posted on November 24, 2000 12:40:02 PM
KatyD, my question was not about the request for manual counts in only the democratic counties vs Bush's ability to have requested the same in the republican counties. Gore and Bush obviously chose different strategies. What I was asking is, if the entire county cannot be counted in the time frame allowed, does this mean that the county will not be able to submit amended returns that include whatever number of new Gore votes they may have come up with to that point. In other words, all of the county votes must be recounted, not just whichever precincts can be completed, and not just when/if Gore reachs 931 additional votes (while the next two in the pile gives the lead back to Bush).
By my reading of the ruling and the footnoted references, in the case of a voter tabulation error (which is what the court seemed to settle on for its justification), the candidates have a choice of COUNTY recounts either by another machine count (once any mechanical error is fixed if that was the problem) OR by "manually counting all votes". I do not see that the ruling gave Gore any leeway in an all or nothing count.
The reason I am asking is the media has reported that subsequent to the court decision, Gore concentrated his efforts on an even narrower group of voters, by counting more heavily democratic precincts within the already heavily democratic counties, and are continually reporting the gain of Gore votes. This seems like unnecessary pot-stirring if these votes will be unable to be added to the ultimate totals if time runs out to recount ALL the votes in a given county.
posted on November 24, 2000 01:40:04 PM
hopefulli, my understanding is that the entire county must be recounted in order for it's votes to be included in the final tally. Of course, the tally from a PARTIAL recount of a county cannot be included in the tally submitted to Harris for certification...it must include ALL the precincts within that county, which means that if the county's manual recount is not concluded within the time frame specifed by the Florida Supreme Court, then that county cannot amend it's vote tally.
In fact, this is why the Dade County canvassing board decided to stop the manual recount. They decided that there was no way that it could be concluded by the Sunday 5 PM deadline specified by the Court.
posted on November 24, 2000 01:50:17 PM
I am really confused now, KatyD. Didn't M-D County file an amended certification of 6 additional votes, after they did the 2 test precincts? I could swear I heard it on CNN...but, then again I don't trust my memory...
posted on November 24, 2000 01:58:02 PM
Toke, I believe that that those additional votes were included in the amendment to the Secretary of State because at the time they were operating under the deadline imposed by her and of course knew it was logistically impossible to recount the whole county in time to comply with that deadline.(later overturned by the Court). And it was a moot point, because Harris ultimately denied these amendments to the certification. At least this is my understanding...maybe somebody else knows more?
posted on November 24, 2000 02:03:00 PM
And even though it seems eons ago you have to remember that some of the county canvassing board were under the belief that under Florida Law, they were entitled to conduct a "sampling" of the county precincts if they believed that the total vote for that county was inaccurate, and thus decide based upon this sampling (in Palm Beach, it was 1%) if they should conduct a manual recount. This was before the Secretary of State stated that she would disallow an votes submitted after the 7 day end of election deadline and before the flurry of lawsuits regarding manual recounts.
posted on November 24, 2000 02:06:03 PM
I'm hearing a faint sizzling sound. I hope this doesn't portend an imminent explosion of the brain.... I can't take much more of this.......
posted on November 25, 2000 03:55:55 PM
Here's an excellent column saying more about why the Bush/Baker strategy of *excoriating* the FL Supreme Court is a bad, dangerous idea.
I can't take much more of this.......