAME. i'm not scared of a bush presidency b/c the congress will not let any of his wacko policies see the light of day (thank goodness!). gridlock is a good thing, imho. it stops these parties from REALLY screwing america for personal gain.