posted on November 12, 2000 08:59:01 AM new
First of all, I must say that I am a Gore supporter. But there is a valid reason why Bush doesn't want a manual recount.
I know that at this point we've all heard about 'chads'. These are the little pieces of paper that were punched out of a ballot but might still be hanging on. When a machine counts the ballots, this chad could be pushed back up into the hole and therefore the machine doesn't count the vote.
In a second machine count, additional votes will usually be found. This is because additional chads might have fallen off (because of increased handling). These additional votes *should* be in the same percentages as the original count. In other words, if one candidate got 70% of the vote and the other got 30%, these additional votes should come in at the same percentages.
In a manual recount, even more votes will be found. This could occur for a number of reasons. In a manual count, they feed each ballot through the machine individually (additional handling, even more chads fall off). If the machine doesn't register it, an individual actually looks at each ballot. Perhaps the chad is still hanging on - but the individual can see that it was punched and can remove the chad. Or perhaps there's an indentation - the voter didn't push hard enough. Again, the individual can visually see this and can count the vote. Or perhaps the individual punched two holes, realized their mistake and circled one of the holes with a pencil. Again, the individual can see this.
So, in a manual recount, more votes will be found. These votes again *should* be in the same percentages as the original count.
(Unless you want to claim that one candidate tends to have stupider or weaker supporters that can't manage to fill out a ballot correctly but we won't go there right now <grin>
Now let's go to West Palm Beach. WPB is heavily democratic. Let's say they find an additional 1000 votes. Assuming that the same percentages hold as in the original count, Gore should receive roughly 680 of these while Bush will receive 310. (I know that that doesn't add up to 1,000, remember there were other candidates.) The additional 370 votes for Gore (680 - 310) is enough to swing the election.
So there is a valid reason for Bush to be scared. Now we could say that this is 'the will of the voters' - this is correct. But what about other counties that were Republican - should they have a manual recount? Well, to be fair, I'd have to say 'Yes'.
Also, all this talk about recounts has nothing to do with the legality of the WPB ballot, the almost certainty that all those votes for Buchanan were actually meant for Gore, the confusion regarding the 19,000 ballots that were double-punched, any bags of 'missing' ballots that suddenly turn up nor that Gore has the majority of the nation-wide popular vote. These are distinctly different issues. I'm just saying that Bush has a valid reason to not want manual recounts in just a few Democratic counties, (i.e. Broward and WPB).
