Tee_Edwards

[wiin]

what do you have to say about the news that the PB canvassing board manipulated the ballots? Found it here: WashingtonTimes




Link works. corrected it.

 

[snow patrol]

Something went wrong...

You have followed an incorrect or outdated link,
or we have a bad link on our site.

nice

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

Wiin:

The link does not work.

Are you talking about the allegations that a female, democratic member of the board handled the ballots roughly, allegedly causing chads to fall out, making them look like they voted for Gore?

If this is what you are referring to, well, I don't know. The Republicans claim to have proof of this, whereas the Dems claim it is a trumped-up allegation. I honestly don't know.

My understanding is that the actual manual recount is overseen by one Democrat and one Republican, to prevent this kind of thing. I have not a clue whether or not has happened to date, but I certainly think it is not out of the question. A friend told me the PB canvassing board was convening on a flatbed truck in a parking lot, to accomodate the media coverage. Sounds like "The Beverly Hillbillies" to me.

The various experienced electoral scholars have said that as a general matter, manual recounts are more accurate than machine counting of punch-card ballots (this is why Texas law, for example, expresses a preference for manual recounts). Unfortunately, Florida, unlike Texas, has no state laws dictating how such recounts are performed, and I don't doubt that some bias might enter into the recount process regardless of oversights. This is why, in an ideal world, I would have favored a manual recount of the entire state of Florida in the interest of fairness; unfortunately, the Republicans did not request one in time, so that is a dead issue.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

Here is an interesting article about another county in which it appears Gore lost a large number of votes due to ballot ambiguity. Frankly at this point I say c'est la vie, as it seems more and more likely that Bush has it sealed up, especially since a Florida circuit-court judge just ruled that the state does not have to accept the PB recounts.