Yep, the fix is in....

[Format C:]

Okay, we've sortof covered the weird numbers in Pinellas. Found this just posted at MSNBC.com about Nassau County's odd loss of votes for both candidates after the recount.

<< Bush gained 52 votes when the Nassau County canvassing board voted to use the county?s Election Night totals instead of the results of a machine recount that inadvertently missed about 200 presidential ballots. Boies said the Gore campaign would almost certainly contest the Nassau results. >>

Emphasis Added

Now they're going to contest a correction of votes that were taken away during the mandatory recount from both candidates by an error just because Bush got 52 more of them than they did? If they're going to contest that then why shouldn't they also contest the Pinellas county changes after the recount? Could it be because they picked up a huge margin there (more than 450 votes) after the error was corrected? If anyone can't see that for the hypocrisy that it is then they're completely blinded by partisanship. Another example from the same article...

<< But Ron Klain, a senior Gore adviser, said Thursday that Gore would not concede the election even if Harris certifies Bush as the winner Sunday night. Instead, the campaign will contest the results in Miami-Dade ?and perhaps other counties? no later than Monday. >>

Still believe that all they want is a &quot;full, fair, and accurate count&quot; Red?

 

[MrPALCO]

<< The NY Times is reporting that Gore will be contesting/sueing PBC as well as they are not counting many dimples as Gore votes. They're searching for intent instead. >>



This nicely sums up the last 8 years under Mrs. Clinton/Mr. Clinton/Gore, if your &quot;intent&quot; is &quot;proper&quot; (many believe that the Democrat definition of &quot;proper&quot; goes against the Constitution) then any action taken is just.

While intent has its place in the Courts of this Nation, when &quot;intent&quot; is used as a standard for evaluating ballots, it can be easily corrupted.

Of course we all know that if you control the counters and they only need &quot;intent&quot;... the voting process will not be accepted by the losing side.

Last years losing Superbowl team &quot;intended&quot; to Win, perhaps the Florida Supreme Court should look into it.

 

[SuperTool]

MrPalco,
We'll see how we sum up the next 4 years under Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. And if it's half as good as the last 8 years have been, I will be voting Republican for a long time.
The voting process will not be accepted by the losing side anyways. This is for all intents and purposes a tie within the margin of error. If you are that close, there is no way to subjectively and absolutely determine which side won. However for the sake of the country one side has to concede, and even as Democrat, I believe that in this case it should be Mr. Gore.

 

[cxim]

FormatC,
I believe that the story in Nassau County is that a bundle of ballots was lost &amp; then later found. This is from memory so may be a little off.

There was no explanation for how they were &quot;lost&quot;. Since they had not been in continued secure custody there was no way to prove that they were valid &amp; had not been tampered with.

So they were stuck with a funny choice. They knew the number missing was 200 in the recount, but not how the 200 voted. They decided that the initial count was more valid as it contained the 200 'lost' ballots.

 

[MooseKnuckle]

The team of Sore and Loserman have the Democratic Judges on their side, but keep in mind, the Legislature is Republican.

Florida House Speaker Tom Feeney, a Republican, said he and Senate President John McKay would ask the U.S. Supreme Court to allow the Legislature to intervene in next Friday's hearing &quot;to ensure the protection of Florida election results.&quot;

Leaders of Florida's Republican-dominated Legislature have discussed holding a special session to consider whether it can appoint Florida's Electoral College representatives on its own, but Feeney said nothing about that issue Friday.

It would appear to me, in the end, the leaders of FL will decide a winner, not the Gore vote whore democratic canvassing boards.

Russ, if Cheney steps down, maybe Bush would consider you for VP?

 

[montanafan]

None of this will be over anytime soon, in fact it will go on for the next four years.

It's not a matter of recounts and dimpled chads and butterfly ballots. It's a matter of &quot;What goes around comes around&quot; and &quot;As you sow, so shall you reap&quot;.

After the last 8 years of the Republicans who care more about beating the other side than doing what's best for the country trying to discredit Clinton's presidency through investigations and trials and impeachment, we're now going to have at least 4 years of the Democrats who care more about getting back at the Republicans than doing what's best for the country trying to discredit Bush's presidency when he's finally elected.

It's a pissing contest, plain and simple, that's been going on for the last 8 years and that will continue until the majority of Americans, who are absolutely disgusted by it, take a hard stand and kick some partisan ass on both sides.

 

[ride525]

Hey Russ,

You might want to change the title of this thread. Doesn't look like much of a fix is on......looks to me like the Democrats and Republicans are putting together some honest counts.....

What do you REALLY think?

 

[Michael]

ride525 - The court had to reconcile to allowance for handcounts, the tight deadline, and the powers vested in the office of the Secretary of State. The law pretty clearly puts the responsibility in her hands and she is an elected official.

So let us say that counting more votes is the best course of action. The justices were very concerned about having all the contests done in time so the votes will count, so they agreed that a deadline was needed and that it had to be a tight on. They used their discretion to change the deadline.

Note that the counties could not give the SoS a real timeline when they would be finished and they have missed the estimates they gave. PBC voted to do a manual recount and then voted to get together two days later to discuss how to do it. Also note that the county that originally brought the lawsuit forward completed their count by the original deadline. So it is hard to argue that any deadline she set would have been arbritrary to some degree.

However, Florida law has statutes governing contesting election results. If the counties could not finish their counts in time, then they could contest the results. The real deadline is the 12th of December, so the contests would have had time.

I would conclude that the votes would be counted even if the certification happened when Harris originally wanted to. There was no need for the Florida Supreme Court to usurp the lawful powers of the Florida Leglislature and the Executive power of Florida's elected officials.

Now why would the Court do that? The only conclusion I can reach was that it was a political decision. If the results had been certified, Harris would have declared Bush to be the winner. It would have taken much more political will to contest the results in a courtroom. In addition, judges would have been counting. I would say that the judges on the canvassing boards right now have been pushing intent over dimples. They're outnumbered 2-1 on the canvassing boards (I think there are two judges on the Broward board now), but they would not be outnumbered on the bench, of course.

Contesting the results in court would have been 100% cleaner as there would have been far less distractions (the canvassing boards, partially through their own fault, have been dragged into court almost every day.

I would also say that there is a pretty strong argument that the rules under which the election is being run were changed by the Supreme Court. They essentially moved a contest item into the certification phase. The rules for what constitutes a vote in the counties also appear to be changing. PBC (incorrectly, but less sujectively) has had written rules that dimples are not to be counted as a vote. Not too sure of this link as it is a Republican site PBC on Dimpled Chads. Changing this rule after the election seems to be against the Constitution.

What I see now is a complete failure of planning by the counties and the state. It does not appear that they have a contingency plan for such a close vote.

Michael

ps - watch the sides switch arguments in Seminole County on Monday. The Democrats will argue the letter of the law (deadline for certification) while the Republicans will argue intent and overly technical restrictions on the right to vote (every vote counts).

 

[cxim]

Michael, I disagree about the Fl supreme court action being political. It is more a bunch of activists that like to meddle &amp; pissoff the Gov &amp; legislature. This has happened in the past 15 yrs over &amp; over &amp; with democrat governors too.

They give out a decision that nullifies a law &amp; then the legislature comes back &amp; reworks the law.

This is not new &amp; there is no love between the legislature &amp; the supreme court.

 

[etech]

Harvey
&quot;OK. You're wrong. As professional Supreme Court Justices, party affiliation does not enter into their job description, so they are neither Democrat nor Republican, regardless of which governor appointed them. I would also imagine that they were also approved by at least one branch of the Florida legislature.&quot;

Thank you Harvey, so many people were worried about Gov. Bush appointing conservative justices to the Supreme Court, by your argument you have completely dispelled that reason for not voting for him and have proven many people complete fools for advancing that argument on these boards. Thank you again.

 

[Tiger]

Like Michael I've seen every little move made by both sides.

I watched the arguments before the Fla. supreme's.
They totally blew off the argument by the republicans that yes, each county canvassing board has the right to order a hand recount, but, they also have the responsibility to hire enough help to get it done in the week provided by the law. If your going to OK a hand recount of a half million ballots you don't hire 50 people to do it then complain about not having enough time.

I also watched with some sense of amusement what happened in Miami-Dade. The so called &quot;riot&quot; was caused by the county canvassers when they decided to illegally recount only the 10,750 undervotes. Florida state law, which the dems love so much until it goes against them, states that any total hand recount will be of all ballots cast in the county. Not just a subset. The &quot;riot&quot; started when the republican observers in the large room on the 18th floor discovered that the canvassing board was moving to the 19th floor, out of view of cameras and witnesses, to illegally recount the undervotes only.

If the positions had been reversed we'd have seen a week on &quot;Nightline&quot; about how the brave and fearless Reverend Jackson led a boisterous group of &quot;truthseekers&quot; on some patriotic mission to keep the nasty republicans from stealing the election.

 

[ride525]

<< The rules for what constitutes a vote in the counties also appear to be changing. PBC (incorrectly, but less sujectively) has had written rules that dimples are not to be counted as a vote. Not too sure of this link as it is a Republican site PBC on Dimpled Chads. Changing this rule after the election seems to be against the Constitution. >>



Michael, first, the link you provided shows RECOMMENDATIONS for how ballots are to be counted. I would think the recommendations could change if they thought more votes could be accurately counted. (But see below, they don't appear to be changing.)

Second, I think you may be incorrect that Palm Beach County is actually changing. PBC appears to NOT be allowing dimples. From CNN:



<< Officials in Palm Beach County are not allowing so-called &quot;dimpled chad&quot; to count, but Broward officials are, which might explain the wide gap in new Gore votes between the two counties. >>

 

[Michael]

cxim - If the move wasn't political but more court &quot;activism&quot; instead and the court has a long history of doing so (which I think that chess9 claimed of them as well), then the US Supreme Court may use this highly important issue to slap them down. Of course, since they are all Supreme Court justices, the US Supreme Court may uphold their decision and say &quot;lawmakers, stop being such morons and making our jobs so much harder&quot;.

Everytime I read about confusing laws, I remember that many congress-people and senators (why is senator gender neutral and congressmen not?, sorry a little PC there but there are a fair number of women congressmen) are lawyers and I figure that it is deliberate as a form of job security to their profession.

Michael

 

[Shuxclams]

Blah,

Blah blah bu-blah blah, blah blah blah, bu-blah. Blah blah bu-bladdidy blah blah blah?
Blah blah blahblah, bu-bladdidy blah blah. blah blah blah, bu-blah. Blah blah bladdidy blah
bu-bladdidy blah blah. blah blah blah, blah blah bladdidy blah bla-bla-blah. bu-bladdidy blah blah
blah blah, blah blah blah! Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah bu-bladdidy blah blah blah blahblah.
Blah blah bu-blah blah bu-bladdidy blah blah, BLAH BLAH BLA-DIDDY BLAH!



SHUX

 

[Michael]

ride525 - The CNN report is an exaggeration. They are allowing dimples if there is evidence that the voter may have been having trouble punching (patterns of other dimples). They are not allowing dimples if the other votes are cleanly punched. Broward County is not allowing all dimples, but they are allowing more. This is from a bunch of news stories on a bunch of sites.

I also think that the memo is official PBC rules on counting ballots during hand counts and they should not be changed after the election.

Michael

 

[Harvey]

etch -- << by your argument you have completely dispelled that reason for not voting for him>>

I didn't say that philosophy had no part in judicial appointments. I believe Bush is both an intellectual and philosopical dwarf, so I fear the damage he could do to the Supreme Court. The only redeaming grace it that he will have great difficulty getting any appointee through the Senate. We may face a Supreme Court with fewer than its full compliment for some time to come.

 

[ride525]

<< ride525 - The CNN report is an exaggeration. They are allowing dimples if there is evidence that the voter may have been having trouble punching (patterns of other dimples). They are not allowing dimples if the other votes are cleanly punched. >>



Interesting.....how do you KNOW the CNN report is an exaggeration?

CNN reports that PBC is not counting dimples....Gore hasn't been picking up many votes there.....PBC, according to CNN is not counting dimples, and CNN is exaggerating?

 

[etech]

Harvey, you can't have it both ways, though you liberals do try hard. Either the Supreme Court Justices are impartial and interpret the laws or they are human and inflict their prejudices and political afflilations on the cases they hear.

Nice try at backing and filling btw.

 

[Michael]

ride525 - Based on two interviews, one with Judge Barton and one by Carol Roberts where they said they were counting dimples where the intent is clear. Also from the court testimony in the case that the Democrats caused to argue that all dimples have to be considered. Ever since the Florida Supreme Court reminded everyone that determining voter intent is the most important goal and the circuit court reinforced the message, PBC has stated that they will consider dimples. The Democrats tried to force them to count every dimple as a vote.

MIchael

 

[Tiger]

ride525,

They are counting the dimpled ballots where it is clear they can acertain the voters intent.
A ballot where one dimpled chad for president is the only dimple on the punch card isn't being counted because there is no clear indication of a voters intent. The voter might have touched the chad for Bush or Gore and decided not to vote, while punching out the rest of the chads on the rest of the ballot.

A ballot with dimpled chads all over the ballot is being counted because it's pretty easy to see this person had trouble running the system. Personally, I have trouble believing that, but that's the standard PBC is using. At least that's what Judge Burton said in his testimony in front Judge Labarga wednesday.

 

[ride525]

<< The Democrats tried to force them to count every dimple as a vote. >>



Yeah, I knew the Democrats were trying to get as many counted as possible.

Just haven't definitely read what PBC is trying to use to count a vote. It sounded like PBC wasn't counting as many dimples as the Democrats would like.

Darn, I just wish there was some way we could count ALL the votes. So we would really, really know how the voters voted. Both sides seem to think more voted for their side, and the vote tally is so close. And there are so many disputed votes.

 

[Michael]

ride525 - It is impossible to count every vote. The ballots keep getting handled over and over again and when you're looking for a sliver of light to determine intent, it just gets worse.

The good news is that I see the punch card machines being replaced in PBC. If the Democrats really do lose votes there every year, more accurate machines will give those back in every race to come.

Michael

 

[ToBeMe]

Found these interesting bits on the CBS site........

• In the last four major elections Palm Beach County has an error rate 10 TIMES larger than reported in ANY other county in the nation using paper punch ballots.

• The national error rate of double-punching ballots is less than 1/2 of 1 percent, or at most, 1,800 ballots in all of Palm Beach County, with the errors between all races and all candidates.

• ONLY in Palm Beach were 15,000 ballots &quot;invalidated&quot; (for double-punched ballots) in the 1996 presidential election(mostly Dole votes in 1996)

• ONLY in Palm Beach did this &quot;double punch&quot; error happen ONLY in the Gore-Bush-Buchanan selections for president. (In a truly random &quot;error,&quot; the mistakes happen in every race, at about the same rate. In Palm Beach, the massive errors (over 19,000) ONLY happened in the presidential race even though the entire ballot used the same format.)

• These facts (having been uncovered this week) have been forwarded to the Supreme Court by Florida Officials

What the heck does this all mean? Looks like this is not a &quot;One Time Problem here, and not neccessarily partisn)

 

[Blackhawk2]

This can go on forever. The further in the worse it gets, it would be in the best interest of the United States for their Supreme Court to put an end to the legal battles, stick with the machine recount numbers, and certify the election while declaring a winner. No other counties in Florida contested the current voting mechanisms and in 1996 the same mechanisms were used in those counties contesting the results. If things need to be changed, change them after the election.

 

[SJ]

Actually no, the Florida Legislature does not back the Florida Supreme Court, and are doing their damnedest to get some of the justices removed.