Gore is going to win!!! Recount of 1% says he'll gain approx. 1900 votes

[veryape]

Russ,this is just an observation,so please don't taker offense to anything I might say,but,aren't you a little one sided and partisan on this issue? I mean it seems you will not listen to reason even when there is proof . You sound like a very thickheaded republican. Don't take offense because at times I am a thick headed democrat,but,you need to view this from a different perspective. Maybe that of a bystander with no party affiliations or opinions. You are talking about a vote difference of a couple hundred votes in a state where the person runnings brother is governor and you are acting as if Al Gore has no leg to stand on,and as if he stands no chance. I mean,Bush was berating and pleading with Gore not to get the courts involved but look,now that Gore is GOING to pull ahead,Bush HAS to take this to court because Jeb couldn't even steal the state for him. This situation is ludicrous and,mark my words,there will be eventual investigations and hopefully some convictions if there was any illegal goings on. If it were Gore in the wrong I would not respond at all,unlike most republicans,because I would want to know who actually and RIGHTFULLY won by the peoples vote.

 

[K_Factor]

The next president may have been decided by a 3 person canvassing board in Palm Beach County by a margin of 2 to 1. If that isn't a scary thought, I don't know what is. All a recount tends to do is raise the margin of victory for the winner. The results of the recount in Palm Beach county are suprising. Do they really warrent a recount of the entire county? Here are some facts.

Gore received 19 out of 33 of the new votes, which is about 58%.
Gore received around 269,000 out of 422,000 previous votes, which is about 64%.

The idea of a hand recount is simple. For every 100 new votes in Palm Beach county that are counted, Gore should get 64 and Bush 36. The 1% hand count showed that Gore picked up less than the percentage of votes that he should have, based on previous counts for the county. This should not be enough evidence to warrent a recount for the entire county, IMHO.

Hand recounting one county in Florida, which may decide who the next president is, is insane. They should either do a hand recount in the entire state of Florida or not at all. The counties that the recounts are taking place in are heavily skewed in one parties favor. It will be a sad day for this country if Gore wins the election based on a hand recount in a handful of counties.
I am not a Democrat or Republican, but I am interested in seeing the most accurate and fair vote count possible. The things going on in Florida right now are crazy.

 

[ride525]

They are doing a hand recount in the counties where it was requested. I think that is only a small number of counties (four?)....

 

[chess9]

K_Factor:

Bush had the opportunity to request a full recount but declined. My theory is that most of the chads that didn't go through were punched by women, who vote overwhelmingly for Gore. The Republican's experts probably know this and told them. They know a full state manual recount would result in a BIG win for Gore, rather than the small win he will probably secure.

I'd say the Republicans are, and should be, sweating bullets right about now.

 

[K_Factor]

chess9,

To say that a statewide recount would result in a "BIG win" for Gore is pure speculation.
The problem with the Florida situation is that the system is so full of problems that the loser can always make a case for a recount, or say that they were cheated. Gore would clearly lose without a hand recount. It seems like the Palm Beach situation is nothing more than an excuse for the losing party to ask for a recount, and have a chance to STEAL the election. I am not saying that the Republicans wouldn't do the same thing. The Florida situation is a big mess and a lose / lose situation for everyone, regardless of who wins the election.

 

[K_Factor]

chess9,

You also have to admit that the numbers that came from the hand recount don't exactly support a county wide hand recount. I think that the decision for a county wide recount in Palm Beach was made before the hand recount of 1% of the votes had even started...

 

[ride525]

<< You also have to admit that the numbers that came from the hand recount don't exactly support a county wide hand recount. >>



I don't agree.....Gore gained 19 votes in a 1% sample......If anything even remotely close to that happens, that's enough to swing the whole election....and there are three other counties where a hand recount have been requested I think...

 

[etech]

Gore will try to get Florida to recount and recount until he comes out ahead and then declare victory.
They even changed the way the are counting ballots in the middle of the recount. Gore not getting enough votes?

recounting until you get the results you want
>>In Florida, voters record their votes by punching a square hole next to the name of their candidate on the ballot form. The piece of paper that falls out is called a &quot;chad&quot;.

Many of the disputes in Florida center on whether the hole was properly punched, if the chad remained attached to the ballot or if there is only an indentation in the ballot form.

Late in the day, after three hours of counting, the canvassing board liberalized its criteria for counting votes.

At about 3:45 p.m. (2045 GMT), the chairman of the county canvassing board, Charles Burton, told his colleagues: ``All we're trying to determine, is if light is coming through.''

But several hours later, the board announced new criteria: If a punched hole has one, two or three of its corners detached, the vote on a ballot will count. And the board announced it would re-examine questionable ballots it looked at earlier.

Tucker Eskew, speaking for the Bush campaign told reporters he found the new procedure ``troubling.'' It ``does not inspire confidence in the American people regardless of the details,'' he said. ``This is a grave matter.''

 

[K_Factor]

ride525,

There were votes that were not counted for various reasons in the entire state of Florida, not just those 4 counties. That is my point. Recounting in ONLY four heavily Democratic counties will skew the results enough to give Gore the election. Is that the way a president should be elected?

 

[Shuxclams]

Yes ride there are but only 2 out of those three have committed to a manual count as of friday. Monday the Bush campaign is going to court to stop Broward County so that just leaves 2 out of four (if Bush actaully gets his case heard) racing to beat the deadline of 5pm on the 17th. The chances are slight but chances just the same that he could somehow win this. All I know is I don't want to see this protracted in court.


SHUX

 

[chess9]

K_Factor:

I don't agree with your analysis, though it is thought-provoking.

Frankly, in this day and age, I don't understand why everyone's vote shouldn't be counted. We should have the machinery in place to do it properly. Is this any way to run a democracy? Voting is THE most important thing we do as citizens. I have no doubts millions of people nationwide were effectively disenfranchised by these dreadful machines and the stupidity of local Boards of Elections. I hope Republicans and Democrats are upset enough to do something about this terrible situation. Everyone in a democracy should want the winner to be the person who receives the most votes, not the person who has the fewest number of chad defects! Truly stupid.

 

[Shuxclams]

<< There were votes that were not counted for various reasons in the entire state of Florida, not just those 4 counties. That is my point. Recounting in ONLY four heavily Democratic counties will skew the results enough to give Gore the election. Is that the way a president should be elected? >>


You know K_Factor, Alot of these Gore supporters got the shaft with &quot;to stupid to punch the right hole&quot; and &quot;tough luck&quot;, well here is the deal, Bush could have asked for manual counts in counties he thought he could squeeze votes out of. The way I see it, Gore did a better job of playing the game and now Bush is using the federal courts to &quot;save&quot; him. &quot;tough luck, your guy was a little slow&quot;. Still the election is not over and who knows who the hell will win, its intresting as hell though.



SHUX

 

[ride525]

<< There were votes that were not counted for various reasons in the entire state of Florida, not just those 4 counties. That is my point. Recounting in ONLY four heavily Democratic counties will skew the results enough to give Gore the election. Is that the way a president should be elected? >>


I would agree....but according to CNN:

<< The deadline for requesting a manual recount for the 53 Florida counties that have already been certified by the state passed Friday night. The state's 14 remaining counties, including Palm Beach, can still request manual recounts of Tuesday's results. >>

 

[cxim]

shux,

a lot of this is unclear.

The initial manual counts are for a sample as in Palm Beach.

Volusia county may be an exception. Another county, a 5th one I believe, Polk, is also doing a manual recount that was not part of the Democrat request.

Last I heard, Polk was about 1/2 way thru &amp; they have been working on it for several days, hoping to make it by the deadline.

The other Dem requested counties are large population counties &amp; only God knows how long it will take.

 

[chess9]

Osceola County will also vote on Monday whether to order a manual recount. It is pretty heavily Republican, but the Dems are screaming bloody murder about problems at the polls. I'm not so sure Gore would pick up many votes in Osceola County, though.

 

[K_Factor]

ride525 and Shuxclams,

What are you two saying? That it makes you happy to see the president of the United States elected on a legal technicality? Would you feel the same way if the shoe was on the other foot?
The Florida system is so screwed up that a the local election officials in a few COUNTIES are going to decide who the president of the entire NATION is. So, should the president be the candidate that gets the advantage by using the Florida election laws the most effectively?
Hmmm......

 

[Michael]

Shuxclams - What is the deadline - the 17th or next Tuesday, the 14th?

from CNN:

Bob Crawford, who replaced Gov. Jeb Bush as commissioner of Florida's Canvassing Commission, said Saturday that if a county misses the state's deadline for certifying results, the entire county's vote will be thrown out.

&quot;The statute is very clear that if a county's results are not to us by 5 p.m. Tuesday we shall ignore that county's vote, and the counties need to be very aware of that,&quot; Crawford told reporters. &quot;Candidates asking for recounts need to be aware of that.&quot;

I cannot see any way to complete handcounts by the deadline if it is Tuesday. It would be way too easy for the Republicans to fight every single vote and the Plam Beach County canvassing board is only meeting on Monday morning to start planning the count.

As someone who has done lots of inventory counts over the years, I know how error prone hand counts are. If I were Bush, I would insist on a re-handcount of exactly the same ballots. If the results differ by even one vote, I would attack the methodology used as being too subjective to trust and argue that machine counts are the only fair way.

A machine count tallies all votes where there is no doubt (card punched all the way through). The hand count can count votes where the counters feel that a voter meant to vote in a certain way but for some reason the card was not punched out. All machine counts have a certian error rate, but they tend to be pretty consistent. It does not appear that the machine counts would change much if at all form the unofficial counts for the county and another machine count was one of the three options the board had. The second woman who voted for the manual count seemed to be making it clear that the machines were counting as they were designed to.

They're going under the standard where ONE corner punched means that a vote was intended. This is from ballots that have been handled over and over again.

I fear that both parties are in a no win situation. They can't even offer to split the Florica EC votes because that would push Gore over the top.

Gore lost his home state and had a very poor showing considering the 8 years of almost unprecidented economic prosperity. Bush has no traction at all in the African-American communities and lost big in the big city states. As far as I can tell (and I'm agreeing with Red Dawn here), both &quot;lost&quot; the election.

Michael

 

[ride525]

<< What are you two saying? That it makes you happy to see the president of the United States elected on a legal technicality? Would you feel the same way if the shoe was on the other foot? >>



I'm in favor of getting the most accurate vote count. Second, Florida state laws should be followed. This is, and continues to be, my position.

Florida laws need to be followed in order to do for manual recounts. One of those laws is the time limit for requesting a manual recount. I'm sure both sides are aware of the time limits and laws. Everyone has had the same time limits, which according to the CNN have expired for most of the Florida counties.

So, lets get as accurate a vote count as we can, following Florida state law.

 

[mastertech01]

<< They're going under the standard where ONE corner punched means that a vote was intended. This is from ballots that have been handled over and over again. >>




Wonderful point...I was thinking the same all along..

 

[ICyourNipple]

I don't give a flying sh!t what the law says, if Bush can't counter with recounts in Republican counties that had even more thrown out ballots, then this election is a fraud. End of story.

 

[ride525]

<< I don't give a flying sh!t what the law says, if Bush can't counter with recounts in Republican counties that had even more thrown out ballots, then this election is a fraud. >>



Bush could have countered, and he still can counter, with manual recount requests. However, it would be a pretty surprising move that he would do this now, since Bush filed for an injuction to STOP the manual recounts.

And Bush apparently signed a Texas law giving perference to manual recounts. Wonder what he will do next. Whatever helps him win the election, just like what Gore is doing.

 

[Tripleshot]

ICyourNipple

If it was a floating sh!t,would you care?


Your a libertarian. You had your chance. you lost.

Get over it.







That Russ thing is contagious!