I, too, was listening to talk radio discussion about this whole election
mess. While listening, a caller asked one of the same questions I've been
wondering about. "When a ballot gets tossed for being invalid from two
selections in the same catagory, does that void that persons ballot
entirely or just for the vote in that particular section of their ballot?"
(Frankly, the thought of their entire ballot's choices being not cared
about, pissed me off about Bush's PR people's attitudes - they were
confused so, tough nails! - as much as it did about the GOP trying so hard
to dismiss those being counted because they probably wouldn't favor Bush.)
A next caller happened to be a woman who used to work in the vote
tabulating process here in Portland before they had gone to strictly vote
by mail. Now this is just Oregon, and who's to say it's the same thing in
Florida, but she reassured the listeners that when those ballots were
kicked out for double punches, the rest of their votes were then tabulated
by hand for the other measures and races. GOOD! But an interesting thing
she also said (that maybe applies the the West Palm mess) was when these
got kicked out and they were going over them by hand, often the case was
that they found one of the two "double punches" circled or underlined,
seeing that the voter tried to rectify the error they were aware they
made, quietly at the booth themselves rather than going to ask for help or
a new ballot. IMHO, it wouldn't surprize me if many of these older voters
in West Palm didn't like the thought of asking for help for one reason or
another....the lines were long, some people lose the self-confidence over
the years that it takes to ask for help, by many accounts alot of the
people at the voting stations weren't all that *helpful* anyway, etc. But
this Oregon women said when they see that attempt to make their choice
known on their ballot, they DO give them the vote they had tried to
cast....at least that's what they do in Oregon. (BTW, she said no pencils
were allowed in the area of where the votes were tabulated - only red
markers) So, I wonder if some of this is the reason the Gore camp has
asked that West Palm be recounted by hand?
There's been many a good point made on the list in the last few days about
this election. Thanks all for sharing.
Penny
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