It is tempting to blame Bush for suing to stop the votes from being counted, or Gore for endless legal manouvering to somehow make the election come out his way, or little old ladies in Palm Beach who can manage 15 Bingo cards but couldn't figue out the ballot, or Katherine Harris for having too much make-up or the Florida Supreme Court for intervening or the US Supreme Court for intervening... The list goes on.
I blame Florida because nobody there seems to have a clue about how to hold a fair election. This is not a partisan issue because both Democrats and Republicans have built and maintained the system, if you can call it that, that failed to produce a result. We have to accept that whatever happens now, half the country is going to feel cheated. Why? Because Florida can't count votes.
How do you know who won a close election?
1) There have to be voting machines that accurately record the votes cast. Machines are necessary, whether they use gears and levers; punch cards, optical scanners or some other technology, because they are fast and generally accurate. Most ballots will be quickly and accurately read by a good machine. A bad machine, however, will lend itself to outright cheating or confused results. Machines that have been found to produce significantly inaccurate or incomplete results should be replaced. There should be a system to audit the results as part of the certification of the election. The purpose of the audit should be to verify the accuracy of whatever voting system is in use and/or to identify problems so they can be dealt with.
2) There has to be an agreement about what constitutes a vote. Clearly, if the intent of the voter can be reasonably determined, then that intent should prevail even if there are technical problems. An extraneous mark, incorrect ink color or a hanging chad should not disqualify a ballot, even if the machine can't read it. Ballots that are disqualified by the machine should be examined by a human being to determine what the intent of the voter was. This only works if the machine can flag the problem ballots so a person can find them and look at them. If there are a small number of problem ballots, it will be easy to examine each one. If there are a lot of problems, it may be indicative of problems in the machine, so they should be examined carefully and corrective action should be taken.
3) There has to be a procedure in place before the election that provides for a recount under certain well defined circumstances, such as a winning margin of less than 1/2 of 1%. Candidates also have to have the option of requesting a recount.
4) There has to be a well defined procedure for conducting a recount. The same standards should apply for the whole election. This will specifiy what gets counted, who conducts the recount and what counts as a vote. The purpose of the recount is to provide a more accurate result than the original count. Special care should be taken with ballots that have been disputed or rejected by the machines to insure that all qualified voters have their votes counted. Observers from both sides and the news media should be able to verify that everything is done properly and according to the accepted procedures.
So how does Florida stack up?
1) The punch cards used in some Florida counties were woefully inadequate. There is a long history of uncertainties created by chads that are not completely removed. In many cases the attempt to vote is foiled by a bad machine. This is clearly a scandal. Florida has had these problems for years and has not dealt with them. Now it has reared up to cast the Presidential election in doubt.
Additionally, the infamous butterfly ballot has proved to be a huge mistake. Thousands of voters were confused and either voted for the wrong candidate or for two candidates by mistake. Over 4% of the votes cast in Palm Beach County were disqualified for this very reason. Out of 25 people in line at the polls, one person did not have their vote counted. That is outrageious.
2) Every county in Florida has their own standard for whether to count hanging chads or dimples. Palm Beach county counts dimples only if a given ballot has lots of them. Other counties count them regardless. Even within a county, the election boards had to decide as they went along what to count and what not to count. Other states have established a standard and stuck to it. Florida could do neither. As a result the election officers trying to do their job were subject to public pressure, lawsuits and suspicion that they were not acting impartially. It cast the result of the election in doubt.
3) Florida does provide for an automatic recount in very close elections. This part of the process worked well. Nobody disputed that there should be a recount due to the closeness of the election.
4) The recount procedures in Florida were wholly inadequate. The intial recount by machine did nothing more than was done election night. Problem ballots were not examined. The machines read the ballots a little differently but there was no reason to think that the second time was more accurate.
The manual recount was not done statewide, leading to charges that it was an attempt to select areas that would help one candidate.
There was no attempt to isolate the problem ballots and determine the intent of those voters. Instead the manual recount spent incredible amounts of time reviewing ballots that been read accurately by the machines in the first place.
A more productive procedure would have started the recount with a machine recount, folowed by manual examination of ballots rejected by the machines. The same standards should be used statewide. Then any other disputes about any challenged ballots should be examined and resolved according to preset procedures. At the end of this process there would be a pretty clear result with little room for legal challenges.
Of course, Florida isn't the only place with these kinds of problems. We all should examine procedures in our own states and localities to make sure they live up to these standards. This messed up election should be an impetus to clean up our act.‡
November 28, 2000
November 10, 2000
Gore Wins
The Presidential Election hinges on the results in Florida. The Florida results depend on three things as of this afternoon (Friday 11/10/00).
1) The results of the recount, which AP reports as giving Bush a 327 vote lead.
2) 2,000-3,000 outstanding absentee ballots, which won't be final until November 17.
3) 19,000 double-punched ballots in Palm Beach County. This represents 4.2% of the total ballots cast in that county for President and more than 58 times the 327 vote lead Bush currently holds. If these 19,000 ballots represent voters who were trying to vote for Gore, then Gore truly won Florida. Any recount has to include consideration of these ballots. They should be studied to see which candidates were voted. Press reports are tha t all or most of these were voted for Gore and Buchanan. I'll wager that this is not due to people who couldn't make up their minds between these two. If these ballots show people voting a straight Democratic ticket then it is pretty safe to say that th ey intended to vote for Gore. That intention should be honored. Even if that applies to only a small number of these ballots, it is more than enough to swing the election to Gore.
Voters have been reporting since Tuesday morning that they were worried th at they had punched their ballot incorrectly in trying to vote for Gore and voted for Buchanan instead. These reports were coming in long before anybody could have guessed how close the election would be. Many people have come forward to report that the y made this mistake. A large number of ballots marked for both of these candidates suggests that people started to punch the wrong hole and then corrected themselves. Unfortunately they ended up with both holes punched. It is very difficult to tell with a punch card ballot whether you voted correctly since the candidates names do not appear on the ballot itself, only on the machine.
The question is, what is to be done?
1) The election can be re-voted in the area affected by the ballot problems. This opens up the campaign again as both sides flood the area with campaign ads and workers to try to influence the outcome. I feel sorry for the people of Palm Beach. It could be a real mess. Besides, would only voters who voted last Tuesday be eligible or could non-voters decide that they want to vote now too? It seems unfair to let them vote again and not the rest of us. Maybe Nader voters would change their minds, knowing the closeness of the election. Maybe Buchanan voters would. No, the election happened we can't redo it.
2) The double-punched ballots can remain disqualified. After all, that is the normal procedure. That seems to be the Bush Campaign's position. Voters should have exercised more care in voting. If they thought they voted wro ng, then they should have requested a new ballot. Indeed, second guessing the intentions of voters is dangerous.
This option will result in Bush's victory. Many Gore Supporters will feel cheated by a deceptive ballot and some will believe that the elec tion was stolen. Bush will serve his term under a cloud. But he will have majorities in both the House and Senate.
3) Some or all of these ballots can be accepted as Gore votes. It seems certain to me that this was the intention of the people who cas t those ballots. Since only a small percentage of these ballots would make Gore President, It is safe to assume that a majority of the voters voted for Gore. Surely the will of the voters should be recognized.
Bush supporters may feel that the election was stolen away by highly suspect tampering with the ballots. Gore will serve out his term under a cloud. He will also face a Republican Congressional majority.
However, this election showed one thing. The country is incredibly evenly split between D emocrats and Republicans. It would be a fair reflection of this situation to have a Democrat as President and a Republican congress. After all, The Democrats won the popular vote for President by a hair and the Republicans won Congress by a hair. The E lectoral College is evenly split.
I believe that the Florida election officers, both campaigns and the American people are acting in good faith to try to find the "right" answer. The punch card ballots are difficult to use under the best of circumstan ces and the ballot could have been laid out differently. This was not an attempt by anybody to affect the outcome of the election. Both parties participated in this situation.
I also believe that the will of the voters can only be recognized with the ac ceptance of the disputed ballots as Gore votes. Gore won more votes, even if there was a technical problem that resulted in an unwanted second punch. 4.2% of the voters in Palm Beach County were disenfranchised by a poorly designed system. This is shock ing! This apparently has been going on for years, although not as badly. Why hasn't anybody noticed this and moved towards a system less prone to failure? I certainly hope that this would be a result of this election, not just in Florida, but throughout the country. If we have learned anything, it is that every vote counts and we have to design a system that accurately records every vote.
1) The results of the recount, which AP reports as giving Bush a 327 vote lead.
2) 2,000-3,000 outstanding absentee ballots, which won't be final until November 17.
3) 19,000 double-punched ballots in Palm Beach County. This represents 4.2% of the total ballots cast in that county for President and more than 58 times the 327 vote lead Bush currently holds. If these 19,000 ballots represent voters who were trying to vote for Gore, then Gore truly won Florida. Any recount has to include consideration of these ballots. They should be studied to see which candidates were voted. Press reports are tha t all or most of these were voted for Gore and Buchanan. I'll wager that this is not due to people who couldn't make up their minds between these two. If these ballots show people voting a straight Democratic ticket then it is pretty safe to say that th ey intended to vote for Gore. That intention should be honored. Even if that applies to only a small number of these ballots, it is more than enough to swing the election to Gore.
Voters have been reporting since Tuesday morning that they were worried th at they had punched their ballot incorrectly in trying to vote for Gore and voted for Buchanan instead. These reports were coming in long before anybody could have guessed how close the election would be. Many people have come forward to report that the y made this mistake. A large number of ballots marked for both of these candidates suggests that people started to punch the wrong hole and then corrected themselves. Unfortunately they ended up with both holes punched. It is very difficult to tell with a punch card ballot whether you voted correctly since the candidates names do not appear on the ballot itself, only on the machine.
The question is, what is to be done?
1) The election can be re-voted in the area affected by the ballot problems. This opens up the campaign again as both sides flood the area with campaign ads and workers to try to influence the outcome. I feel sorry for the people of Palm Beach. It could be a real mess. Besides, would only voters who voted last Tuesday be eligible or could non-voters decide that they want to vote now too? It seems unfair to let them vote again and not the rest of us. Maybe Nader voters would change their minds, knowing the closeness of the election. Maybe Buchanan voters would. No, the election happened we can't redo it.
2) The double-punched ballots can remain disqualified. After all, that is the normal procedure. That seems to be the Bush Campaign's position. Voters should have exercised more care in voting. If they thought they voted wro ng, then they should have requested a new ballot. Indeed, second guessing the intentions of voters is dangerous.
This option will result in Bush's victory. Many Gore Supporters will feel cheated by a deceptive ballot and some will believe that the elec tion was stolen. Bush will serve his term under a cloud. But he will have majorities in both the House and Senate.
3) Some or all of these ballots can be accepted as Gore votes. It seems certain to me that this was the intention of the people who cas t those ballots. Since only a small percentage of these ballots would make Gore President, It is safe to assume that a majority of the voters voted for Gore. Surely the will of the voters should be recognized.
Bush supporters may feel that the election was stolen away by highly suspect tampering with the ballots. Gore will serve out his term under a cloud. He will also face a Republican Congressional majority.
However, this election showed one thing. The country is incredibly evenly split between D emocrats and Republicans. It would be a fair reflection of this situation to have a Democrat as President and a Republican congress. After all, The Democrats won the popular vote for President by a hair and the Republicans won Congress by a hair. The E lectoral College is evenly split.
I believe that the Florida election officers, both campaigns and the American people are acting in good faith to try to find the "right" answer. The punch card ballots are difficult to use under the best of circumstan ces and the ballot could have been laid out differently. This was not an attempt by anybody to affect the outcome of the election. Both parties participated in this situation.
I also believe that the will of the voters can only be recognized with the ac ceptance of the disputed ballots as Gore votes. Gore won more votes, even if there was a technical problem that resulted in an unwanted second punch. 4.2% of the voters in Palm Beach County were disenfranchised by a poorly designed system. This is shock ing! This apparently has been going on for years, although not as badly. Why hasn't anybody noticed this and moved towards a system less prone to failure? I certainly hope that this would be a result of this election, not just in Florida, but throughout the country. If we have learned anything, it is that every vote counts and we have to design a system that accurately records every vote.
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