Polk, Seminole & Manatee counties went heavily for Bush and are the last 3 to report.

Oops. There went Polk. Difference down to 225. Surprising.

-- Carlos (riffraff@cybertime.net), November 09, 2000

Answers

225??? Out of 6,000,000!! Why do I get this sinking feeling that the whole election will come down to less than 100 votes either way?

With this kind of an outcome, the reality is that neither Bush nor Gore was elected. Although one of them will be President come Inauguration Day.

-- Brian McLaughlin (brianm@ims.com), November 09, 2000.

I smell a conjob!

-- Porky (Porky@in.cellblockD), November 09, 2000.

You're right Brian. Looks like 3 plurality presidents in a row.

Not sure which one I'd like to see thrown into the coming malestrom.

-- Carlos (riffraff@cybertime.net), November 09, 2000.

If this goes into the courts, we will be saying hello to President Denny Hastert come January.

Best wishes,,,,

Z

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), November 09, 2000.

It's all my fault!

Seminole County is mine, one of the last two holdouts for reporting the recount. We're a bunch of sloths, what can I say?

If it comes down just a few votes deciding this election, who among this august board could have a better claim to say that *my* vote counted for something?

The fun part is that I was one of the 551 voters in this county who voted for Browne. Silly stubborn nonconformist independent spindoc' that I am.

You're welcome.

-- Spindoc' (spindoc@nolynchings.please), November 09, 2000.

Update: we are now the last county to report. You see, the problem is that, just as we are just about done counting, some fool reporter calls us up to ask if we're done yet. Which of course causes us to lose our place in the count, and we have to start over.

-- Spindoc' (spindoc@nolynchings.please), November 09, 2000.

Carlos, I believe that much of the Floridian voter confusion was due to overmedicated senior citizens.

-- dinosaur (dinosaur@williams-net.com), November 09, 2000.

It's only down to 225 if you listen the AP count which is what all leftwing liberal networks use it's actually 1,743 or something with 53 counties reporting like 3 votes differnt

-- denden (denden@hotmail.com), November 09, 2000.

Carlos, too many stupid Americans are spoiled.

Generations ago they endured hardships and went on with their lives.

Today they are psychologically and spiritually crippled...

-- dinosaur (dinosaur@williams-net.com), November 10, 2000.

Brian:

How do you suggest we handle very close elections? Is it really correct to say that IF the margin between candidates is, say, less than 0.1%, THEN it's not really an election after all? Should the candidates BOTH take office and alternate decisions? Should we throw out the whole election, select new candidates and hope for a wider margin? Should we bring class action lawsuits on the part of everyone who fears they *might* have voted incorrectly and let the judges decide the election? What do you suggest?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), November 10, 2000.

>> How do you suggest we handle very close elections? <<

According to the constitution and the law.

The fact of electors electing a President is very clear in the constitution. How the states allocate their electors is clear in state law. The provision for scrutinizing close elections by allowing recounts of those votes that were cast on election day is also entirely clear. Once a valid count has been obtained, the election is certified by the Secretary of State of the respective states. The process is not at issue, in my eyes. It simply hasn't played out to its conclusion yet, because the election was extremely close.

The provision for holding new elections where widespread fraud has made it impossible to determine the will of the voters is somewhat hazy, compared to the more common provisions I have alluded to above. I don't think anyone has made a believable case for actual fraud - ballot box stuffing, ineligible voters voting in large numbers, legitimate ballots destroyed, or the like - to the degree where a new election should be held in any part of the country. A merely confusing ballot isn't fraud in my view - just human frailty, which cannot be excluded from any human process by any means.

The fact that Gore and Bush will be separated, in the end, by a margin that precludes either man from claiming "victory" does not mean that neither man will pass through this needle's eye and become President. It merely means that the eventual President must live with the knowledge that his country did not elect him so much as the office fell to him by the flipping of a coin. He still must fill the office, in spite of this fact.

-- Brian McLaughlin (brianm@Ims.com), November 11, 2000.

Brian:

I completely agree with you. We count all votes that meet the established tests of being valid. If the election is close and state law calls for a recount, then we recount by the same definitions. Whoever wins wins, even if by a single vote.

Now, what's the "established" test for a "valid" vote? Obviously, state law cannot possibly provide in advance for every possible future ballot design and layout, much less determine in advance just whether each of the infinite number of possible layouts is confusing *enough* to warrant judicial redress, or what that redress might be.

So we have had a procedure. We publish the ballots *as they appear* ahead of time, in newspapers and in polling places, for the public to learn and become familiar with. We have procedures for protesting confusing layouts ahead of time. We have people at the polling locations to give advice and help. We do all we can.

And despite all our efforts, some people are going to misunderstand and screw up. This cannot be avoided. To use the few exceptions as leverage to protest a vote simply because your favored candidate lost by an eyelash is dishonest. Democracy may be ill served if people make mistakes that change the result of a close election, but democracy is *much worse* served if we corrupt our procedures because of inevitable imperfections, *especially* if such well-intentioned (by the losers) corruptions change the outcome.

And whoever wins should win according to the rules and procedures (rather than ad hoc rules and procedures put in place just to change the outcome of a close race) must recognize that he has no mandate of any kind. The race was effectively a tie, he won by random chance.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), November 11, 2000.