Subject: Re: Hypocracy? Yes Please
From: Matt Kozusko (mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu)
Date: Thu Dec 21 2000 - 17:11:57 GMT
It is certain that everyone political party involved in this election is
guilty of corruption, hypocrisy, double-dealing, legal-recoursing,
vote-mongering, vote-disqalifying, and all the rest of it. However, the
Gore legal team and its supporters appear to have at least one fully
legitimate and entirely reasonable argument for having at least some of
the machine-rejected ballots examined. If the newspapers and electronic
news sources are accurate, there are several thousand ballots that were
rejected by punch-card counting machines, for whatever reason, but never
examined at all by hand. With a published 3-5 (or 5-7; I can't
remember) percent error margin for punch card ballots in the disputed
counties in Florida, we have, according to common sense (and according the
US Supreme Court's ruling of last week), a remarkable instance of
unfairness to voters in those counties and to all candidates
involved. The margin of error with newer, fancier (and more
expensive) vote tabulators is significantly lower. Of course, this
unfairness obtains nationwide, but, in the end, only in selected Florida
counties, it seems, does the issue potentially decide the election. So,
regardless of whose job it is to assess voter intent, it seems reasonable
that it's somebody's job (and perhaps a legal obligation) to look at those
ballots, at least to sort the obvious votes from the undervotes.
Now, I'd like to know more about the "margin of error" stats, of which I'm
vaguely distrustful, and all relevant numbers could use careful
examination. But giving this matter precedence over obedience to date
deadlines that are surely more convenient than necessary would go at least
a little way toward making the US more like the fabled
"democracy" somebody mentioned a few posts ago.
il n'y a pas de hors texte,
Matt
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