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Post by wdmundt on Apr 7, 2008 16:08:05 GMT -4
Section 101.5614(5), Florida Statutes (2000), makes clear that the purpose of a manual recount is to determine the intent of the voters: No vote shall be declared invalid or void if there is a clear indication of the intent of the voter as determined by the canvassing board.Any attempt to insure that voters' votes are properly counted is moral -- and as we see above, it is also legal. If this law had been applied to the butterfly ballots of Palm Beach County, Al Gore would have won Florida by 6,000 votes.
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Jason
Pluto
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Post by Jason on Apr 7, 2008 16:34:26 GMT -4
Any attempt to insure that voters' votes are properly counted is moral -- and as we see above, it is also legal. Properly being the key word there. You can't give individual ballots more attention than others because the voter improperly cast the ballot. There is no way to determine from just the ballots what the actual intent of those voters was when they cast their vote. And as I said earlier, anyone who couldn't figure out that ballot was either an idiot or didn't take the time to seriously consider their vote anyway.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Apr 7, 2008 17:49:03 GMT -4
Section 101.5614(5), Florida Statutes (2000), makes clear that the purpose of a manual recount is to determine the intent of the voters: No vote shall be declared invalid or void if there is a clear indication of the intent of the voter as determined by the canvassing board.But this was the problem, they were guessing at the intent of the voter by if there was a mark or a dimple or a partial chad or whatever. For many of the votes to have been counted, they would have had to have been guessed at rather than having a clear intent given and when such votes are only counted in specific counties, how is that fair?
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Post by wdmundt on Apr 7, 2008 19:15:27 GMT -4
The problem is that you are guessing that they were guessing the intent of the voter. Florida law actually was fairly clear about what could be done in the case of a problem with vote tabulation. The US Supreme Court stepped in and decided that it knew better how to interpret Florida law.
So what is better -- to throw out votes without attempting to see if intent could be determined or to at least try, as required by Florida law?
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Jason
Pluto
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Post by Jason on Apr 7, 2008 20:41:25 GMT -4
They were guessing. Looking at a dimple on a chad and having several panalists agree if it's a real vote or not is a guess. They have no way to know what the voter was thinking, or what the voter may have really intended. And having different standards of what constitutes a vote is a violation of the equal protection clause.
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Post by wdmundt on Apr 7, 2008 21:38:50 GMT -4
Wrong again. The US Supreme Court held that since different rules were being used, it was a violation of the equal protection clause. However, the Supreme Court said nothing about manual recounts and voter intent determination being unconstitutional. The equal protection claim was that different standards were being used, not that manual recounting was incorrect.
There are lots of ways that voters can mark ballots that can then not be read by machines -- but can be read by humans. Florida law allows for this, but the US Supreme Court did not.
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Jason
Pluto
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Post by Jason on Apr 7, 2008 22:03:46 GMT -4
No, it IS a guess, whether the Supreme Court said anything about it or not.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Apr 8, 2008 2:38:44 GMT -4
The problem is that you are guessing that they were guessing the intent of the voter. Florida law actually was fairly clear about what could be done in the case of a problem with vote tabulation. The US Supreme Court stepped in and decided that it knew better how to interpret Florida law. So what is better -- to throw out votes without attempting to see if intent could be determined or to at least try, as required by Florida law? How can a person looking at a ballot slip tell the difference between a partially removed chad from the ballot of a person that didn't do a good job of renoving them, the partially removed chad of a person that changed their mind before fully removing it, and the ballot of a person whose ballot got the chad partially removed due to interaction with other ballots? If you can't determine the difference between the three, how can you decide the voter's intent without actually asking them? How do you determine a voter's intent if they knocked out the wrong chad because of the way the ballot paper was set up. How do you tell the difference between a wrong vote and a real one? If the answer is, you can't, then the panels would be guessing.
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Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
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Post by Al Johnston on Apr 8, 2008 5:09:14 GMT -4
It seems there's a lot to be said for a nice big box next to each candidate's name that you write an 'X' in...
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lenbrazil
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Post by lenbrazil on Apr 8, 2008 7:58:50 GMT -4
Brazilian elections have been all electronic for over a decade, some machines generate a paper slip to allow manual recounts if there is a dispute. The machines are very easy to use illiterates and Indians who live remote villages with no electricity (some models have batteries), telephone etc use them without any problem.
Unlike when paper ballots were used I haven’t heard any loosing candidates claiming they’d been robbed the election. In the next town over from mine 8 years ago the center-right incumbent mayor who had the political support of the governor and president was expected to easily win re-election in the 1st round but got 49.8% of the vote and ended up losing the 2nd round to a leftist candidate. This created serious problems for the center-right coalition that controlled the state. If ‘they’ were going to rob any election that should have been it, but their candidate suffered a humiliating defeat.
So the question is, if a poor 3rd world country with…
- high illiteracy - low computer literacy - dozens of political parties - rampant corruption - many remote areas without electricity or phones
…an have a reliable electronic voting system, why can’t the US?
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lenbrazil
Saturn
Now there's a man with an open mind - you can feel the breeze from here!
Posts: 1,045
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Post by lenbrazil on Apr 8, 2008 8:01:36 GMT -4
The problem is that you are guessing that they were guessing the intent of the voter. Florida law actually was fairly clear about what could be done in the case of a problem with vote tabulation. The US Supreme Court stepped in and decided that it knew better how to interpret Florida law. So what is better -- to throw out votes without attempting to see if intent could be determined or to at least try, as required by Florida law? How can a person looking at a ballot slip tell the difference between a partially removed chad from the ballot of a person that didn't do a good job of renoving them, the partially removed chad of a person that changed their mind before fully removing it, and the ballot of a person whose ballot got the chad partially removed due to interaction with other ballots? If you can't determine the difference between the three, how can you decide the voter's intent without actually asking them? How do you determine a voter's intent if they knocked out the wrong chad because of the way the ballot paper was set up. How do you tell the difference between a wrong vote and a real one? If the answer is, you can't, then the panels would be guessing. If there was a ‘hanging chad’, dimple or other such mark for only one candidate, then it could have reasonably been assumed that they intended to vote for him. The re-counts were done by groups of 2 Democrats and 2 Republicans thus at least 1 representative of each party would have agreed that the voter intended to vote for the other party’s candidate. If they'd changed their mind presumably they wouldn't have submitted their ballot. It should also be pointed out the Bush v. Gore involved 3 decisions the main one was 5 – 4 in favor of Bush, there were only 2 justices appointed by a Democrat on the court, 2 Republican nominated justices held in favor of allowing the recount. A second decision went 7 -2 along party lines the third 6 – 3 with one ‘Republican’ justice (Souter I think) ruling in favor of Gore
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Apr 8, 2008 11:54:45 GMT -4
It seems there's a lot to be said for a nice big box next to each candidate's name that you write an 'X' in... Because no one ever writes too faintly on such a ballot, or marks more than one candidate, or uses an "O" instead of an "X", or writes something unintelligible in the write-in candidate's line.
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Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
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Post by Al Johnston on Apr 8, 2008 12:24:55 GMT -4
They do: they also write obscene opinions about the candidates or make obscure jokes: such ballots are added up and the total announced by the returning officer under the heading "spoiled".
Actually, with the thick black pencils provided, you'd have to go to quite an extreme of gentleness to make an illlegible 'X', and if it were the only mark, an 'O' would be counted
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
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Post by Jason on Apr 8, 2008 13:36:11 GMT -4
Well if you ever get a candidate like Al Gore, be prepared to have a lot of lawsuits about how those "spoiled" votes could and should be interpreted as votes for him.
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Post by wdmundt on Apr 8, 2008 13:59:06 GMT -4
Your hatred of Al Gore really twists you up inside, doesn't it? You hate him for his stance on global warming, a stance that agrees with the vast majority of scientists working in that area. You also hate him for his actions in Florida -- actions that I have shown to be legal and moral. I imagine you hate him for lots of other unfounded reasons, too.
So -- whatever, Jason. Just keep on hating Al Gore. Keep on pretending that he is somehow worse than the guy who used the courts to stop a legal process in Florida and then went on to become likely the worst president this country has ever had to suffer.
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