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| 5/17 |
| 2000/11/14 [Politics/Domestic/California, Politics/Domestic/California/Arnold] UID:19774 Activity:high |
11/14 For those of you who still think that Gore is getting more
votes becaused he earned them:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=65000596
http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=65000613
\_ i dont' agree with the Wall Street Journal's numbers
in that article
\_ Ok, great. Make up your own. What numbers would you
prefer? Make some up and post a URL. Sheesh. Let's
not let little things like "facts" get in the way of
the truth.
\_ I'm glad to see you've learnt something.
The one thing that Bill taught me was to
never let facts and the truth stand in my
way. - Al Gore
PS. After inventing the Internet, I became
an 3113T H@X0R and I'm posting this from my
R00T SH311 D00DZ! A1 G0R3 0WNZ U!
\_ Hmmm, Wall Street Journal. No bias there. The first article is
purely subjective stating, to a first order approximation,
"recounts are bad, mm'kay." The second article features fast
and loose journalism "Statisticians tell me that is highly
unlikely". Who are these vaunted statisticians? Are they
College Professors? Are they bored students taking stat 2? Are
they even real? Who can say. Go sourcing. Why should anyone
trust the statisticians a writer for the Journal pulled out of his
ass? Why will they have anything but the bias needed for Fund's
angle? |
| 5/17 |
|
| www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=65000596 EST No, the sparsely populated country just south of Libya has not all of a sudden started making news. Rather, the talk about different types of "chad" is at the center of the current vote count firestorm in Florida, and how it's handled will probably determine who the next president is. A chad is the small perforated portion of a paper ballot that voters use a stylus to punch out and thus indicate their choice of candidate. If a chad is punched completely out, a computer registers a vote. But many voters don't vote for every office, either because they don't know about any of the candidates or are disgusted with all of them. In a very few cases, the stylus doesn't completely punch through and the little pieces of chad stay stuck to the ballots. As ABC News points out, there are about a half dozen different types of chads. There is the "pregnant chad," the "dimpled chad," the "tri chad" (with three corners hanging loose from the ballot), the "swinging-door chad" (two corners) and the "hanging-door chad" (one corner). Chad shouldn't really exist in this country because for at least 25 years optical scanners have been available to count votes. A voter fills in an oval with a lead pencil, takes it to a scanner which then shows any problems with how the ballot was filled out. Some new machines allow the voter to carry home a copy of how he voted. In Leon County, Florida (Tallahassee), optical scanners worked like a charm this year. A machine recount of all county ballots this week resulted in not a single change to any vote total. Unfortunately, only about 7% of the country uses such scanners. A full 37% of all voters are stuck with punch cards and chads, technology decades old and prone to problems. Some counties keep punch cards because new voting technology takes a back seat to other budget priorities, although perhaps the current crisis will change that shortsighted attitude. A recount of punch card ballots can be one of the most grueling, subjective and confrontational events in politics. The problem, ballot experts say, is that trying to divine a voter's intentions on a secret ballot is often inherently subjective. Alan Simpson told us, "Some counties use the 'sunshine test' to see if sun will shine through the ballot chad indicating it's loose. The mere act of running punch-card ballots through a computer will loosen some chads. Picking up a card from a pile and sliding it toward you can loosen a chad. If the fragile ballots are "tortured" enough by machine or hand a desired result can often be achieved. In Florida, the three-member Palm Beach canvassing commission has no clear standards set in state law on how they will conduct a recount of punch-card ballots. The two Democrats changed their mind twice on what standard to use in the sample recount of four precincts done on Saturday. In the morning, they indicated a ballot would be valid of only one corner was detached from the card. Then they decided to go with a "sunlight" test, in which ballots were held up to the light. Midway through the count, the standard was liberalized and they discontinued the "sunlight" test and went back to the one-corner standard. The new standard required them to go back and recount all the ballots they had just ruled on. In the end, this shifting standard produced enough changes in vote totals to prompt a 2-1 vote in favor of a countywide recount that will begin Monday. At the speed the sample recount went, it would take Palm Beach County workers 37 days working 24 hours a day to complete the task. None of the problems associated with recounts prove that election bureaucracies tilt toward one party or candidate. But election workers are often underpaid and overworked as well as unfamiliar with all the mechanics of a recount. They are often no match for sharp, aggressive lawyers who can make their life miserable if they don't bend in their direction on interpreting ballots. Arnold Steinberg, a GOP pollster in California, recalls a 1980 election that turned into a nighmare. James Corman, heir apparent to take over the House Ways and Means Committee, had been defeated by Republican Bobbi Fiedler, and Democrats wanted the seat back. Ultimately, the Democrats halted the recount when it became clear Ms. Fiedler's 749-vote margin of victory was insurmountable. As a young journalist, I too witnessed a disastrous recount in California in the 1980s. A state Assembly seat near Stockton went to Republican Adrian Fondse by 39 votes. Democrats sent in the same tough team of lawyers that had handled the Corman-Fiedler recount. They were equally obnoxious and aggressive, with the difference that the number of votes they had to make up were much smaller. After more than a week of trench warfare and intimidation of election workers, the adjusted recount gave the election to Democrat Pat Johnston. No party has a monopoly on bad behavior when it comes to recounts. In 1995 Indiana's GOP state legislators ran roughshod over the rights of a Democrat who had knocked off a GOP incumbent. They ended up not seating her and ruled enough ballots invalid to install her opponent in office. That kind of combat often works in reversing narrow election losses in recounts for lower offices. But in the case of Florida deciding who the next president is, such hardball tactics will likely both educate and irritate a weary public. |
| www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=65000613 EST "This is outrageous and illegal," fumed Democratic Rep. Peter Deutsch yesterday after Broward County's three election commissioners voted not to conduct a manual recount of last Tuesday's ballots. Democrats immediately vowed to sue to force a hand count of all ballots. The same Democrats who cheered when Palm Beach County voted for a full recount on Saturday blasted Judge Robert Lee, a Democrat, when he joined Republican Jane Carroll in rejecting a manual recount. Unlike Palm Beach County, Broward conducted a smooth hand count of 3,892 sample ballots and found only four extra votes for Al Gore. Gore's efforts to secure enough votes in recounts to overturn George W. Bush's 388-vote lead, which is likely to be bolstered when overseas absentee ballots are all counted on Friday. The only other county that has hand-counted all its ballots is Volusia (Daytona Beach), and Mr. Officials in Dade County (Miami) will meet Tuesday to discuss a possible sample hand recount, the odds of which have probably declined given that Broward--the county just north--has decided against any more counting. Yesterday, Osceola County, a Democratic stronghold, also reversed its original decision to have a hand recount and has finished its count. Sunday decision by the Palm Beach election canvassing board to proceed with a full hand count is already hugely controversial. One of the two votes for a hand count came from Theresa LePore, the elections supervisor who designed the infamous butterfly ballot. Jeb Bush, brother of the Republican presidential nominee, recused himself from participating in the state's Election Commission. Yesterday Palm Beach County circuit judge Stephen Rapp recused himself from lawsuits over the butterfly ballot after a lawyer accused him of making disparaging remarks about Democrats in a courthouse elevator. Judge Rapp called the accusations "absolutely false" but still withdrew to avoid an appearance of a conflict. An elected Democrat, she no doubt wishes to run for re-election, but she is now the subject of numerous lawsuits filed by voters angry over the ballot. A local Democratic state legislator is mounting a recall campaign against her. Gore gained a net of 19 votes after Saturday night's sample recount of 1% of the county's precincts. Democrats extrapolate that a full hand count would yield 1,900 extra votes for Mr. Palm Beach County has fewer than 10,000 "undervote" ballots--those for which the machine count showed no vote for president. The Gore campaign picked the most Democratic precincts that had the greatest number of "undervote" ballots. So instead of recounting only 1% of the total county vote, Palm Beach actually counted 5% of the undervote ballots. LePore and her fellow mind-readers as representing ballots that should be counted. Experts guess than only about 1,000 votes could legitimately be found in the county wide boxes of "undervote" ballots. Gore with only a 200 net gain in votes--a not enough for him to catch Mr. If the number of extra Gore votes exceeds 200 in Palm Beach County, it may be time for voters to start wondering exactly how the vote count was conducted and how carefully the ballots had been handled. I fear that regardless of the outcome of Tuesday's court hearing that will determine if all county vote totals must be turned over to Florida's Secretary of State, the ballot-box chasers rampaging through south Florida aren't packing their bags to leave anytime soon. But the bravery of Broward County officials, including a Democratic judge, in standing up to public pressure for a hand recount shows there are still people in this sad mess who are willing to act with integrity and pay attention to the facts before them. |