Gore would have gained votes in Lake

By David Damron, Ramsey Campbell and Roger Roy of the Sentinel Staff Posted December 19, 2000 8:31 AM EST

TAVARES -- An inspection of more than 6,000 discarded presidential ballots in Lake County on Monday revealed that Vice President Al Gore lost a net 130 votes that were clearly his even in a conservative, GOP bastion that president-elect George W. Bush dominated as a whole.

The tally of uncounted ballots by the Orlando Sentinel was the first outside review to be completed in any Florida county since the U.S. Supreme Court halted a statewide recount on Dec. 9. At that point Bush's ever-fluctuating lead over Gore was just 154 votes -- and the margin might have been shaved to a mere two dozen had the Lake ballots been counted. Similar ballots were counted elsewhere.

The review found 376 discarded ballots in Lake that were clearly intended as votes for Gore: In each case, an oval next to his name was filled in with a pencil and the voter mistakenly filled in another oval next to a spot reserved for write-in candidates, writing in Gore's name or running mate Joe Lieberman's there as well. Another 246 such ballots showing clear votes for Bush and running mate Dick Cheney were thrown out. Had all such ballots been counted, the result would have been a net gain of 130 votes for Gore.

Bush spokesman Tucker Eskew said the Sentinel was engaged in "mischief making" by treating "illegal votes" as legal votes. He argued that a 7-2 majority of the U.S. Supreme Court agreed such tallies should not count, and the Sentinel would only be irresponsibly "inflaming public passions" by playing the numbers up as certain or clear. (Oh yeah...like stealing an election doesn't "inflame public passions".

But the Lake numbers are significant even in isolation. Republicans had argued all along that Gore's push for recounts in heavily Democratic counties like Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Broward was selective and unfair because it would have skewed results in his favor. But the Sentinel review shows how he might have recovered votes even in a county where Bush beat him by 15 percentage points.

And ballots exactly like those rejected in Lake -- and now called "illegal" by Eskew -- were counted by canvassing boards in places such as Orange and Seminole counties and are now part of the certified totals.

more to the story

-- ByTheNumbers (Gore@Won.com), December 19, 2000

Answers

From the story:

"If Florida's recounts had continued, the Lake County ballots examined by the Sentinel could have swung the presidential election. Gore was gaining more ground even that Saturday before the recount was halted."

How can the GOP camp not feel even a twinge of guilt over hi-jacking an election? I guess the drive for Power By Any Means takes precedence over honor, integrity and fairness.

-- Bush (CommanderIn@Thief.com), December 19, 2000.

Straight out of Alice in Wonderland. You keep counting until you finally find a way to win, and THEN you accuse the OTHER side of hijacking the election! This is like accusing the cops of stealing when they recover stolen goods from the thief. Bassackwards fer shure.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), December 19, 2000.

Bush you are a jackass. How did George W. Steal this election. He won the orignal machine recount. Then he won the second machine recount. Thats when Al released his liberal left-wing blood hounds and demanded another recount by hand. Bush said that such a recount was unconstituional to do so and the courts back him because the Gore leagal team couldn't prove otherwise. Gore tried to steal it, but Bush won!

PUT THAT IN YOUR PIPE AND SMOKE IT!! LIBERALS SUCK

-- Bosco (Bush@dc.com), December 19, 2000.

Bozo-oops, sorry, I meant Bosco. You mean the second machine recount in selected counties, don't you? Or did you forget that?

Also, when you receive your wings as a constitutional scholar, then maybe you can say what the US Supreme court really meant.

As far as I can see, WITH law schooling, the per curiam ruling merely stated that the Florida Law regarding clear intent could be unconsitutional. In the concurring opinion by Rehnquist, Thomas, and Scalia, a more slippery slope was introduced, as these cats think that any time a voter makes an error that that vote is not a legal vote.

In one fell swoop they would make 33 state's laws unconstitutional, and take away power from state legislatures to decide how to elect presidential electors.

I am more than up to the challenge of doing a line by line analysis of the supreme court's opinion, if any of you folks are up to reading it yourself instead of choking on someone else's soundbites.

-- SydBarrett (dark@side.moon), December 19, 2000.

Syd--

Scuse me, I don't know Latin. Are you claiming that Gore still has a legal chance to win the election? If not, why not move on to the next issue? There will always be a next issue.

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), December 19, 2000.

Syd:

You might be better advised to come up for air. The USSC decision was terrible. The FSC decision that precipitated it was terrible, and probably worse. The lower court decisions were at the very least inappropriate.

At heart, the problem was that Florida law did not specify clearly or coherently either what to do with a tie, or what a recount could or could not be, or exactly how a recount should be conducted.

As a result, several things happened. First, Gore got to start recounting without needing to show any clear and present irregularity, to "go fishing". Second, Gore got to cherry pick counties where he was most likely to gain just by the operation of random chance. Third, the counters got to devise their own (and various) standards for defining a "vote" as they saw fit.

At that point, it was clear to everyone that the situation was out of control. And taking it to the courts only made it worse, because in a Presidential election NOBODY is disinterested. And sure enough, we got to watch judges from bottom to top "find" that their interpretation of the law supported whoever they personally voted for. As Justice Stevens said, this undermines respect for judges everywhere.

The judicial system should NEVER have had to get involved with this matter. Once they did, there was no possible course OTHER than the USSC picking the President. And this stinks no matter who won, because these were strictly political issues. Our hazy statutes were and are time bombs waiting for ties before they go off.

Strictly speaking, the best possible thing the FSC could have done, right off the bat, was to decline to accept any of these cases, and pass the controversies back to the legislative and executive branches, where political issues belong. But the FSC didn't want to do that, because those branches were controlled by the "enemy" party, who would select the "wrong" candidate. The FSC is notorious for being a very activist liberal court.

And the inevitable result was a whole lot of really terrible judicial legislation, by both the FSC and the USSC, trying to get their preferred candidate into office no matter what. You do yourself an injustice by focusing just on the terrible decisions you dislike. They were ALL bad, because it was none of any court's business.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), December 19, 2000.

Lars-

No. That is not what I meant. I merely stated that the effect of the per curium opinion is that there was the strong possibility of 14th amendment violations in the course the Fla Supremes were taking. It suggested the possibility of remedy, but time had run out. What they basically said was the Florida Supreme needed to clarify legislative intent of this phrase-"clear intent of the voter". They stated that embarking on a course of a recount absent specific standards raised constitutional issues. This per curium was unsigned.

The further opinons of Thomas, Rehnquist, and Scalia in the concurring opinion do not have the force of law; it was not part of the per curium.

As far as moving on, this supreme decison will be talked about for hundreds of years. If no one wishes to talk about it here in the future, I certainly will not bring it back up.

-- SydBarrett (dark@side.moon), December 19, 2000.

Wake me when it's over.

-- Carlos (riffraff@cybertime.net), December 19, 2000.

"An inspection of more than 6,000 discarded presidential ballots in Lake County on Monday revealed that Vice President Al Gore lost a net 130 votes that were clearly his even in a conservative, GOP bastion that president-elect George W. Bush dominated as a whole. "

"...lost a net 130 votes that were clearly his..."

Huh?

"The review found 376 discarded ballots in Lake that were clearly intended as votes for Gore: In each case, an oval next to his name was filled in with a pencil and the voter mistakenly filled in another oval next to a spot reserved for write-in candidates, writing in Gore's name or running mate Joe Lieberman's there as well. "

These were "clearly" Gore's? Don't think so. These ballots are invalid.

Next!

-- Buddy (buddydc@go.com), December 20, 2000.

Buddy:

This is a critical question. Should we count the vote of someone whose intent is obvious, but who is also clearly too stupid to fill out a ballot and too dumb to ask?

Maybe we should take a vote on this?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), December 20, 2000.

If a voter fills in the circle for Gore, then fills in the write-in space for Lieberman, there is absolutely no way to determine the voter's intent.

Also, if the ballot instruction says "Vote for one" or "Vote for no more than one", then if a voter fills in two or more the ballot is invalid, even if the write-in name is the same as one of the printed candidate names. At least in my opinion. State laws may say otherwise.

-- Buddy (buddydc@go.com), December 20, 2000.