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: Srexley who wrote (123845)	1/26/2001 1:16:07 PM
From: DMaA	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

Since we continue to beat this, I wonder how may votes Gore would have gotten if the American people knew, as the administrations must have known, what a mess the economy was?

To: Srexley who wrote (123845)	1/26/2001 2:30:45 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

rules were related to when a manual recount was appropriate (machine failure, acts of god, foul play) and the time frame (one week from the election, I believe). Al Gore would not play by these rules First, the time frame was not absolute; the SOS had discretion to accept amendments, as she showed by going through that little charade asking for written requests for extensions. She had to accept an extension for the overseas ballots anyway, which could have changed the result in this election. Secondly, Florida did an absolutely horrible job of counting the vote. 4% of ballots were rejected. You can argue that it was legal for Katherine Harris to rule that only gross machine malfunction was an excuse for recounts; but the contrary ruling -- that having the margin of error outweigh the margin of victory by 350 to 1 constituted 'machine error' sufficient to permit recounts -- would have also been legal. We can all take our guesses on what she would have ruled had Gore been ahead. Third, the Republican officials and lawyers fought delaying actions all the way, so that the elections officials could not finish recounts on time. Gore would have also requested a recount in Duval county had election officials there not lied to his campaign staff about how many rejected ballots there were (9%). It's not fair to say that Gore chose not to play by the rules. The deck was stacked. Also, it was really annoying to hear the GOP chorus endlessly "The votes have all been counted! 3 or 4 times!", when 180,000 ballots were rejected as machine-unreadable. The ballots were counted but not the votes. The GOP then chorused, "It's an undervote because it's got no vote!" Everyone who knows anything about elections knows what bs this is. Even very strict recount standards pick up 5% - 10% of the undervote as votes. We'll see the numbers when the newspapers finish their recounts. I have never seen an example where a participant was involved in setting the standards for how to win the game. Have you? How about when a state chairwoman of the Bush campaign (in line for a nice political appointment) gets to make 8 or 9 critical decisions about handling the vote count in the Presidential election, and just-by-coincidence makes them all in favor of Bush?