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America Still Waits for Florida
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"...the time
to raise those concerns was before Nov. 7, not after the numbers
started looking bad for Gore..." |
It's been 10 days since Election Day 2000, and we still do not
know who will be the 43rd President of the United States of
America. Several states remain too close to call, but all eyes
are watching Florida, as the eventual winner of that state should
be our next President.
The initial vote count in the Sunshine
State ended with Texas Governor George W. Bush (R) winning the
state's popular vote and, thus, its 25 electoral votes, pending
the final count of absentee ballots. But the margin by which Bush
won was so narrow that Florida law required a recount. After the
mandated recount, Governor Bush still held the lead in the
popular vote, although it had narrowed.
Under normal
circumstances, the state would thus far be declared for Bush,
unless the absentee ballots tipped the balance of votes in Vice
President Al Gore's (D) favor. Historically, however, absentee
ballots tend to favor Republicans, so most people would consider
the state almost certainly Bush's. But as we have all seen over
the last week, current circumstances are far from normal.
The controversy over Florida started the actual night of the
elections, Nov. 7, when several Democrats began claiming that the
now-famous butterfly ballots in Palm Beach County may have
confused a small percentage of the voters in that county. While
the vast majority of the nearly 500,000 voters who cast ballots
in Palm Beach County had no trouble marking their ballots,
approximately 19,000 ballots were disqualified because two
candidates had been marked, instead of one. (It should be noted
that several counties in Florida experienced similar numbers of
disqualified ballots, while others experienced what amounted to
an even higher percentage of rejected ballots.)
Several Democrats
claimed that the ballot design was the problem, although similar
designs are used in many areas throughout the country, and have
also been used in Palm Beach County. In addition,
- the ballot had
been designed by a Democrat,
- was approved by Democrats, and
- samples of it were published in the local papers, and posted at
the polls.
If anyone thought the ballots were confusing, the time
to raise those concerns was before Nov. 7, not after the numbers
started looking bad for Gore. Furthermore, not everyone agrees
the ballots were disqualified because of confused voters making
Robert Cook, PE |
too many marks, thus taking votes away from Gore. A recent
statistical analysis by
Robert Cook, PE, indicates that the
roughly 19,000 ballots may have been deliberately destroyed after
the votes were cast, and the votes should have actually gone to
Bush. Cook is a nuclear engineer, with an MS in statistical
quality control, a software testing specialist and QA manager,
who has a track record for analyzing and correcting trends,
errors, and mistakes in heavy construction projects for more than
twenty years. You can find
Cook's study by going to the NRA-ILA
website at NRAILA.org.
John Lott |
It should also be noted that economist John Lott, a senior
research scholar at the Yale University Law School, estimates
that when the media prematurely declared Gore the winner in
Florida, the announcement cost Bush as many as 10,000 votes in
Florida's conservative western Panhandle. The declaration was
made prior to the polls closing in that part of the state, and
Lott estimates that thousands of discouraged Bush supporters
chose to stay home, rather than vote. You can find a link to an
article on this
subject by Lott in the Philadelphia Inquirer by
going to the NRA-ILA website.
But the latest focus of attention has been on a proliferation of
legal activity. Most of the legal activity centers around the
demands of the Gore campaign that manual recounts (in other
words, a third counting of ballots) be conducted in certain
counties that have strong Democratic majorities. Even when
Miami-Dade County voted not to do a manual recount, the Gore
campaign threatened a suit to force Dade to run the recount.
Opponents to the manual recount contend that counting ballots by
hand opens the door to the possibility of even further error, and
perhaps mischief by ballot counters with their own political
agenda. Since the Gore campaign is only seeking manual recounts
in heavily Democratic counties, it's easy to see why those
interested in seeing a fair election result would be concerned.
Fl Sec of State
Katherine Harris | |
But while the Gore team has been demanding manual recounts, the
Florida Secretary of State, Katherine Harris (R), has been
upholding Florida election laws. When she first ruled that all
counties had to submit to her office their final vote counts by
5:00 p.m., on Nov. 14, Gore's legion of attorneys quickly filed
suit to challenge her reading of Florida's election laws. The
suit resulted in Leon County circuit Judge Terry Lewis ruling
that counties could continue their manual recounts if they
wished, but the Secretary of State could use her discretion to
determine if she would accept any tallies submitted after the
deadline, which the court agreed was set by state law.
Ms. Harris
then gave any counties that wished to submit hand recounts after
the Nov. 14 deadline until 2:00 p.m., Nov. 15, to submit reasons
why these late tallies should be added to the final Florida
count. Four counties responded, but Harris rejected their
reasons, which spawned another suit from the Gore team of
lawyers. But today, Judge Lewis ruled that Secretary Harris acted
reasonably when she rejected the counties' requests for
consideration. The Gore team is expected to appeal this ruling.
If the ruling stands, however, we could know the winner in
Florida as soon as tomorrow afternoon. All oversees absentee
ballots must be in by midnight, tonight, and Secretary Harris has
stated that the Florida election "will be officially certified by
Saturday afternoon, barring judicial intervention."
The Bush campaign appears to be satisfied with letting the
original votes and state-mandated recounts in Florida and other
states stand, rather than demanding recounts whenever the final
vote count is close or turning to the courts as Gore has done.
Although he was well within his rights to do so, Bush chose to
not challenge the vote tally in Iowa, which produced a victory
margin for Gore of about 3/10ths of one percent, and it is
unlikely that he will challenge any other states. We'll simply
have to wait and see.
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