About Hand Counting

Everyone in America now knows that True Liberty for senior citizens in Florida, and Individual Freedom and Justice For All for confused Palm Beach County residents that cannot read a ballot card easily filled out by second-graders, rests on that last great hope of the Home of the Brave, Hand Counting. Here’s the rest of the story.

“Those who cast votes decide nothing. Those who count votes decide everything.” Josef Stalin

The Long, Long Recount
Dec. 4, 2000: Al Gore’s high-priced lawyers were surprisingly unimpressive in Tallahassee Saturday as they presented their case in circuit court for manual recounts of heavily Democratic counties. But beyond this failure to show evidence of fraud, the ballots they claim should be counted for the first time actually have been handled so many times that they are in no condition to be accurately tabulated.

Yet Another Hand Count?
Dec. 2, 2000: Judge N. Sanders Sauls holds a hearing today on Al Gore’s lawsuit contesting the certified election results in three Florida counties--Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Nassau. But despite the vice president’s assertions that he is suing only to preserve our nation’s democratic principles and to ensure a fair count, this is really an attempt to rifle in on a mere 10,000 ballots in Miami-Dade County, and nearly 4,000 similar ballots in Palm Beach County, that he claims have never been counted.

Coup Behind Closed Doors
Dec. 1, 2000: “We saw Democrat election officials bending ballots until the chads popped out. We saw them knock whole stacks of Bush ballots onto the floor. ... We saw ballots with chad taped back into the Bush hole, making them votes for Gore.”

Debunking Gore Myths
Dec. 1, 2000: Al Gore is seeking to perpetuate a number of myths in furtherance of his obsessive quest to fulfill his childhood dream. He is speaking with forked tongue because the truth does not benefit his presidential ambitions.

Gore’s Electoral Lock Box
Nov. 25, 2000: With one day to go before the new certification deadline set by Florida’s Supreme Court, Broward County ‘discovers’ 500 votes; by John Fund for the Wall Street Journal.

About Those Pregnant Chads
Nov. 24, 2000: Vice President Gore’s effort to convince Florida election officials to count indented or “dimpled” ballots as votes for him runs contrary to the practice in almost all jurisdictions that use the punch card system. From the Washington Post.

Hanging By a Chad
“Just three hundred votes separate George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore. What Americans of all stripes want is the most accurate count possible. Nine days ago most of us thought counting votes was a simple straight forward non-partisan process. But now many of us aren’t so sure, we’re learning new words like hanging, pregnant, and dimpled chad and things don’t seem so simple anymore.”

Gore Makes Small Gains in ‘Rigged’ Recounts
Nov. 21, 2000: Al Gore has trimmed George W. Bush's lead in the Florida opular vote to 731 on the strength of unofficial manual recounts in three Democrat-dominated counties. Republicans are charging that those recounts are “rigged.”

The Trouble with Hand Counting
Nov. 17, 2000: Even Democrats admit it’s not necessarily the most accurate method of determining the vote. From the Wall Street Journal.

Democrat Election Official Manipulated Ballots
Nov. 16, 2000: Carol Roberts, the fiercely partisan Palm Beach Democrat county commissioner, deliberately mishandled ballots to give Al Gore a boost in the hand recount, five different witnesses swore in affidavits filed with a federal court.

Manual Review of Ballots May Lack Precision
Nov. 15, 2000: Even though hand-counting ballots will correct some errors in the original tallies, voting experts and elections officials say, the method may not be precise enough to accurately determine the winner in a contest as close as the Florida presidential race. A combination of complications arising in hand counts -- ambiguous marks, sticky cards, human fatigue -- could introduce errors large enough to swing a close contest. From the Miami Herald.

Broward Says No
Nov. 14, 2000: by John Fund for the Wall Street Journal. The Gore campaign suffers a setback in their search for enough votes to overturn Bush’s lead, and threatens a lawsuit.

Falling Chads Threaten Florida Bush Total
Nov. 14, 2000: Tiny bits of paper littering the floor during the Palm Beach County hand recount are evidence of mishandled ballots that are wrongly adding votes to the Gore tally.

Florida Voted By the Book
Nov. 13, 2000: “A federal judge is scheduled to hear arguments today on a Republican lawsuit charging that manual recounts in four heavily Democratic Florida counties violate the U.S. Constitution. Gore spokesmen counter that the recount is merited because of ‘irregularities’ in those areas, especially in Palm Beach County.”

It’s Not an African Country
Nov. 13, 2000: by John Fund for the Wall Street Journal. Chads: will they really determine the next president of the United States?

Florida Officials Use Telepathy in Ballot Hand Count
Nov. 13, 2000: Just days after Missouri voters elected a dead man to the Senate, the American presidency is being decided on the basis of telepathy. No word better describes the way some Florida officials are hand counting ballots in the Sunshine State’s deadlocked presidential tally.

A Blatant Conflict of Interest
Nov. 12, 2000: by John Fund for the Wall Street Journal. Theresa LePore should recuse herself from the Palm Beach vote-count process.


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