James D.Dougan
> Because the statewide Bush/Gore split is essentially even,
> then one would expect that the undercounted ballots would be evenly split
> between Bush and Gore. Thus, our expected number of undercounted ballots
> would be about 1750 for each candidate.
Only if the undercount were due to some flaw in the process that worked the
same across the entire state. But whatever errors in counting occur are
probably idiosyncratic to the county or even to the precinct, and because
those units are typically _not_ evenly split, the undercount can easily move
the vote one way or the other. Your hypotheses about the experience of the
voters and of the election workers, for example, would predict a swing. The
poorly designed ballot is obviously another factor that predicts a swing in
votes, and that does _not_ work evenly across the entire state.
I'm coming to believe that we will never know who really won this election.
On the brighter side, as a Gore supporter, I'm starting to hope that we
settle on Bush, but have the will to defy his weak presidency when he tries
to implement things like that across-the-board tax cut. My guess is that
these (non)results give us our best chance to stay the course, and continue
to pay down the debt. Of course, if Bush turns out to be a truly great
unifier and a brilliant statesman, we may still see him get his pet programs
implemented. <grin>
Paul "Deficit Hawk" Smith
