I am totally missing something here...

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All right, y'all gotta help me out - what vital piece(s) of info am I missing in all this crap?

1) What was the justification for doing these hand recounts? The ballot confusion issues are not in any way addressed by the recount methods being used - no Buchanan votes are going to move to Gore, double-punched ballots are still invalid...

2) The issues being addressed by the hand recounts (the "Hanging Chads", appearing soon at your local nightspot) are purely physical/mechanical issues. Any additional votes found by this hand count process SHOULD break down pretty close to the same way the original machine count did - PBC went roughly 2 to 1 for Gore, so did the added votes from the 1% sample hand counted.

3) Given the above, the hand count of four counties which voted heavily Democratic can ONLY benefit Gore and hurt Bush. I'm not a huge partisan in this debate, but this does step on my sense of fairness a little bit - are the whiny hanging chads of Democrats more important than the silent, sadly dangling chads of Republicans in counties they carried?

Seriously, how can it be "fair" to correct mechanical problems on anything other than a statewide basis?

3) On the other hand, given the above, why didn't the Bush folks request a hand recount on four heavily Republican counties with similar populations as a way to counteract the Demo recounts? If they couldn't figure this stuff out, maybe Bush IS too dumb to be president...

Confusedly yours,

-- RC (randyxpher@aol.com), November 13, 2000

Answers

Looks to me like you're not missing anything at all.

-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), November 13, 2000.

RC,

If I remember correctly, the Republican counties were more numerous, but smaller in population size. I am not sure that there are 4 Republican counties of that size in Florida.

-- J (Y2J@home.comm), November 13, 2000.

They could have chosen more than four.

-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), November 13, 2000.

>> Seriously, how can it be "fair" to correct mechanical problems on anything other than a statewide basis? <<

Maybe you don't think it is fair. Maybe I don't. But, we are not in a position to decide. That decision is delegated to the people most closely affected: the candidates and the local voters. Since the requestor must pay for the recount, for all practical purposes it comes down to the candidates themselves.

If the Bush campaign doesn't think it is fair to recount on anything less than a statewide basis, then it may ask to have wider recounts performed. The law provides this option. Bush should not try to block any recount legally requested by the Gore campaign.

-- Brian McLaughlin (brianm@ims.com), November 13, 2000.


The counties being hand counted are the ones with the greatest variance between the original count and the mechanical recount.

-- Tarzan the Ape Man (tarzan@swingingthroughthejunglewithouta.net), November 13, 2000.


This issue was addressed in the court proceeding this morning, Randy. The Republicans claimed that it was unfair to have manual recounts in only these Democratic districts, and the judge said, "Did you ask to have manual recounts in Republican districts?" The Republican lawyer said, "No. We disagree with this method." Of course Bush himself stated in [methinks] House Bill 113 in Texas that in the event of a close election, a manual recount should be done because it is the most accurate method." I don't know WHAT they're thinking.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), November 13, 2000.

RC,

You seem to be doing a good job of answering your own questions!

>1) What was the justification for doing these hand recounts?

... is answered by ...

>2) The issues being addressed by the hand recounts < snip > are purely physical/mechanical issues.

Then when you ask:

>how can it be "fair" to correct mechanical problems on anything other than a statewide basis?

... you supply much of the answer with ...

>why didn't the Bush folks request a hand recount

The Bush folks had the same legal right and opportunity as the Gore folks to request hand recounts. They CHOSE NOT TO DO SO.

As "hmm" wrote earlier, you're not missing anything.

For Republicans to deliberately choose not to avail themselves of a legal procedure, then whine about the unfairness of only Democrats' having done so is ... (which words fit here: "underhanded", "cynical", "despicable", "unjustified", "typically political", "childish", "scheming", ... "stupid", ... ?).

-- No Spam Please (nos_pam_please@hotmail.com), November 13, 2000.


I can see now why Gore volunteered to go to Vietnam. He had no friends. All his classmates got sick of his hand waving, "ooh ooh teacher pick me..." And the every loving, "do over, I don't like losing"

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), November 13, 2000.

"The counties being hand counted are the ones with the greatest variance between the original count and the mechanical recount."

My understanding is that the counties were chosen by the Gore folks... Anybody wanna correct me?

"Maybe you don't think it is fair. Maybe I don't. But, we are not in a position to decide. That decision is delegated to the people most closely affected: the candidates and the local voters."

Obviously, we're not in a position to decide (though I would disagree with your list of true deciders - there's already more people than that involved, and more to come). But there's a reason I put "fair" in quotes. There's hundreds of definitions of "fair" in this situation, and we left most of them behind last Friday.

I'm more interested in what's "logical" at this point. And logic says that the chad-hunting expedition going on in the counties chosen clearly skews the result in Gore's favor, somewhat giving the lie to those "will of the people" and "what are the Repubs afraid of" types (NOT saying you're one of those, Brian).

"Since the requestor must pay for the recount, for all practical purposes it comes down to the candidates themselves."

Now THAT I did not know - you mean Gore's paying for the recount? Interesting...

"If the Bush campaign doesn't think it is fair to recount on anything less than a statewide basis, then it may ask to have wider recounts performed. The law provides this option. Bush should not try to block any recount legally requested by the Gore campaign."

Well, I mean Bush is as entitled to his day in court as anyone... I believe that the deadline for reqesting further hand recounts in Florida has passed.

But here's what I'm missing, I guess: Here's what every headline should read and what everyone should be discussing -

THE BUSH CAMPAIGN'S FAILURE TO REQUEST EQUAL TREATMENT IN THE HAND RECOUNT PROCESS MAY WELL HAVE COST HIM THE WHITE HOUSE!!

If this works out the way I think it will, that may be one of the biggest bonehead moves of all time.

Thanks for the court update Anita. I haven't had a chance to check the news sites for info on that, but it sounds like it went like I figgered...

-- RC (randyxpher@aol.com), November 13, 2000.


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