Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (109809)	12/10/2000 7:37:06 PM
From: Broken_Clock	Respond to of 769670

The Problem With Hand Counts Reed Irvine Dec. 8, 2000 In an appearance before the Florida Supreme Court, Al Gore’s lead litigator, David Boies, was asked if he was saying "that any mark made by the voter would be evidence of that voter’s intent and should be counted as such." Boies replied, "I think so, Your Honor. ... [I]t is quite important that this court be as specific as possible in terms of the standard to be applied so that we will have uniformity." Boies had informed the court that the standard set by the Illinois Supreme Court in the case of Pullen vs. Mulligan was that indented or dimpled chads should be counted. Two Chicago Tribune reporters who studied that case discovered that Boies was mistaken. The court upheld the decision of the lower court judge not to count dimpled chads. The Supreme Court ruled, "These voters should not be disfranchised where their intent may be ascertained with reasonable certainty, simply because the chad they punched did not completely dislodge from the ballot." It was clearly opposed to counting chads that had not been at least partially dislodged. The Florida Supreme Court accepted Gore’s plea for hand recounts of the ballots in three Florida counties, Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade, but it failed to set strict uniform standards for hand recounts. Boies advised the Broward County board to accept indentations on the ballot as indications of voter intent. How this worked is shown by the following transcript of their deliberation over one ballot. COMMISSIONER GUNZBURGER: I can see the light if you hold it just right. JUDGE LEE: 5A-11 has a slight dimple on the spot. I have to try to remember these. JUDGE ROBERT ROSENBERG: Cannot be ascertained with reasonable certainty. COMMISSIONER GUNZBURGER: I disagree on this one because it’s pushed more than a slight, and there is light visible in the bottom. I’ve read some of the opinions that say when there is light visible that it is a punch for the candidate. JUDGE LEE: I don’t see it. JUDGE ROSENBERG: I don’t see any light visible MR. LICHTMAN (Democratic observer): Hold it up. I can see it from here. COMMISSIONER GUNZBURGER: Turn it around. JUDGE LEE: You’re right. You can see it all right. I agree with the commissioner. 5A-11 is a vote for Gore. The Florida Supreme Court by sanctioning the subjective hand count in three counties had delivered to nine obscure county officials the power to decide who our next president will be. When Miami-Dade decided not to proceed with its recount the number was reduced to five Democrats and one Republican in Broward and Palm Beach counties. All they had to do was find enough dimpled or indented chads on the questionable ballots to overcome Bush’s 930-vote lead. Broward, as shown above, followed a very lax subjective standard. It had a substantial pool of questioned votes to draw from, and it managed to find enough votes that it could cast for Gore in that pool to shave over 500 votes from Bush’s lead. Most of these votes were found in the final four days of counting. They came from the "undervotes," the ballots that did not show a vote for president in the machine count. They had been set aside because the intentions of the voters could not be readily discerned. The idea was to reconsider them after all the other ballots had been counted. The story was quite different in Palm Beach County, where strict standards required by a 1990 court ruling that indentations should not be treated as an indication of a voter’s intent were applied in conducting the sample recount. A judge ruled that indentations could be considered, but the board decided to not to count a vote unless at least two corners of the chad had been punched. When this failed to produce a significant increase in Gore votes, the board came under increased pressure to relax its standards. In the last four days of counting they managed to trim over 200 votes from Bush’s lead, but they didn’t count because the board did not meet the deadline for submitting its tally. The Palm Beach board had tried to stick to objective standards. If the Broward board had known that Palm Beach would fall short it might have fished enough votes for Gore from its pool of dimpled and unmarked chads to give him Florida. The Florida Supreme Court got a second chance when Gore appealed Judge N. Sanders Sauls’ rejection of additional recounts. Four of the seven justices banded together to delegate the power to choose our next president to unknown persons who will scrutinize the questionable ballots of Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties for signs of voter intent. They probably expect them to adopt the Broward standards, but their chief justice angrily told them that the U.S. Supreme Court was not likely to sanction their effort to elect Gore.