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Invisiblesilversoul7
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Registered: 10/10/02
Posts: 27,301
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Re: The rally is being countered..... [Re: luvdemshrooms]
    #1293056 - 02/09/03 08:15 AM (21 years, 1 month ago)

13 Myths about the 2000 election

13 MYTHS ABOUT THE RESULTS OF THE 2000 ELECTION

by Rich Cowan
Millions of dollars are now being raised for a public relations war between the Democrats and the Republicans to determine the next president of the United States. Will the outcome of the election be determined by ratings in the polls? Will the present standoff be resolved by escalation and threats? Or will the intention of the voters on election day and the right of the states to choose their own electors actually matter?

Our involvement this week is essential in order to uphold the principles of democracy. Propaganda is flying left and right. To combat this barrage, we present a point by point analysis of some key myths in the media today, substantiated with footnotes. Please read, copy, and forward to friends, relatives and colleagues! Thanks!


1) Myth: Al Gore trails Bush by such a wide margin that a Bush victory is inevitable and Gore should concede.

Fact: A 557 vote margin out of 6 million votes cast in Florida is incredibly close! It is roughly equivalent to a 1-vote margin in a city with 30,000 people and 12,000 voters.

It is extremely rare for an election this close NOT to be contested for several weeks until a manual recount can take place, with observers from both sides taking part and inspecting ballots.

This kind of detailed recount has not yet taken place in Dade County after protests organized by the Bush campaign succeeded in disrupting the recounts, according to ABC News. Recount results in Palm Beach county were also rejected by the State of Florida, after controversies regarding the counting method delayed the start of the full recount. Including these already-counted ballots would narrow the margin to 175 votes. Including the results of the machine recount in Nassau county would narrow it further, to only 125 votes. Finally, there are two legal challenges pending that if successful would throw out thousands of fraudulent absentee ballots, putting Gore ahead by 4,000 or more votes.


2) Myth: the number of "spoiled ballots" in Palm Beach County was typical. In a press briefing televised live on all networks on 11/9/00, Karl Rove of the Bush campaign compared the 14,872 invalidated ballots in the 1996 Presidential race to 19,120 ballots for President that were spoiled in the 2000 election.

Fact: he Bush campaign was comparing apples and oranges. There were actually 29,702 invalidated Presidential ballots this year in Palm Beach County, twice the number in 1996. The number 19,120 refers to ballots thrown out for voting for two Presidential candidates. The remaining 10,582 ballots had no choice recorded for President.

According to the Palm Beach County elections office (http://home1.gte.net/rad/13myths/www.pbcelections.org), voters this year were not confused at all by the rest of the ballot. For example, less than 1% of U.S. Senate votes were invalidated because of multiple punches, compared with over 4% in the Presidential contest.


3) Myth: The Palm beach ballot is definitely illegal due to the presence of punch holes to the left of some of the candidates.

Fact: According to the Secretary of State's office, a section of Florida law may allow ballots used for voting machines to deviate from the rules governing paper ballots. This view has been contested by hundreds of Florida voters. The final decision on the legality of the ballot is likely to be made in court, and could affect the election.

It is possible that the ballot could be ruled illegal on other grounds, such as the Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and Handicapped Act or the Americans With Disabilities Act.


4) Myth: "The more often ballots are recounted, especially by hand, the more likely it is that human errors, like lost ballots and other risks, will be introduced. This frustrates the very reason why we have moved from hand counting to machine counting." -- Former Sec. of State James Baker, speaking on behalf of the Bush campaign at a press briefing televised by all networks on 11/10/00.

Fact: In 1997, George W. Bush signed into law a bill endorsing the use of hand recounts in a closely contested elections in Texas. The bill, "HB 331", amended a law that mandates that representatives of all parties be present to prevent fraud.

Similar laws establishing rights and procedures for hand recounts also exist in Florida (see Title IX, Chapter 102). The Bush campaign did not complain when hand counting procedures were used to Bush's advantage in New Mexico. Nor has he objected to hand recounts from mostly Republican counties in Florida giving him at least 418 hand-recounted votes. In hundreds of close local and state elections across the U.S. every year, recount procedures such as this are followed.

Antiquated punch card systems are notoriously inaccurate. They were outlawed in Massachusetts in 1997 by Secretary of State William Galvin after a Congressional primary that was also "too close to call." When the punched-out pieces of cardboard are not completely removed from the punch card, they can obstruct the card reader and the votes will not be counted. A manual recount of such cards can clearly reveal the voter's intentions.


5) Myth: Election officials are doing hand recounts only in liberal areas of Florida, where Gore stands to pick up the most votes. This is unfair.

Fact: Partial hand counting was used on 11/9 and 11/10 by Republicans officials in Seminole County, where Bush led Gore, widening Bush's lead by 98 votes. Five other conservative counties in Florida also employed hand counts in order to produce the most accurate result. Only three of the more liberal counties had sufficient time to manually recount ballots that could not be read by the machine. Bush's lawyers argued before the Florida Supreme Court that denial of time for recounting votes was justified in part on the basis that the law allowed for Gore to "contest" the election results AFTER certification. Now that certification has taken place, the Bush campaign is making the exact opposite claim: that it is now too late and inappropriate to contest the results.

The fairest solution, of course, would be a statewide recount. The Bush campaign has had every right to request one. It might appear that the campaign decided to forego a statewide recount for reasons of principle. Another possible reason is that voting equipment in Republican areas of the state is more up-to-date than the antiquated punch card systems used in many Democratic controlled areas, according to MSNBC (11/14/00). Since the rate of discarded ballots in these conservative areas is lower to begin with, the number of votes Bush could gain in a statewide recount is likely to be lower than for Gore.

Regarding the Gore campaign's choice of counties for a manual recount, these areas did have more voting irregularities on average than in the rest of the state, according to machine recount results.


6) Myth: "Palm Beach County is a Pat Buchanan stronghold and that's why Pat Buchanan received 3407 votes there. According to the Florida Department of State, 16,695 voters in Palm Beach County are registered to the Independent Party, the Reform Party, or the American Reform Party, an increase of 110% since the 1996 presidential election" -- Ari Fleischer of the Bush Campaign, 11/9/00. The 2,000+ votes received by the Reform party candidate for Congress indicate that party's strength in Palm Beach County (James Baker on Meet the Press, 11/12/00).

Fact: Of those 16,695 voters, only 337 (2 percent) are in the Reform Party according to Florida state records. Reform party candidate John McGuire is connected to a more centrist wing of the Reform Party, predating Buchanan's involvement. An analysis of his support indicates that it came largely from reform-minded Ralph Nader voters.

Regarding Buchanan's vote total, the Washington Post reported that his vote percentage in Palm Beach county was four times as high at the polls as in absentee voting. Even Buchanan himself admitted on 11/8/00 on the Today Show that many of his votes actually "belonged to Al Gore." So did his campaign manager, Bay Buchanan.


7) Myth: If Gore (or Bush) ends up winning the popular vote, he really should win the election even if he loses Florida and other states.

Fact: This is not the way the U.S. Constitution is written. The Electoral College decision, imperfect as it may be, is the only one that matters. It may be possible to reform or eliminate the electoral college in the future, so that small states would no longer receive extra electoral votes out of proportion to their population. But until this change is made by Constitutional amendment, the Electoral College is still the law of the land.


8) Myth: The Cook County, Illinois ballot from the home district of Gore campaign chair Bill Daley is just like the "butterfly" ballot used in Palm Beach County (reported by Don Evans, 11/8/00)

Fact: According to the (Chicago) Daily Herald on 11/10/00, the ballots in Chicago which had "facing pages" were judicial retention questions which only had two punch holes, Yes and No.


9) Myth: If the Bush campaign wins the battle over recounts, George W. Bush will definitely win the State of Florida.

Fact: Actually, the recount issue is only half the story. There is mounting evidence that the State of Florida and hundreds of local voting precincts restricted the ability of thousands of non-white voters to vote. Violations were so widespread that the Justice Department may investigate this case.



-Ballots ran out in certain precincts according to the LA Times on 11/10/00.

-Carpools of African-American voters were stopped by police, according to the Los Angeles Times (11/10/00). In some cases, officers demanded to see a "taxi license".

-Polls closed with people still in line in Tampa, according to the Associated Press.

-In Osceola County, ballots did not line up properly, possibly causing Gore voters to have their ballots cast for Harry Browne. Also, Hispanic voters were required to produce two forms of ID when only one is required. (source: Associated Press)

-Dozens, and possibly hundreds, of voters in Broward County were unable to vote because the Supervisor of Elections did not have enough staff to verify changes of address.

-Voters were mistakenly removed from voter rolls because their names were similar to those of ex-cons, according to Mother Jones magazine.

-According to Reuters news service (11/8/00), many voters received pencils rather than pens when they voted, in violation of state law.

-According to the Miami Herald, many Haitian-American voters were turned away from precincts where they were voting for the first time (11/10/00)

-According to Feed Magazine (www.feedmag.com), the mayoral candidate whose election in Miami was overturned due to voter fraud, Xavier Suarez, said he was involved in preparing absentee ballots for George W. Bush. (11/9/00)

-Dan Rather reported that in Volusia County, Socialist Workers Party candidate James Harris won 9,888 votes possibly as the result of a computer error. He only won 583 in the rest of the state (11/9/00). County-level results for Florida are at cnn.com.

-Many African-American first-time voters who registered at motor vehicles offices or in campus voter registration drives did not appear on the voting rolls, according to a hearing conducted by the NAACP and televised on C-SPAN on 11/12/00.

10) Myth: "No evidence of vote fraud, either in the original vote or in the recount, has been presented." -- James Baker, representing the Bush campaign on 11/10/00, in a Florida briefing.

Fact: The election was held just last week, so of course many instances of fraud have not yet been substantiated. Even so, authorities have already uncovered clear evidence of voter fraud involving absentee ballots.

In Pensacola, Florida, Bush supporter Todd Vinson never received the absentee ballot he requested. According to the Associated Press on 11/9/00, it was determined after an investigation that this ballot was received by a third party, filled out with a forged signature, and then sent in. Assistant State Attorney Russell Edgar, when asked if other absentee ballots might had been intercepted, said, "I agree there may well be many more than just this one."

On 11/13/00 in The London Times and on 11/14/00 in the New York Times there were reports of two different kinds of pro-Bush vote fraud schemes which are currently under investigation by authorities.

Much media attention on the issue of voter fraud has been focused on Wisconsin where cigarettes were offered to homeless people who were casting absentee ballots, presumably for Gore. The Gore campaign claims the cigarettes were not used to "buy" votes.


11) Myth: It is highly unusual for judges to intervene after an election. Since the designer of a disputed ballot in Florida is a member of the party contesting the election, a legal challenge is impossible.

Fact: A fundamental right of a democratic society is the right to vote, and to have one's vote correctly counted. The legal system exists to ensure that people's rights are not violated. Whether a violator is a Democrat or a Republican does not affect the right of victims to seek redress.

Elections are ultimately struggles for political power so it should not be surprising that disputes are often resolved in court. Of course judges can be biased. That is why they must explain their decisions and why bad arguments can be overturned on appeal.

In 1998, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that "substantial noncompliance" with election laws and a "reasonable doubt" about whether results "expressed the will of the voters" may allow a judge to "void the contested election, even in the absence of fraud or intentional wrongdoing" (Wall St. Journal, 10/10/00). However there is little legal precedent for a revote in just one area of an election. It might be more likely for a court to order a new election or to overturn the result.

Intervention has occurred in other states as well. In a Massachusetts Democratic primary in 1996 for the US House, the election was so close after recounts that a judge had to make the final decision after examining incompletely punched ballots, to determine the intention of the voter. The candidate who was initially behind, William Delahunt, went on to win the general election and now serves in Congress.


12) Myth: Richard Nixon's party in 1960 did the honorable thing in not contesting the results of the election.

Fact: According to a column in the Los Angeles Times, 11/10/00, "on Nov. 11, three days after the election, Thurston B. Morton, a Kentucky senator and the Republican Party's national chairman, launched bids for recounts or investigations in not just Illinois and Texas but also Delaware, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and South Carolina. A few days later, Robert H. Finch and Leonard W. Hall, two Nixon intimates, sent agents to conduct what they called "field checks" in eight of those 11 battlegrounds. In New Jersey, local Republicans obtained court orders for recounts; Texans brought suit in federal court. Illinois witnessed the most vigorous crusade. Nixon aide Peter Flanigan encouraged the creation of a Chicago-area Nixon Recount Committee. As late as Nov. 23, Republican National Committee general counsel H. Meade Alcorn Jr. was still predicting Nixon would take Illinois." Recounts continued into December, but did not succeed in overturning the result of the election.


13) Myth: "Tens of thousands of U.S. Military personnel around the world were unable to cast ballots for the first time in US History because their Military Absentee ballots 'got lost in the mail.' In past elections, the military voted 9:1 in favor of Republicans." -- Hal Turner Radio Show, 11/12/00.

Fact: It is true that some overseas military ballots may not have been delivered, but no evidence has been presented to indicate that the situation is any different from past elections. With respect to overseas military ballots arriving on time but after election day, the total number in 1996 in Florida was actually only about 1,500, based on 2,300 overseas absentee ballots overall, with roughly 60% of them coming from people enlisted in the military.

Finally, Republican presidential candidates only received about 55% of military absentee ballots in the 1992 and 1996 presidential elections. Gore is likely to do better than Clinton, a draft evader who was running in 1996 against Dole, a decorated military veteran.

In 2000 George W. Bush -- who avoided service in Vietnam and actually lost flying privileges in the Texas Air National Guard -- is running against Al Gore, a Vietnam veteran.

Gore campaign attorneys have questioned the last minute inclusion of absentee ballots which padded Bush's lead by 129 votes on 11/25 and 11/26/00. Many of these ballots, according to MSNBC (11/27), were counted without cameras present. Controversy over these ballots may have led some officials to abandon safeguards which normally prevent people from voting after the election.


--------------------


"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."--Voltaire

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Invisibleluvdemshrooms
Two inch dick..but it spins!?
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Registered: 11/29/01
Posts: 34,247
Loc: Lost In Space
Re: The rally is being countered..... [Re: silversoul7]
    #1293124 - 02/09/03 08:43 AM (21 years, 1 month ago)

With a little closer look you'll find that article is a bunch of crap.
Quote:

It is extremely rare for an election this close NOT to be contested for several weeks until a manual recount can take place, with observers from both sides taking part and inspecting ballots.



True but not if it goes past the legal deadline and sadly for Gore supporters, the constitutional deadline trumps all.
Quote:

This kind of detailed recount has not yet taken place in Dade County after protests organized by the Bush campaign succeeded in disrupting the recounts, according to ABC News.



Old article. I believe you'll find there has been a recount. This was done by the major media groups. It was after the inaugaration and was done in an unhurried manor and guess what, Bush still had the most votes.
Quote:

Antiquated punch card systems are notoriously inaccurate.



True. They shouldn't be used.
Quote:

Regarding Buchanan's vote total, the Washington Post reported that his vote percentage in Palm Beach county was four times as high at the polls as in absentee voting. Even Buchanan himself admitted on 11/8/00 on the Today Show that many of his votes actually "belonged to Al Gore." So did his campaign manager, Bay Buchanan.



Yup, it would seem a poorly designed ballot helped to screw up the results here. But the ballot was *gasp* designed by a democrat. It was posted in the papers and no-one complained. It seems that some in Florida are simply too stupid to vote. Have you seen the ballot? You'd have to be a total ass to not be able to use it.
Quote:

Fact: This is not the way the U.S. Constitution is written. The Electoral College decision, imperfect as it may be, is the only one that matters. It may be possible to reform or eliminate the electoral college in the future, so that small states would no longer receive extra electoral votes out of proportion to their population. But until this change is made by Constitutional amendment, the Electoral College is still the law of the land.



True enough, that's why Bush is president.
Quote:

There is mounting evidence that the State of Florida and hundreds of local voting precincts restricted the ability of thousands of non-white voters to vote. Violations were so widespread that the Justice Department may investigate this case.



This just shows how out of date that article is. The Justice Department did investigate. I might go as far as to add The Justice Department still headed by Clintonistas. No evidence of wrong doing was found. Do you think for a minute that there wasn't any democratic lawyers or investigators looking? Even Jesse the racist Jackson was unable to provide any evidence of fraud.
Quote:

Finally, there are two legal challenges pending that if successful would throw out thousands of fraudulent absentee ballots



The ballots from service men and women overseas arrived in somecases without postmarks since they were sent by military transport. These are the ballots this guy writes about. The Gore team IMO and the opinion of others tried to have these thrown out because the military traditionally votes Republican.


Try again with a bit more recent article.


--------------------
You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for that my dear friend is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it. ~ Adrian Rogers

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Invisibleluvdemshrooms
Two inch dick..but it spins!?
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Registered: 11/29/01
Posts: 34,247
Loc: Lost In Space
Re: The rally is being countered..... [Re: luvdemshrooms]
    #1293136 - 02/09/03 08:51 AM (21 years, 1 month ago)

This Wash Post article shows several senarios for the recount, some Bush wins, some Gore wins. Pay close attention to the fact that even under the recount requested by Gore and stopped by the US Supreme Court, Bush still would have won.

Factor in the drop-off in voting after the "media" declared the polls closed in Fl, which votes heavily Republican, and Bush would have won.

So, the Supreme Courts decision was both the correct one by the law, and would have made no difference anyway.

-----------------------------------------------------
In all likelihood, George W. Bush still would have won Florida and the presidency last year if either of two limited recounts -- one requested by Al Gore, the other ordered by the Florida Supreme Court -- had been completed, according to a study commissioned by The Washington Post and other news organizations.

But if Gore had found a way to trigger a statewide recount of all disputed ballots, or if the courts had required it, the result likely would have been different. An examination of uncounted ballots throughout Florida found enough where voter intent was clear to give Gore the narrowest of margins.

The study showed that if the two limited recounts had not been short-circuited -- the first by Florida county and state election officials and the second by the U.S. Supreme Court -- Bush would have held his lead over Gore, with margins ranging from 225 to 493 votes, depending on the standard. But the study also found that whether dimples are counted or amore restrictive standard is used, a statewide tally favored Gore by 60 to 171 votes.

Gore's narrow margin in the statewide count was the result of a windfall in overvotes. Those ballots -- on which a voter may have marked a candidate's name and also written it in -- were rejected by machines as a double vote on Election Day and most also would not have been included in either of the limited recounts.

The study by The Post and other media groups, an unprecedented effort that involved examining 175,010 ballots in 67 counties, underscores what began to be apparent as soon as the polls closed in the nation's third most populous state Nov. 7, 2000: that no one can say with certainty who actually won Florida. Under every scenario used in the study, the winning margin remains less than 500 votes out of almost 6 million cast.

For 36 days after the election, the results in Florida remained in doubt, and so did the winner of the presidency. Bush emerged victorious when the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5 to 4 ruling, agreed with his lawyers' contention that the counting should end. Since then, many Gore partisans have accused the court of unfairly aborting a process that would have put their candidate ahead.

But an examination of the disputed ballots suggests that in hindsight the battalions of lawyers and election experts who descended on Florida pursued strategies that ended up working against the interests of their candidates.

The study indicates, for example, that Bush had less to fear from the recounts underway than he thought. Under any standard used to judge the ballots in the four counties where Gore lawyers had sought a recount -- Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade and Volusia -- Bush still ended up with more votes than Gore, according to the study. Bush also would have had more votes if the limited statewide recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court and then stopped by the U.S. Supreme Court had been carried through.

Had Bush not been party to short-circuiting those recounts, he might have escaped criticism that his victory hinged on legal maneuvering rather than on counting the votes.

In Gore's case, the decision to ask for recounts in four counties rather than seek a statewide recount ultimately had far greater impact. But in the chaos of the early days of the recount battle, when Gore needed additional votes as quickly as possible and recounts in the four heavily Democratic counties offered him that possibility, that was not so obvious.

Nor was there any guarantee that Gore could have succeeded in getting a statewide recount. Florida law provided no mechanism to ask for a statewide recount, only county-by-county recounts. And although he did at one point call on Bush to join him in asking for a statewide recount, it was with the condition that Bush renounce all further legal action. Bush dismissed the offer, calling it a public relations gesture by his opponent, and Gore never took any further steps toward that goal.

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, responding to the study, said, "The voters settled this election last fall, and the nation moved on a long time ago. The White House isn't focused on this; the voters aren't focused on it." Fleischer called the results "superfluous."

Gore, in a written statement, did not respond directly to the study. "As I said on Dec. 13th of last year, we are a nation of laws and the presidential election of 2000 is over," he said. "And of course, right now our country faces a great challenge as we seek to successfully combat terrorism. I fully support President Bush's efforts to achieve that goal."

Gore said he remained appreciative of the support he received last year and "proud of the values and ideals for which we fought."

Discerning Voter Intent


Conducted by the National Opinion Research Center, an organization based at the University of Chicago, the study examined all ballots that were initially rejected by voting machines. This included those that contained no discernible vote for president, known as "undervotes," and those that registered votes for more than one candidate, the "overvotes."

Last year's recount battles largely focused on about 61,000 undervote ballots. In the recounts, Gore advisers pushed for the most liberal interpretation of voter intent, giving rise to heated disputes and legal wrangling over whether "dimpled chads" on punch-card ballots should be counted as votes.

But in another twist clear only now, the study found that where Gore had the greatest opportunity to pick up votes was not in those undervote ballots but in the approximately 114,000 overvote ballots, particularly 25,000 overvote ballots read by optical scanning machines.

Using the most inclusive standards, Bush actually gained more votes than Gore -- about 300 net -- from the examination of the undervote ballots. But Gore picked up 885 more votes than Bush from the examination of overvote ballots, 662 of those from optical scan ballots.

The study did not credit Gore with the thousands of votes lost as a result of the infamous butterfly ballot in Palm Beach County. Many voters using the ballot became confused by the listing of presidential candidates on two facing pages and punched Gore's name and one of the candidates next to him, nullifying their vote.

An examination of the Senate choices on those ballots indicates the mistakes were made overwhelmingly by Democrats and suggests that Gore lost about 8,000 votes because of the confusion. The Post study did not award those overvotes to Gore because no clear voter intent could be determined on a ballot where two candidates were marked. A similar analysis of the two-page presidential ballot in Duval County showed Gore lost about 7,000 votes, which also could not be given to Gore in the study.

Gore never pushed hard for the kind of full recount that might have brought overvotes into play. And the Florida Supreme Court, which on Dec. 8 ordered a statewide manual recount -- halted in midstream the next day by the U.S. Supreme Court -- focused on undervotes and required only that undervotes be retabulated.

Ironically, it was Bush's lawyers who argued that recounting only the undervotes violated the constitutional guarantee to equal protection. And the U.S. Supreme Court, in its Dec. 12 ruling that ended the dispute, also questioned whether the Florida court should have limited a statewide recount only to undervotes.

Had the high court acted on that, and had there been enough time left for the Florida Supreme Court to require yet another statewide recount, Gore's chances would have been dramatically improved. But there are too many variables in any effort to reexamine the ballots -- from varying standards in judging ballots in the counties to problems of getting an exact replication of the overvote and undervote ballots -- to be able to say with absolute certainty what might have happened in Florida.

"In my opinion, it's too close to call," said Kirk Wolter, senior vice president of NORC. "If we take it as given that two major candidates were separated by perhaps a few hundred or fewer ballots, it may be that we'll never know the exact vote total."

Historical Record


Designed to provide a historical record for one of the most remarkable presidential elections in U.S. history, the ballot study was launched early this year by a consortium of news organizations and originally was to have been completed by last spring. Consortium members, in addition to The Post, included the New York Times, the Associated Press, CNN, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal and four Florida newspapers: the Orlando Sentinel, the Palm Beach Post, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale and the St. Petersburg Times.

"We joined the consortium to obtain an accurate, nonpartisan assessment of the uncounted ballots in Florida to determine how the people of Florida voted and why their voting systems did not work better," said Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. "The results shed light on the actions of the players in the constitutional drama in Florida. They also provide information that can help the federal and state governments improve voting systems nationwide. And they will help historians better analyze a unique and important event in American history."

Various technical problems delayed the study, including the difficulty county officials had in separating the disputed ballots into undervotes and overvotes. The events of Sept. 11 set back publication further because news organizations were devoting all their resources to coverage of the terrorist attacks and subsequent events.

The project used impartial observers hired by NORC to examine the ballots and considered many possible alternatives for tallying the votes. But no study of this type can accurately recreate Election Day 2000 or predict what might have emerged from individual battles over more than 6 million votes in Florida's 67 counties.

Three individuals, operating independently, examined each undervote ballot and some of the overvote ballots. However, most of the overvote ballots, which are less subject to different interpretation over their markings, were viewed by one person. The Post's findings are based primarily on results in which two of the three reviewers agreed on the marks on the ballot, deemed a fair standard for discerning what was on the ballot.

The new study differs from an earlier ballot examination by the Miami Herald and USA Today, which did not systematically look at all overvote ballots, instead relying on a computer analysis of those ballots. In that study, one person, usually an accountant, determined marks on individual undervote ballots. A second person also looked at the undervote ballots, but the accountant's coding was always used if they differed. The study concluded that Bush would have won under almost all situations.

The NORC observer teams hired by the consortium did not decide whether the undervote or overvote ballots would have been counted as valid votes in a recount. Instead, they worked independently, using a coding scheme to describe the marks on each ballot under supervision of a NORC team leader.

The study projects possible election outcomes based on different scenarios -- which ballots might have been included in recounts and what marks on those ballots might have been considered as votes.

On ballots from punch-card machines, such as those used in the South Florida counties where Gore asked for recounts, these marks included a dimpled chad, which is the appearance of an indentation, or chad with one or more corners detached.

On ballots from optical scanning machines, the marks included instances where a voter circled or wrote in the candidate's name rather than filling in an oval next to the name on the ballot.

The Post, in conjunction with the other news organizations, reviewed the descriptive codes to apply different standards for determining voter intent and tallied results based on several scenarios that sought to approximate conditions on the ground in Florida.

The three examiners agreed most of the time, but Post analysis of ballot swings caused by disagreement showed more than enough votes to decide the election.

The Winner


Bush was certified by the Florida election canvassing commission as the winner by 537 votes Nov. 26. That certification came after Gore had asked for recounts in Volusia, Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties. But it included full results from only Volusia and Broward, which met the state's 5 p.m. deadline.

Palm Beach County submitted its final results about two hours past the deadline, but Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris declined to include them. Officials in Miami-Dade halted their recount days earlier, amid GOP-inspired protests, claiming they would not have enough time to meet the state's deadline.

Had all four counties completed their recounts, as requested by Gore, and been included in the state certification, Bush still would have been declared the winner, but by just 225 votes, according to the analysis by The Post and other news organizations.

The Florida Supreme Court's Dec. 8 order for a statewide manual recount of all undervote ballots also would have resulted in Bush as the winner, the study found. Gore's team protested when the U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 9 agreed to the Bush campaign's request for a stay, halting that recount in midstream. But the study found that a count of all undervotes in the state would have left Bush ahead of Gore by 430 votes.

Some counties ignored the state Supreme Court order that weekend and refused to conduct manual recounts. Other counties included undervote and overvote ballots in their recounts. The media consortium surveyed the counties to determine what standards they were using. On the basis of those standards -- the closest approximation possible to what was happening that weekend -- the Post study found that, if the court had not intervened to stop the counting, Bush would have won by 493 votes.

But the results in Florida and, therefore, in the presidential election might have been different had the 67 counties been ordered to proceed with a manual recount of all undervotes and overvotes.

Under several scenarios examined by the consortium, and using a standard in which two of the three reviewers agreed on the markings on each ballot, Gore emerged with more votes than Bush.

The overvotes that could have provided the margin for Gore were on ballots where voters tried to be extra-clear in their choice and ended up nullifying the vote. They filled in the oval next to a candidate and then filled in the oval for "write-in" and wrote the same candidate's name again.

Those overvotes were rejected by machines, but some county officials examined those ballots on election night to reclaim the votes. Other counties, though, didn't check for those obvious votes. Gore had more than 500 of those votes in Lake County and more than 250 in Escambia, netting him gains of 172 and 157 votes against Bush in those counties.

The narrowest margin, according to the study, came under a scenario in which at least one corner of a chad was detached from punch-card ballots -- the prevailing standard across the state of Florida at the time -- or any mark on the optical scan ballots showing clear voter intent. In that case, the study showed Gore with 60 votes more than Bush.

Gore's margin grows under three other scenarios. Under the least-restrictive standard for interpreting voter intent, which counted all dimpled chads and any discernible optical mark (which in the case of optical ballots Florida's new election law now requires to be counted as votes), Gore had 107 more votes.

Gore's margin rose to 115 votes in the study under a tighter standard, calling for chads to be fully punched and a more restrictive interpretation of what constitutes a valid mark on optical scan ballots.

But this is one case where disagreements among the reviewers affected the outcome. Gore won under this scenario when two of the reviewers agree on the markings. Under a standard in which all three were required to agree, Bush won by 219 votes.

Gore's largest margin in a statewide recount involving all ballots comes under a scenario that sought to recreate the standards established by each of the counties in their recounts. In that case, Gore emerged with 171 more votes than Bush.


? 2001 The Washington Post Company


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You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for that my dear friend is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it. ~ Adrian Rogers

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Anonymous

Re: The rally is being countered..... [Re: luvdemshrooms]
    #1293153 - 02/09/03 08:59 AM (21 years, 1 month ago)

where oh where would we be without LDS and stonedfish to be the conservative voice?

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Invisibleluvdemshrooms
Two inch dick..but it spins!?
 User Gallery


Registered: 11/29/01
Posts: 34,247
Loc: Lost In Space
Re: The rally is being countered..... [Re: ]
    #1293160 - 02/09/03 09:02 AM (21 years, 1 month ago)

You'd be inundated with misconceptions and distortions of the facts.

Not to mention.... bored. What would be the purpose of a Political Discussion forum where everyone shared the same point of view?


--------------------
You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for that my dear friend is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it. ~ Adrian Rogers

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Anonymous

Re: The rally is being countered..... [Re: luvdemshrooms]
    #1293181 - 02/09/03 09:08 AM (21 years, 1 month ago)

yep. i'm glad you guys are here.

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Anonymous

Re: The rally is being countered..... [Re: ]
    #1293273 - 02/09/03 09:44 AM (21 years, 1 month ago)

Debating=fun

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Invisiblesilversoul7
Chill the FuckOut!
 User Gallery

Registered: 10/10/02
Posts: 27,301
Loc: mndfreeze's puppet army
Re: The rally is being countered..... [Re: ]
    #1293436 - 02/09/03 10:50 AM (21 years, 1 month ago)

We would then have the voice of more intelligent conservatives like Evolving.


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"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."--Voltaire

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Offlinehongomon
old hand
Registered: 04/14/02
Posts: 910
Loc: comin' at ya
Last seen: 19 years, 11 months
Re: The rally is being countered..... [Re: Anonymous]
    #1293457 - 02/09/03 10:59 AM (21 years, 1 month ago)

Debating=fun

Debating=good for democracy

sex=fun

sex=good for democracy!

:wink: 

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Invisibleluvdemshrooms
Two inch dick..but it spins!?
 User Gallery


Registered: 11/29/01
Posts: 34,247
Loc: Lost In Space
Re: The rally is being countered..... [Re: silversoul7]
    #1293471 - 02/09/03 11:09 AM (21 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

We would then have the voice of more intelligent conservatives like Evolving.



You already do.


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You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for that my dear friend is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it. ~ Adrian Rogers

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OfflineAngry Mycologist
Spontaneouslycombusting

Registered: 11/24/02
Posts: 1,282
Loc: Galapagos
Last seen: 20 years, 10 months
Re: The rally is being countered..... [Re: luvdemshrooms]
    #1293571 - 02/09/03 11:43 AM (21 years, 1 month ago)

Jesus......I leave this post for about an hour and I come back to find 22 new replies and a heated debate.  Cool  :smirk:

 


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The proper penalty of ignorance, which is of course that those who don't know should learn from those who do... - Plato

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InvisibleEvolving
Resident Cynic

Registered: 10/01/02
Posts: 5,385
Loc: Apt #6, The Village
Re: The rally is being countered..... [Re: silversoul7]
    #1293884 - 02/09/03 02:43 PM (21 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

We would then have the voice of more intelligent...



Thank you  :smirk:
Quote:

... conservatives like Evolving.



An ad hominem attack with compliment... most distressing. :crazy: 


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To call humans 'rational beings' does injustice to the term, 'rational.'  Humans are capable of rational thought, but it is not their essence.  Humans are animals, beasts with complex brains.  Humans, more often than not, utilize their cerebrum to rationalize what their primal instincts, their preconceived notions, and their emotional desires have presented as goals - humans are rationalizing beings.

Edited by Evolving (02/09/03 02:48 PM)

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Invisiblesilversoul7
Chill the FuckOut!
 User Gallery

Registered: 10/10/02
Posts: 27,301
Loc: mndfreeze's puppet army
Re: The rally is being countered..... [Re: Evolving]
    #1294046 - 02/09/03 03:52 PM (21 years, 1 month ago)

If there's one thing I've learned on this board, it's that intelligence or stupidity don't determine one's political affiliation.


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"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."--Voltaire

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InvisibleZero7a1
Leaving YourWasteland

Registered: 10/23/02
Posts: 3,594
Loc: Passing Cloud
Re: The rally is being countered..... [Re: Angry Mycologist]
    #1294544 - 02/09/03 06:36 PM (21 years, 1 month ago)

im glad you guys found a meeting spot. i hope you flock like birds and swoop through. eventually if you get enough people on your side pissed off those mother fuckers arent going to say shit. be like "HERE BITCH READ THE CONSTITUITION" . call the aclu if you have to, make a nice big internal civil war lol. and if that doesnt sound good just be like FUCK YOU your gonna kill us all you stupid ass mother fuckers. i had a dream where bush was giving a speech about a war and i walked up to him in the middle of it and flipped him off and then he looked at me and was " :mad:  :ooo:" then he turned into some other person with a different voice, kind of senial like. maybe his father or grandfather? maybe if you MAKE enough noise... i dont know man but whatever you do

good luck.

im afraid if Bush passes the complete moron test and the antichrist test well be in for some sliced up shit falling from the sky. if he was so into christ and the truth why cant he see that if he goes to war he wont just be killing people in Iraq but much more everywhere and endanger the lives of those he so tried to defend. hes not fighting for freedom hes propagating murderous chaos.


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What?

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