WE HAVE A FREE PRESS IN THE UNITED STATES. This is a real joke. The press is controlled by the powers that be and they control what is said. There was an article in the news back about 1973 where a prominent editor was talking about what he was told to say and he had the comment that any editor who wrote an editorial saying what he really felt would be fired if he did not follow the party line of management which is now concentrated into a very small number of companies. For example the Tallahassee Democrat is a member of the Knight Ridder New Organization. The editorial page had nothing but praise for the recent Florida Supreme Court Ruling by all 7 Democrat Justices that turned out to be based on a wrong interpretation of the Illnois decision that ignored the fact that the ballots with the dimpled ballots WERE NOT COUNTED IN THAT ELECTION.

I am not holding my breath waiting for another editorial in the Tallahassee Democrat admitting that the Court was wrong and that the ruling was an effort to help the Gore campaign. The founding fathers emphasized the value and need for a free press. Is was taken away so gradually that the people did not even notice.

-- Thomas Paine (Tom@voter.bbb), November 23, 2000

Answers

WRONG AGAIN. 'Hanging chads' often viewed by courts as sign of voter intent

From CNN's Brooks Jackson

November 16, 2000 Web posted at: 7:08 p.m. EST (0008 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- How should Florida count its presidential ballots? If officials in the Sunshine State follow the trend in other states, they'll count those "hanging chads" or even "bulging chads" as votes.

The most dramatic recent example is a 1996 Democratic primary for a House seat in Massachusetts. The state's seven-member Supreme Judicial Court scrutinized over 956 disputed ballots and declared Rep. William Delahunt, a Democrat, the winner by counting ballots that were merely dimpled -- and the chad not dislodged.

"If the intent of the voter can be determined with reasonable certainty from an inspection of the ballot ... effect must be given to that intent and the vote counted," the Massachusetts court ruled.

It said a voter who failed to push out the chad completely "could have done a better job expressing his or her intent. (But) Such a voter should not automatically be disqualified."

And that's been the trend. A 1990 case in Illinois hinged on 30 partially punctured punch-card ballots to determine the Republican primary winner in a race for the state legislature. The Supreme Court of Illinois looked at the disputed ballots and counted them.

"Nothing in our election code ... requires voters to completely dislodge the chad from the ballot before their vote will be counted," the court ruled.

In a 1987 Alaska case, the court counted punch-card votes marked with a pen rather than punched out. A 1981 Indiana case counted "hanging chads" on the grounds they indicated voter intent.

"Anything you cannot clearly determine, you set aside. And if the contest is still where you can't decide who wins, then you put that group of ballots in front of a judge and let a judge make a decision," said Doug Lewis, executive director of the Election Center, a non-profit group.

State courts often count ballots where election administrators don't see clear voter intent, but not always. A 1984 Louisiana case refused to count punch-card ballots merely marked with a pencil.

But in other cases, courts look closely for voter intent. In a dramatic case from South Dakota, one judge examined two disputed ballots under a microscope. The county-level race in question came down to a single bit of bulging or "pregnant" chad, with only two corners detached.

The South Dakota Supreme Court declared a vote "shall be counted if the voter's intent is sufficiently plain." The race was declared a tie. The winner was determined by a game of poker --- which the Republican candidate won with a pair of tens.

What Florida courts do remains to be seen. The trend in other states might be summed up by that Illinois decision, which declared that "voters are the owners of the government."

-- (tommy @ pain. lies), November 23, 2000.

WRONG AGAIN, AGAIN.

Brooks Jackson: 'Dimpled' ballots count in Texas

From Brooks Jackson/CNN

November 21, 2000 Web posted at: 11:00 p.m. EST (0400 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Dimpled ballots. Democrats are saying Florida ballots should be counted where punch cards merely show an indentation. Republicans say it's simply not enough.

They count them in other states -- including Republican candidate Gov. George W. Bush's state of Texas. Tony Sirvello supervises elections in Harris County -- the largest in Texas -- where punch card ballots like those in the disputed Florida counties have been in use since 1982.

"Since we introduced punch cards in Harris county in 1982, I've probably done approximately 50 recounts," say Sirvello, the county administrator of elections. "At the beginning, some of those were electronic. In the last 15 years, most of those have been manual recounts. And in most of those manual recounts, we have counted what the media is calling 'dimpled chads.'"

Just last year in Harris County, Houston voters produced a squeaky-close race for a city council seat. Mark Goldberg was the apparent winner by a mere 26 votes, prompting opponent Maryann Young to demand a hand recount.

Texas law specifically allows for counting dimpled ballots if "an indentation on the chad ... is present and indicates a clearly ascertainable intent of the voter to vote."

The Houston hand count found 97 more votes for Young that the machine count had registered -- including some ballots that were merely indented. But the recount also found 109 additional votes for Goldberg -- so he won the recount by an even bigger margin than before.

It's not that hard for voters to merely dimple a ballot when they are trying to vote, as Kim Brace of Election Data Services recently demonstrated to CNN.

"We've got a hanging chad right here. We've got a couple of chads that are partially off. Here's a pimple or a dimple," says Brace.

Dimples were counted by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in a 1996 Democratic primary recount for Congress. Generally, state courts count ballots where voter intent is clear.

During Monday's Florida State Supreme Court hearing, Bush's lawyers pleaded ignorance of the Texas law. "I really don't know what Texas law is," Bush attorney Michael Carvin told Justice Barbara Pariente.

Well, we know Texas law allows dimpled chads to be counted -- or any ballot where the intent of the voter is "clearly ascertainable."

-- (stop @ the. hypocrisy), November 23, 2000.

Licking Bush is a Chore says Gore -- referring to Tipper, not George.

-- A (A@AisA.com), November 23, 2000.