http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20001130/el/recount_martin_county_3.html

Thursday November 30 11:00 AM ET GOP Corrected Ballot Applications

STUART, Fla. (AP) - Martin County election officials allowed Florida Republican Party workers to remove and correct incomplete absentee ballot applications from GOP voters that would have been rejected otherwise.

Supervisor of Elections Peggy Robbins, a Republican, said she does not believe her staff violated any law or acted improperly in the weeks before the Nov. 7 election. She said the only applications the Republicans were allowed to complete were ones the party had provided its members.

A similar incident in Seminole County has resulted in a lawsuit by a Democratic lawyer, who says election officials violated a state law that says only the voter, an immediate family member or a guardian can fill out an absentee ballot application.

That suit seeks to throw out all 15,000 absentee ballots cast in Seminole County. A trial is scheduled for next week.

Martin County Democrats have not decided whether to file suit over the actions of Robbins and her office, but say they are investigating.

``It's my understanding that once a request was sent to the supervisor's office, that we couldn't just go in and play with them,'' said Jeff Schooley, chairman of the county's Democratic executive committee.

Democrats also questioned whether the agency was taking sides.

``Why didn't she feel an obligation to inform the Democrats that they might have had incomplete requests?'' asked Terence Nolan, a Democratic state committee member.

Manrinted for the GOP failed to provide a space for the voter identification number, an oversight that would have prevented the voters from receiving the ballots.

The Republican workers filled in the missing information and returned the applications to Robbins' office.

George W. Bush (news - web sites) received 6,294 absentee votes in the heavily Republican county, about 80 miles north of Miami, compared with 3,479 for Vice President Al Gore (news - web sites) - a 2,815 vote margin.

Bush carried Florida by 537 votes, according to official returns - a result that would give him the presidency if it holds up.

Robbins nor her aides returned repeated calls Wednesday by The Associated Press.

-- Anonymous, November 30, 2000

Answers

http://www.herald.com/thispage.htm? content/archive/news/yahoo/digdocs/094454.htm

Published Wednesday, November 29, 2000, in the Miami Herald

Judge won't combine absentee ballot, Gore suits Challenge to 15,000 votes could have major implications BY MARK SILVA msilva@herald.com

TALLAHASSEE -- A Leon County judge refused Tuesday to combine a challenge to absentee ballots in Seminole County with Vice President Al Gore's lawsuit to overturn the result of Florida's presidential election and ordered attorneys to begin Sunday taking depositions from Seminole County elections officials.

The ruling by Circuit Judge Nikki Clark was a blow to attorneys for Republican presidential aspirant George W. Bush, who had pleaded that they were being stretched too thin by all the legal action surrounding the presidential election.

While it has drawn less attention than Gore's challenge of the election results, the Seminole County dispute, which was moved to Leon County earlier this week, is potentially as explosive. A Democratic voter has asked that all the absentee ballots cast in Seminole be discarded because the elections supervisor there allowed GOP officials to fill in requests for absentee ballots that voters hadn't properly filled out themselves.

Discarding the 15,000 absentee ballots would eliminate more than 10,000 Bush votes and more than 4,000 Gore votes, handing Gore enough votes to overturn Bush's narrow statewide margin.

That possible outcome drew spectators to Clark's courtroom for a hearing that was largely about procedure. Among them were the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who was in town Tuesday to protest Florida's election. Clark ordered an expedited hearing schedule in the case in an effort to have it resolved before the Dec. 12 deadline for the selection of electors.

``We are under an obligation, I believe . . . to the people of this country, to get this case tried and over with before Dec. 12, so the electors of the state of Florida can be properly seated,'' Bush attorney Irv Terrell told Clark during the hearing. Clark will hold another procedural hearing at 2 p.m. today on whether there is a way attorneys can make electronic copies of the county's voting rolls without obtaining confidential information such as Social Security numbers.

-- Anonymous, November 30, 2000

Wonder how many irregularities they will uncover before the end of this?

News next fall - "Gore leads in Florida by 100,000 votes", "President laughs and says all is moot".

Really nice headline.

-- Anonymous, November 30, 2000

This is trivia. The voters did fill out applications. But a space for a number was missing, not the fault of the voter. The voters should not be penalized for what they had no control over. If there is any question about authenticity, signatures should be compared. But there has been no question of authenticity. So drop it.

-- Anonymous, November 30, 2000

Hey John, chew on this for awhile: The "uncorrected" -- i.e., Democratic applications -- were allowed to stack up. The Democratic party reps (for that matter, any voter NOT casting a vote for Shrubya,) in Florida weren't allowed the same privilege of adding voter ID numbers to their constituencies' absentee ballot applications. Consequently, those potential voters didn't receive an absentee ballot.

Your party cheated at the least. Where's the "character and integrity" we have heard about for the past 8 years?

-- Anonymous, November 30, 2000

Paul:

I think you are overlooking the crucial "recruitment function" here. The losing side is powerfully motivated to look for irregularities, and to find them within any plausible definition suitable for the purposes. Conversely, the winner isn't motivated to look too closely at anything, having nothing to gain and everything to lose.

Do you seriously think Gore's forces would continue to "find" problems if some court happens to rule that he won? When you are looking for something and find it, do you *keep looking*? Why? Nobody else does.

We have no reason to believe that in a tie vote, irregularities would tend to favor either side, any more than we have reason to believe a machine count would favor one side, or that a statewide hand count (using consistent rules) would favor one side either.

But it ought to be self-evident that when the goal is to *reverse the winner*, the losing side will find all manner of means to find or create or disallow votes as required. Your claim that we are "unfair" UNLESS we permit this kind of behavior is silly. Your claim that Gore would win if all votes were properly interpreted and all irregularities fixed is just wishful thinking. We have a tie here. We can determine the "real" winner as accurately by flipping a coin as by any other method. We can determine the *desired* winner simply by deciding who gets to recount which votes. There simply IS no "fair" method, despite Gore's claim (and your echo) that no decision is fair unless it favors him.

-- Anonymous, November 30, 2000

Flint--shame on you! Flip a coin, indeed. How crude. They should play a game of five card stud, face up.

JOJ

-- Anonymous, December 01, 2000

Flint, your claims are ad hoc at best.

Bush only wins if you allow him to hand count SOME counties, ignoring others, plus count doubtful absentee ballots. Under NO circumstance would he agree to a more accurate count of the entire state, and went to court to prevent Gore from playing the same games he was playing.

Come on. You'd get up and walk out of a poker game rigged like that.

-- Anonymous, December 01, 2000

Paul,

Yes, I agree with you. I don't think you read what I wrote. Elections on this scale *always* have irregularities, most of which are inspired by partisan goals. In most cases, the election is not close enough for these shenanigans to matter. However, if the race is close enough, we *always* discover that they make the crucial difference. This only means that the vote margin is within the granularity of our measuring device.

You write, "Under NO circumstance would he agree to a more accurate count of the entire state", and here is our essential disagreement. You imply that a "more accurate" count is *possible*, and I contend that it is not. We REALLY ARE within the granulariy of our ability to measure. I will readily and enthusiastically agree that whoever determines the method of counting determines the winner. The method of counting actually used favored Bush, but this was yet another coin flip. Your implication that Gore would be chosen by a "more accurate" count is nothing more than a claim that Gore's selection is the *measure of accuracy*; that if Gore doesn't win, the count wasn't accurate. Yes, that's what you're saying.

We could recount the state 100 times by as many different sets of rules as we considered "reasonable" and get each candidate winning about half the time. Which count is "more accurate"? Don't be silly. ALL of them are equally accurate, namely not accurate enough. And meanwhile, the degrading quality of the ballots allow even MORE "irregularities" with every count.

But you're right when you say Bush wants to prevent Gore from pulling these same stunts. Please try to understand that they flipped a coin and it landed on edge. But we MUST have a winner, so now the question is, WHO gets to knock the coin over? I'm not disagreeing that if Gore wins that right, he will win the flip. *Of course* whoever wins that right will win the election. But this is NOT a question of accuracy AT ALL.

Meanwhile, I think Bush will make a marginally better president because I like the republicans' general views *excluding* their religious agendas. But this election is between midgets, and Bush is simply the lesser of two considerable evils.

-- Anonymous, December 01, 2000

Flint, the Republicans and the religious right have been in bed together for a long time. It's a mutually beneficial relationship, and one I'm happy to stay as far away from as possible. Maybe the Republican platform is a little more to your liking, but for anyone who is not rich, white, Christian and male, it's not so appealing.

Here's a question: You believe that Bush is a better candidate. How do you feel about the fact that he shows little or no interest in the actual work involved with a Presidency?

-- Anonymous, December 01, 2000

Flint:

I think you're missing Paul's point, which was that in the counties where Bush won and ballots were tossed out of the machine, they WERE hand-counted in 6 counties, giving Bush something like 450 more votes. That this was not done in counties where Gore won is somewhat what this is all about.

-- Anonymous, December 02, 2000

Julie:

Yeah, the religious angle is a problem. I suppose my leanings are more libertarian.

I agree about who the platform appeals to, but disagree with your implication that these are the only ones who benefit. But this is far more than I want to start discussing here. Suffice it to say that I believe that welfare is a great evil *for the recipients*, though easily borne by the contributors. Those for whom we have purchased generations of poverty, out of the misguided goodness of our hearts, have been terribly treated. That they are so poorly educated by this system that they remain so short-sighted as to vote overwhelmingly to stay poor indicts us all. We've been on the wrong road for half a century, suffering consequences that cannot be cured by more of the same.

And no, I don't believe Bush is the better candidate. I consider his party superior, but neither candidate is very exciting, nor do I think either of them could accomplish much with a deadlocked legislature and no mandate. But Gore could probably do more because he's more capable, which would be great if what he wanted to do were a little more sensible.

Anita:

No, I think I've covered Paul's point and yours as well. PLEASE read what I wrote, that irregularities are always and everywhere, that they tend to cancel out, that they're irrelevant unless the election is close, in which case they make the difference.

Paul feels he's located irregularities that make a difference in Bush's favor. I'm sure this is the case. Others have found irregularities making a difference in Gore's favor, and I'm sure that's the case too. BOTH sides have been screaming about irregularities in every recount we have witnessed up close and personal. I'm sure they all have good reason to do so.

This is what happens when the election is closer than our voting mechanism can measure. Which is what happened. You and Paul have your arms wrapped around one tree in this forest. Back up and look around you. Viola, Trees! Enough trees to throw the election back and forth till hell freezes over. And you want "accuracy"? BWAHAHAHA! I'd personally like to flap my arms and fly to the moon.

I'm fascinated with how we deal with a tie. We HAVE a tie. I'm not really interested with people saying "I'd win this thing if only I could cheat like *he's* cheating". I agree that's all true.

-- Anonymous, December 02, 2000