Sorry, one more quibble...
On Fri, 10 Nov 2000, John D. Giorgis wrote:
> The central point, however, is that we all agreed beforehand that a
> recount would be the final arbiter of the count of the election.
That is a patent falsehood. Everybody agrees beforehand that all will
abide by final election results, once each state has counted all the votes
and once each state has certified its outcome. That's a given. The
recount in this case was not a negotiated method of determining the winner
upon which the two parties decided...it's just the law in Florida that you
have an automatic recount if the margin of victory is below a certain
threshhold. The threshhold has gotten even lower, and there are more
ballots still to be counted than there are votes separating the parties;
moreover there are several more days for ballots to trickle in. We simply
don't *know* what will happen.
When candidates concede before the election is final it's because they
know that mathematically they can't win the electoral college, or that the
chance of winning is vanishingly small. It's good form because it saves
time and fuss, but they're not obliged by law to concede an election until
it's over. And nobody agrees that the AP news service is the final
arbiter of elections. In this case, to lean on your football metaphor,
Gore's gonna have to make a 55-yard field goal in a crosswind to win the
superbowl, but as long as there are seconds on the clock he gets to take
that shot. It's his right, and it's *my* right as a voter to see the game
played to the end.
Instead the Republicans have taken the stance of saying, "Look, Gore, it's
a disservice to the fans if you take that kick. You know you can't make
it, right? So just go home. There are only 5 seconds left on the clock
anyway. The fans will be much happier if you just give in."
As my doddering grandmother would deliciately say, "Horsefeathers!"
If this were football, the fans would riot.
Marvin Long
Austin, Texas
