On Mon, 13 Nov 2000 08:42:36 -0500, SSCHEINE <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Actually, the exiting polls got it right!!! Remember, a lot of people
> left the polling booth thinking that they had voted for Gore, when they
> had actually messed up their ballot. Based on who they thought that they
> had voted for, they informed the exit pollers who called it for Gore.
>
I like the idea. But for that 8:00 p.m. call, they should have been
aiming at a Gore margin of a couple of percentage points, yes?
A few hundred thousand votes?
Out of 6 million votes, 60K amounts to 1 point, so a
difference of 30K was needed to avoid a mandatory recount.
The errors that are one-sided amount to nearly that much, but
not more than that -- the butterfly ballots gave 3K erroneous votes to
Buchanan, and took (probably) much of the 19K from Gore's total
because Bush's name was in the luckier position on the ballot.
(Florida state law favors those who are alphabetically privileged.)
It seems to me that the media "called" other states too early by a
week, since - it appears today - they overlooked the impact of
absentee votes, still being counted for 3 or 4 states. In a couple
of states, I think they should have known last Tuesday that sizable
blocs were yet to be considered.
For Florida, the number of *foreign* absentee votes is too tiny to
ordinarily worry about. But you don't usually have a 300 vote margin.
Here is something I found online -
=================== as reported on BBC
Absentee vote
The absentee votes - not due to be counted until after a Friday
deadline passes for their arrival by post - may yet provide another
twist.
They are usually thought to favour the Republicans, as many postal
voters have military connections.
But the newspaper USA Today says officials have already received
significantly more votes than expected - more than 4,000 ballots, up
from 2,300 in 1996.
Some observers believe the number has been boosted by Americans living
in Israel who may favour the Democrats because of the presence of Joe
Lieberman on the ticket.
===================== end cite.
The edge for Dole was about 300 votes in the 2,300 cast in 1996.
--
Rich Ulrich, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.pitt.edu/~wpilib/index.html
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