From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Wed Jun 20 2001 - 14:27:24 MDT
hal@finney.org wrote,
> This is unfortunate, Harvey, but keep in mind that over five million
> people voted in Florida. Errors in tens of thousands still constitute a
> relatively small percentage. It is not necessarily cause for despair that
> social institutions were only able to make a measurement with an accuracy
> of about 1%. It's not easy to measure people's thoughts and intensions.
> They're not like inanimate objects. 1% may be about the best we can do.
Actually, one of the court cases in Florida was dismissed by the judge with
this exact argument. He said that not only were inaccuracies inevitable,
they were known and expected. Therefore, the judge ruled that the Florida
election was NOT unusual and that nothing was tampered with on either side.
The judge said that the election was the same as it always is, and that
anybody who didn't realized that all these bizarre events were already
occurring was just not paying attention.
> I don't see Florida as a cause for disgust, it was the inevitable outcome
> of the need to force a final decision in a case where we are squarely
> within the gray area. Any system which had a similar requirement for
> finality could run into the same problem.
My disgust was more at the political parties filing lawsuits and trying to
twist the system their way. Bush argued to strike down Florida law
requiring voter intent to override local election board technicalities.
Bush won, and ballots with write-ins for Gore were thrown out because the
instructions did not allow for write-ins for candidates with existing hole
punches. On the other hand, Gore challenged the same exact law requiring
voter internet when he tried to block military ballots. The law states that
all absentee ballots must be postmarked, but the courts ruled that this was
not necessary for military ballots because the intent was clear even if it
technically did not meet the letter of the law.
I was disturbed that both candidates argued FOR the law where they wanted it
and AGAINST the law where they didn't want it. Because of the compressed
time-frame, both candidates had lawyers arguing the law BOTH WAYS at the
same time. They obviously didn't really believe one way or the other, they
just wanted what helped them win. Then each candidate had the gall to blame
the other candidate for going against the rule of law when they both were
doing it.
The more I looked at all the cases, the more I found parallels. Each
candidate mirrored the other almost exactly. I know of no trick played by
one that was not played by the other. Both tampered with votes. Both
technically broke the law to allow votes that shouldn't have been counted.
Both argued to block other votes on the basis of those broken laws. Both
wanted to override the machines in some cases and not in others. Both
argued for time constraints in some cases and not others. Both went beyond
their time limits in some cases and then argued that the votes should be
counted anyway. Both filed for recounts in some counties and against
recounts in other counties. Both sides argued for at least one recount each
and then reversed their argument when the recount didn't go their way. Both
sides had poll workers accused of altering hundreds of ballots. Both seemed
to accuse the other side of ballot improprieties where the evidence clearly
showed none. Both twisted their descriptions of the Palm Beach vote count,
which was carried live on cable and we could see what really happened, and
both candidates lied about it. Both flew in cronies to stage public
protests that pretended to be spontaneous. Both hired telephone workers to
poll the populous and influence their memory and interpretations of the
voting day's events. Both had committee workers handling ballots that
should have never passed through party hands. Both had party members in
positions of power making unfair decisions for the benefit of their party.
I don't want to get into all the details of every case, but I have specific
examples of each of these statements. I am not just painting them all with
the same broad brush. I literally tried to objectively look into these
things during the election due to my being in Florida and having local
access to the local offices. Almost every single dirty trick was pulled by
both sides. I could detect neither side being better than the other. At
the end, I felt like I was looking at mirror images of the same group of
people.
-- Harvey Newstrom <http://HarveyNewstrom.com> <http://Newstaff.com>
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