From the text of the US Supreme Court decision in Bush v. Gore, section II A:

This case has shown that punch card balloting machines can produce an unfortunate number of ballots which are not punched in a clean, complete way by the voter. After the current counting, it is likely legislative bodies nationwide will examine ways to improve the mechanisms and machinery for voting.

According to reports I've read, older voting machinery such as the punch card type is concentrated in the poorer districts of the country. It's hard enough in affluent regions to get funding for an event (voting) which takes place only a few days a year; in poor regions it's practically impossible until machinery breakdowns create a crisis.

Will the election mess in Florida result in widespread upgrading to more reliable voting methods in the poorer regions now using old machinery?

If so, then insofar as poor voters are more likely to vote Democratic than more affluent voters, might the result be a net gain of a million more votes nationally than there would otherwise be for Democratic candidates in the 2002, 2004, or 2006 general elections?

Might George W. Bush's recent appeals to the US Supreme Court have a long-term result of helping a Democratic comeback in a more solid way than a Gore election in 2000 would have?

For a PDF document of the text of the US Supreme Court decision in Bush v. Gore, click on the link to "Per curiam opinion in Bush v. Gore; Rehnquist, C. J., concurring; Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., dissenting" under subheading Opinions at the bottom of page http://www.supremecourtus.gov/florida.html

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

Answers

NSP:

While the decision is written in a smoke & mirrors fashion, it has some troubling aspects. It invalidates votes based on non-uniformity of criteria in different parts of the State. Of course, this is true in all states and more importantly between states. Without the qualifiers, it would have invalidated the whole election. Therefore, it may have no impact outside of this election [of course it will have significant political and social implications; but that is another story].

It will be interesting to see how courts interpret this in future elections. It could cause many problems, but we will need to wait and see.

Best Wishes,,,,,

Z

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), December 13, 2000.

Regardless of the U.S Supreme Court ruling, there will probably many nation-wide voting changes.

For instance, although the Green Party did slightly disappointing on a national level, it did very well in certain states. Washington state for example had a local Green Party candidate garner 20% of the vote.

Now let's look at the Washington State US Senator race in which there was no Green Party candidate. The Democratic challenger won by under 2000 votes. The Libertarian candidate took almost 2%of the vote, meaning that if the Libertarian candidate was not in the race, the Republican probably would have won (by a safe margin).

Suppose though that in the next US Senator election both the Republican and Democratic candidates are strong. But you have a Libertarian candidate who takes 2% of the vote and a Green Party candidate who takes 2 1/2 to 3% of the vote. This could hand the Senatorship to the Republican.

-- Dr. Pibb (dr.pibb@zdnetonebox.com), December 13, 2000.

Z,

> It invalidates votes based on non-uniformity of criteria in different parts of the State.

That's probably the biggest surprise in the decision for me. I had thought that the argument that Florida's "intent of the voter" standard should be construed to leave criteria up to the counties was a good one, in light of the Article 2 constitutional power/duty of state legislatures to decide how to select electors. Maybe I had given too much credence to previous states' rights advocacy by conservatives.

Now I can see how it's argued ... but the implications for appeals of future elections in the other 49 states ... wow!

It seems that now it could be argued that use of voting machinery with substantially different error rates violates equal protection, so that states would be required to use the same voting mechanisms and machinery in each of their counties or parishes.

> Of course, this is true in all states and more importantly between states.

I disagree that there's any implication for differences between states. Since state legislatures have the Article 2 power to decide how to select electors, and for some of our history some legislatures continued to select presidential electors directly even while others had switched to using popular vote, and AFAIK that disparity was never challenged, it doesn't seem to me that differences between states in their criteria for popular vote will be affected or challengable as a result of this ruling.

As for differences in criteria within a state, those would seem generally challengable now except that IIRC the ruling specifically limited itself to this case only.

There was a map (at USA Today?) of the type of voting technology used in each county of the country. I noticed that Oklahoma was the only state using optical scan in all counties; maybe some other state uniformly uses another technology, but I didn't notice any. Wisconsin has already decided that punch-card voting will no longer be allowed in any county after this year, but it will still have multiple technologies.

> Without the qualifiers, it would have invalidated the whole election.

Yeah. Except maybe Oklahoma.

> Therefore, it may have no impact outside of this election

I suppose no direct legal impact.

> [of course it will have significant political and social implications; but that is another story].

Yeah. Probably there are politicos in every state who are now looking at the possibilities of federal challenges to their next elections for the first time. Especially where punch-card is used. And there will probably be more states using a uniform technology throughout their counties soon.

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

NSP:

> Of course, this is true in all states and more importantly between states.

I disagree that there's any implication for differences between states. Since state legislatures have the Article 2 power to decide how to select electors, and for some of our history some legislatures continued to select presidential electors directly even while others had switched to using popular vote, and AFAIK that disparity was never challenged, it doesn't seem to me that differences between states in their criteria for popular vote will be affected or challengable as a result of this ruling.

I agree. That is why I said we will have to wait and see what future interpretations are put forward. I can see, as an obvious conclusion, required uniformity between the states.

Best Wishes,,,,

Z

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), December 13, 2000.

Ok the software is fighting me. Multiple backslashes. I hope this is better.

Best Wishes,,,

Z

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), December 13, 2000.

NSP,

Funny you should mention Oklahoma. Yes, we do have the optical scan voting machines. If you don't vote for a major race, such as the President, the first time you put your ballot into the machine, it will spit it back out at you. (I guess to make sure that you didn't want to vote for that race.) All you have to do is put it in the second time, and it will accept the ballot.

One night last week, there was a former State Elections Supervisor on one of the local news shows talking about how he made the decision to use the optical scan method for the entire state. He laughed, saying that he used to have nightmares at night that a Presidential election would come down to the 8 EC votes of Oklahoma and something would happen like happened down in Florida. He took the time, did the research and mandated that the state conform to the optical scan way of voting. So far, it has been good, at least from what I can see. However, I must admit that I've only been in this state for a little over 4 years.

Maybe other states will conform to one voting standard, so that there will not be these problems again. Question is, how long will it take states like Florida to actually amend their state constitutions to handle the voting issues which we have seen over the past month?

-- (Sheeple@Greener.Pastures), December 13, 2000.

NSP:

> Therefore, it may have no impact outside of this election

I suppose no direct legal impact.

That is one of the problems that the court will face in the next four years and in history. It makes it appear to be partisan, even if it wasn't.

Best Wishes,,,,

Z

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), December 13, 2000.

Z:

I think this was a problem with every court involved. In the election of the national president, *nobody* can be said to be disinterested. Someone might be *uninterested*, not caring who wins. But everyone who lives in this world is to some degree an interested party, and especially those in the US. And where everyone has an interest, the appearance of partisanship cannot be avoided. I think courts have historically avoided political thickets for this reason, among others.

By now, there's simply no avoiding the conviction that the FSC or the USSC or both (depending on your preferences) crafted decisions based fundamentally on political preference, however gussied up in legal terminology.

And I think Gore had to have known that as soon as he "un-conceded" and started pissing in the soup, there simply could not be a graceful resolution, no matter who ended as the last man standing. Trying to overrule a vote count through the courts, especially without substantive justification, guarantees a bloody process and a seriously wounded victor. Not a happy decision.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), December 13, 2000.

Flint,

> These decisions do suggest (to me) that IF a state decides to use voting techniques with high error rates, THEN whoever may lose a close election cannot cite that high error rate as a reason to recount the ballots.

I think you've misread or misinterpreted the decision on that point. It doesn't invalidate any of the requests for recounts. It says that the Florida Supreme Court erred in not sufficiently assuring equal protection in the remedy that it prescribed.

> Personally, I get real itchy when I see laws like Florida's, that mandates a recount if the election is close. To me, this is like putting up a big target and inviting both sides to open fire.

I think you've got a really wrong idea about elections there. Recounts are a way of correcting errors. You seem to be _so_ intent on the idea that fraud can occur during a recount that you've lost sight of why a properly-conducted recount is a method of ensuring fair elections. If you're worried about fraud, fine -- but concentrate on provisions for preventing fraud, not on trying to eliminate safeguards for the rights of candidates and voters.

> So one thing I hope we see is legal language to the effect that recounts cannot be demanded except in cases of fraud, clear error, mechanical failure, etc.

As I pointed out to you a few weeks ago, AFAIK all election laws already _do_ require that the person requesting a recount give a reason for thinking there may have been errors in the original count.

> No "fishing expedition" recounts done solely in the hopes of reversing a close election, because such recounts are simply begging for "irregularities".

You've got "irregularities" on your mind so much that you've mixed up your priorities here.

Shall we eliminate the right to possess personal property because some people steal? Or because some people think other people did not acquire their possessions in a moral and ethical manner?

Shall we eliminate the right of free speech because some people tell lies? Shall we eliminate poker games because some players cheat? Shall we eliminate government because some officials misbehave? Shall we eliminate the right to drive because some drivers commit violations of traffic laws? Shall we throw out the baby with the bath water?

What objection do you have to the provision of anti-fraud safeguards on recount procedures, rather than the elimination or further restriction of recounts?

> And the losing side needs to meet this threshhold before a recount can begin.

The election laws governing recounts _already_ provide such threshhold.

If what you _really_ mean is that you didn't want Gore to be able to get a complete manual recount of Palm Beach County, congratulations, but please admit it plainly.

> What caused all this trouble, I believe, was the very act of letting someone start the snowball rolling downhill -- letting the PR machines sell the idea that Gore "really won" if an "accurate" count could ever be done,

So what would you propose instead? Eliminate the right of freedom of speech of people to say that Gore "really won" if an "accurate" count could ever be done?

> and that therefore (1) Any count Gore did not win must be flawed somehow,

So you want to eliminate the right of people to utter political rhetoric with which you disagree? Or what?

>The losing candidate should not be permitted repeated recounts simply because he lost.

Do you object to letting Gore have _one_ complete manual recount? Cause he hasn't gotten that yet, and he hasn't requested repeated recounts.

Can you give an example of some losing candidate who has been permitted repeated recounts? You can't say Gore, because the Florida machine recount was mandated by state law, and he has requested only _one_ set of manual recounts (that is, one manual recount in each of several counties), but hasn't been permitted to have that single set completed because of court actions.

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

NSP:

Then we must agree to disagree. In this particular case, I do not believe Gore came anywhere near close to meeting the threshhold for a manual recount. I agree with Judge Sauls that Gore failed to show any systematic error, fraud, mechanical breakdown, act of God, or any other serious reason to suspect that the counts already performed had been in any unusual way remiss.

This doesn't mean I'm trying to deny any losing candidate any recourse to correct clear fraud or error. I genuinely believe that if there had been any good indication of any such thing, I'd have wanted it corrected as well. But the only thing to be "corrected" here was the *wrong winner*!

If the existence of a few percentage of undervotes (not at all unusual for punchcard voting) is sufficient reason for the loser to take a close election to court, then the precedent is that the courts can effectively reverse (or permit the effort to reverse) any close election. Undervotes, by themselves, are not a high threshhold for demanding a recount. They are normal. We have never before, to my knowledge, permitted a recount on the grounds that some voters screwed up their ballots. This is NOT considered sufficient grounds.

In Florida, we had an original count, and we had a legally mandated recount. Now, you appear to me to be saying Gore deserved yet another recount, for no compelling reason, and is being denied his rights if he didn't get it. I am not saying he got it, I'm saying he had no compelling reason to get one.

Beyond this, I've written at length that I sincerely believe that several different reasonable standards could be devised for interpreting ballots, and that we'd have different counts under each of these standards, and very probably different winners (i.e. the same candidate would not win each count under each standard). And therefore, the "winner" depends on the standard accepted, rather than on the intent of the voters, which is not knowable. This is inherent in a tie vote using a method that produces a fairly high percentage of ambiguous ballots.

And under these circumstances, the "winner" of the first count is a matter of chance, and any desire to count again in the hopes of a different winner, or NOT to count again and take the first, is a matter of partisan preference. When our margin of ambiguity FAR exceeds our margin of victory, "accuracy" is a chimera.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), December 13, 2000.

Sheeple@Greener.Pastures,

>Funny you should mention Oklahoma.

I was born in Tulsa, and lived there until I was 28. That's why I would have checked it on that voting technology map anyway, but its solid color for optical scan stood out once one checked it.

>If you don't vote for a major race, such as the President, the first time you put your ballot into the machine, it will spit it back out at you. (I guess to make sure that you didn't want to vote for that race.)

So _that's_ why I saw that happen to another voter at an optical scan machine here. At the time I figured it was just some alignment problem.

>One night last week, there was a former State Elections Supervisor on one of the local news shows talking about how he made the decision to use the optical scan method for the entire state. (*snip*) He took the time, did the research and mandated that the state conform to the optical scan way of voting.

And now, he's a pioneer with foresight!

>Question is, how long will it take states like Florida to actually amend their state constitutions to handle the voting issues which we have seen over the past month?

Not all states have as much stuff in their constitutions as Oklahoma has. For many, the voting provisions are simply statutes and are easier to change.

Since you've been in Oklahoma only a short time, you may not yet know that for at least the first half century after its statehood in 1907 Oklahoma had, by a wide margin, the longest constitution of any state. What we were told in civics class was that the state founders wanted to make it really hard to change the extensive railroad regulations so they threw all those and lots of other stuff into the constitution. Didn't trust the legislature to withstand the entreaties of lobbyists for railroads and other powerful interests, apparently. I remember voting during the early 1970s on referenda to cut big obsolete sections out of the state constitution.

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

Flint,

>I agree with Judge Sauls that Gore failed to show any systematic error, fraud, mechanical breakdown, act of God, or any other serious reason to suspect that the counts already performed had been in any unusual way remiss.

Let me ask about just this case: If a punch card ballot has a "hanging chad" that flops over the hole when it goes through the counting machine, so that the hole is not detected by the machine, but a manual inspection finds that obviously three (or two) corners of the chad were severed, is that a legal vote that should be counted, or not?

I'm not asking about the preggie or dimpled chads, or ones with only one corner broken. I'm asking about chads that swing free of the hole when someone holds up the ballot for inspection, but were flopped over the hole when the ballot went through the counting machine.

If you say it's a legal vote, then why should a manual recount to include that vote be denied, hypothetically supposing that a set of election workers or others testified that they collectively personally observed 1,000 (or 10,000, or whatever) different ballots with such "hanging chads", when the margin of machine-counted votes was less than 1,000 (or 10,000, or whatever)?

>This doesn't mean I'm trying to deny any losing candidate any recourse to correct clear fraud or error.

Why do you agree that Gore failed to show evidence of errors? Were you in the courtroom? Did you inspect the ballots?

>I genuinely believe that if there had been any good indication of any such thing, I'd have wanted it corrected as well. But the only thing to be "corrected" here was the *wrong winner*!

How do you know that? Do you have any direct evidence yourself that there was no error such as Gore alleged?

>If the existence of a few percentage of undervotes (not at all unusual for punchcard voting) is sufficient reason for the loser to take a close election to court, then the precedent is that the courts can effectively reverse (or permit the effort to reverse) any close election.

But no Forida court attempted to reverse the election. There were court rulings in favor of _allowing recounts to proceed_.

Do you equate a recount request with reversal of an election? Why not wait to see the outcome of the recount?

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

No Spam:

I'll answer as well as I can. But I think you are playing games here.

[Let me ask about just this case: If a punch card ballot has a "hanging chad" that flops over the hole when it goes through the counting machine, so that the hole is not detected by the machine, but a manual inspection finds that obviously three (or two) corners of the chad were severed, is that a legal vote that should be counted, or not?]

What I wrote was, we can decide that this is a legal vote, or we can decide that it is not. We now have two standards of interpreting this kind of ballot. We can now recount the entire state twice, each time using one of these two standards. We get two different counts. We might even get two different winners. Fine. Who is the "real" winner? Do you decide based on which standard you find more "reasonable", or do you decide based on who won? If Bush won the "at least two broken corners" count, and Gore won the "at least three broken corners" count, then who won the election? Which definition is "right"? [If you say it's a legal vote, then why should a manual recount to include that vote be denied, hypothetically supposing that a set of election workers or others testified that they collectively personally observed 1,000 (or 10,000, or whatever) different ballots with such "hanging chads", when the margin of machine-counted votes was less than 1,000 (or 10,000, or whatever)?]

I would imagine that if the vote is essentially a tie, then the instance of this kind of "legal vote" (assuming we define it thus) would cancel out between the candidates. Indeed, I would be highly suspicious of any significant swing in the favor of *either* candidate once such ballots were examined manually. Wouldn't you?

Or are you hypothesizing that there might be something systematically different about voters for one candidate -- perhaps there is something statistically different about them that correlates with hanging chad? But if you think that this theoretical possibility is, in and of itself *sufficient* grounds for a recount, then we disagree.

[Why do you agree that Gore failed to show evidence of errors? Were you in the courtroom? Did you inspect the ballots?]

Nobody has alleged fraud, mistake, or mechanical failure. Gore did not attempt to present such evidence. We have reports that Gore's team combed the state searching for such evidence, and only came up with a printing error on absentee ballot *applications* for their troubles. I think we can safely conclude that such evidence could not be found. And I already said that if it HAD been found, I'd have favored correcting it. Saying "just because we didn't find it, is not proof it didn't exist" STILL fails to meet the threshhold for justifying a recount, doesn't it?

[How do you know that? Do you have any direct evidence yourself that there was no error such as Gore alleged?]

I'm not sure I'm parsing this question correctly. Gore did not allege any fraud, mechanical failure, etc. To my knowledge, Gore only alleged that if he were permitted to examine undervotes in selected counties, he could "find" sufficient Gore votes to swing the election. But again, the incidence of undervotes was not atypical, nor was the pattern of physical conditions of the ballots the machines rejected as undervotes. And saying "If you let me define how an ambiguous ballot is to be interpreted and let me look only at those most likely to favor me, I *may* find enough to change the outcome" STILL doesn't meet the criteria for demanding a recount, does it?

[>If the existence of a few percentage of undervotes (not at all unusual for punchcard voting) is sufficient reason for the loser to take a close election to court, then the precedent is that the courts can effectively reverse (or permit the effort to reverse) any close election.

But no Forida court attempted to reverse the election. There were court rulings in favor of _allowing recounts to proceed_.]

I did not say any court attempted to reverse any election (which is why I left in what I wrote). I said "permit the effort to reverse", which when you combine a tie vote with a partisan count is effectively a reversal, as I DID write. Again, recounts proceeed either to correct errors which meet some reasonable threshhold (of which none were alleged in this election), or else in the hopes of changing the outcome (if "free ride" recounts are permitted). The "Gore threshhold" as established in this election is absurdly low, requiring nothing more than canvassers of one's own party.

[Do you equate a recount request with reversal of an election? Why not wait to see the outcome of the recount?]

I equate a recount with the desire to reverse the outcome. Winners don't demand recounts! If you had beaten me in a close election according to TWO counts already, how willing would you be to see the outcome of yet another recount? *Especially* when I could not demonstrate any reason to PERFORM this recount other than in the hopes of a reversal? Would you be comfortable letting me perform another recount, for no compelling reason, only where I stand to gain the most, according to recount standards that are clearly flexible, knowing that if I "found" enough votes for me, I would declare this "the REAL will of the voters" and YOU would get no customized recounts to reverse the outcome again? I somehow doubt this.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), December 13, 2000.

This might be a good time to look at the standards Texas uses for manual vote counting. Are the standards too strict or too lenient?

http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/statutes/el/el012700.html

§ 127.130. Manual Counting

(a) Electronic system ballots that are not to be counted automatically and the write-in votes not counted at the polling places shall be counted manually at the central counting station.

(b) If the automatic counting of electronic system ballots becomes impracticable for any reason, the manager may direct that the ballots be counted manually at the central counting station.

(c) The procedure for manual counting is the same as that for regular paper ballots to the extent practicable. The manager is responsible for the manual counting of ballots at the central counting station.

(d) Subject to Subsection (e), in any manual count conducted under this code, a vote on a ballot on which a voter indicates a vote by punching a hole in the ballot may not be counted unless:

(1) at least two corners of the chad are detached;

(2) light is visible through the hole;

(3) an indentation on the chad from the stylus or other object is present and indicates a clearly ascertainable intent of the voter to vote; or

(4) the chad reflects by other means a clearly ascertainable intent of the voter to vote.

(e) Subsection (d) does not supersede any clearly ascertainable intent of the voter.

Acts 1985, 69th Leg., ch. 211, § 1, eff. Jan. 1, 1986.

Amended by Acts 1993, 73rd Leg., ch. 728, § 52, eff. Sept. 1, 1993.



-- Texas (manual@vote.counting), December 13, 2000.

Flint,

NSP>>[If you say it's a legal vote, then why should a manual recount to include that vote be denied, hypothetically supposing that a set of election workers or others testified that they collectively personally observed 1,000 (or 10,000, or whatever) different ballots with such "hanging chads", when the margin of machine-counted votes was less than 1,000 (or 10,000, or whatever)?]

F>I would imagine that if the vote is essentially a tie, then the instance of this kind of "legal vote" (assuming we define it thus) would cancel out between the candidates.

You're ducking.

Answer the question.

-- No Spam Please (nos_pam_please@hotmail.com), December 15, 2000.

NSP:

I don't think I'm ducking, I think you are grasping. But I'll go into more detail if you wish (recognizing that I made MANY points in my posts and you are carefully not mentioning any of them).

If I read you correctly, what you are saying is that IF we get a lot of hanging chad which MIGHT have been misinterpreted by a machine count, THEN this physical property of punchcard ballots should properly constitute sufficient justification for a recount. Right? And let's grant that the number of such ballots exceeds the margin of victory by the "flawed" machine count. You ask why such a recount should be denied.

Now, to me you imply that ALL close elections that use punchcard ballots MUST be manually recounted. Otherwise, how will we even know if enough hanging chad happened to potentially reverse the outcome? In that case, why bother doing a machine count in the first place? Just admit you have a policy that punchcard ballots will be manually counted according to some fixed or flexible rules for interpretation, which we define as being "more accurate" than the machine count.

At this point, I argued that these "legal vote" swinging chad ballots are presumed not to favor any candidate, but rather to happen randomly and be neutral. The fact that the machine count makes errors, sometimes failing to count what we might reasonably consider a legal vote, and sometimes counting what we might reasonably consider NOT a legal vote, is something we accept. We accept machine errors because they show no preferences we're aware of.

So now you suddenly jump up, when your preferred candidate loses a close election with a high enough percentage of punchcard ballots, and claim that you *presume* the mechanical error rate was high enough to make a difference, and you also *presume* that the preponderance of these errors *could* have been in your opponent's favor, and that these *presumptions* are sufficient grounds to demand a recount (but only in counties with favorable demographics and where your party controls the recount procedures).

So I argue that IF the machines *by definition* cannot be trusted with a close election, then they should not be used for ANY election. And that IF we use these machines, then the *possibility* that normal mechanical error rate *might* have determined the winner, is NOT sufficient grounds for a recount. This is IMO a pure "fishing expedition" recount, for no stronger reason than that the losing candidate has nothing to lose by counting, if necessary over and over, in the hopes of finally winning.

If you can demonstrate that a machine is clearly broken, then I agree you should manually count the ballots cast using that machine. But I believe the normal, typical error rate of a properly working machine isn't reason enough to demand a recount. If you trust it to vote with, you trust it to count with.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), December 15, 2000.

THREE canvassing boards looking at the 1200 vote difference between machine tallies concluded to do the thing manually.

END of STORY

hint to Flint....it ain't as hard as you think and does not require a novel to explain the OBVIOUS.

-- Doc Paulie (fannybubbles@usa.net), December 15, 2000.

Doc Droolie:

[THREE canvassing boards]

All controlled by the Democrats. Why do you leave this out?

[looking at the 1200 vote difference]

without justification. Why do you leave this out?

[between machine tallies concluded to do the thing manually.]

But such a conclusion could not be reached until AFTER they had "reinterpreted" the ballots. Now how could they "conclude" that these reinterpretations needed to be done without doing them to find this out? And why did they do them in the first place, if they weren't looking for some excuse to continue? [it ain't as hard as you think]

I'm not saying it's hard at all. The ideas are simple and self- evident to anyone not hopelessly victimized by the "recount until I win" meme.

[and does not require a novel to explain the OBVIOUS.]

It should not, and would not if you could only SEE the obvious. But your mind is made up, facts need not apply. And THAT makes it extremly hard, and requires a novel. But it's one thing to write it, and another to get meme-infected fools to read. Maybe you could get Patricia to explain to you slowly, since she is not retarded and also willing to read and understand.

In any case, I was writing for No Spam, who deserves enough respect to get a long and careful explanation, because he reads and replies intelligently. He's also probably smarter than I am.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), December 15, 2000.