20001113

What is Fair?

As we enjoyed our weekends, the lines were being drawn in the sand in Florida. The Great Election Debacle of 2000 took another step toward a real crisis with the announcement by the Bush administration that it too will take it's case to the courts (Federal Courts this time) to challange the method being used in W. Palm Beach to hand count the ballots generated there. I think it only fair to do a hand count in Florida, and perhaps other states as well, but I must point out a couple of things about what is happening in Florida that are seemingly unfair:
First, if it is fair to hand count the ballots in such a close election, then it must be done in ALL Florida counties, not just the hand picked counties that one sides supporters feel will help their candidate. There has been some speculation that the four counties selected were picked for "irregularities observed", but this is not so. Volusia county didn't even use a punch style ballot, it used one employing a black marker to select the choices. Why the media is focusing on some kind of unfairness issue here is beyond me, but there seems to be a bias on the point of which counties were recounted. I have heard the arguement that the timetable has expired for the other counties to be hand counted. All I can say is this is absurd, hand count all the counties or none. Volusia and Palm Beach counties are both now saying they must have an extension to count everything; if so count them all!
Secondly, the process in W. Palm Beach is clearly partisan. It is true that the county folks there allowed an observer from each campaign. What has not been reported much however is the composition of the three person committee that actually makes the decisions about the ballots being divined for voter intent. Unfortunately they were all of the party that will most likely be helped by this recount: the Democrats. In such an important procedure, it seems overly partisan and perhaps biased to let one part have the final word, without some objective standard to go by. One person was the County Election Supervisor that did such a stellar job designing an easy to use ballot, the second is a County Board of Commissioners member, the third a judge. The judge was the only one voting for the Florida Sec. of States input before going to a full recount after finding a net of 19 votes increase in the 4,600 sampled. The County Election supervisors input was to do a hand count on all the ballots as long as everyone understood she had done her job correctly! The county commissioner seemed pretty hard line about calling for a vote immediately without getting input from any other authorities.

As the map shows we are getting further from a final result as the election is scrutinized. There are some other irregularities that bear examination here too I think. In Milwaukee homeless people were picked up and offered cigerettes to go vote for Gore. There were also reports of a precinct where ballots were left out with a sign saying "help yourself". In the perfect world this should be investigated immediately, and if true these precincts must be thrown out for vote fraud. States such as Wisconson and Iowa should also be hand counted out of fairness. As Mr. Gore has said, it is only fair to be sure we understand what the voters said in such a close election. It would be paramount in that perfect world that we not give preferential treatment only to four solidly Democratic counties in Florida, that should be seen as un-American. We would be sure that all Americans were correctly represented in this election. We would be patient while the results were retallied, the media would take a breath and step back, and the organizers such as Rev. Jackson would step back from further politicization of this situation. This is not however a perfect world. The lawyers and spinmasters are taking this situation and are running with it. The court challange mounted by the Bush folks was turned down by the local Federal Judge appointed to the case today. This is hardly surprising since the petition was calling for a review of the local process due to violations of the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the Constitution. I may be mistaken, but I believe such cases must be decided by the Supreme Court, which means an appeal to the Federal Circuit court in Atlanta, then to the Supreme Court.
I believe most Americans would agree that this is probably not what is best for America. It may be time for G. W. Bush to rein in the horses and drop further challanges and appeals. He cannot gain by turning the American people against him. If he makes a noble gesture now, and concedes this race, he will be a shoe-in for the 2004 campaign. Gore will inherit a fragmented government, have no mandate, and will likely accomplish nothing. In such a scenario, he will almost certainly be turned out after one term. It is time to cut this thing off and get on with the countries business.

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Last Updated 11/13/00