Only A Year Late-Fla. Recount Data Delivered 11/5, Public by 11/12

National Journal ^ | November 1, 2001 SGT | Hotline Daily Briefing

[deport]

JW Report

The attached report by the independent accounting firm Johnson, Lambert has several conclusions that will be of interest to the American people. Of primary importance is that, after analyzing 42,724 of the 62,605 ballots reported as undervotes in Florida, it is the stated view of the independent accounting firm that a statewide recount of the Florida undervotes would not have changed the outcome of the presidential election.

Link above goes to Press release and full report

[piasa]

Sometimes in a democracy, you have to violate the rights of some people in order to make sure that the right kind of people gain power.

Are you nuts?

First: the United States is NOT a democracy. It never was. It is a constitutional republic, not a place for mob rule.

Our system is not set up to 'violate anyone's rights to make sure the 'right kind of people' gain power. The objective is NOT to gain power, but to preserve individual liberty by limiting power. That is what the Constitution is about- limiting the power of government!

Anyone who seeks power for the sake of power is evil.

If that means that the majority of Americans voted for Gore in both the nation and the state of Florida and yet he still didn't gain power, then so be it.

The constitution was designed to prevent the establishment of the tyranny of a 'rule of men'...in other words, to establish instead a 'rule of law.' the worst tyranny is a 'rule of men' (an evil also called 'democracy,' or 'mob rule'- where a majority could squash the rights of minorities by outvoting them. There was democracy in the racist south when blacks had to ride in the back of the bus- no one enforced a Constitutional rule of law or cared about equality under the law. The majority- the mob- ruled, and that was evil. ) Democracy is three wolves and a sheep voting on who is for supper. A Constitutional Republic is designed to prevent the wolves from voting to eat the sheep, so to speak.

In our Constitution, the founders tried to prevent mob rule as best they could. They weren't perfect, but they pointed the way. One of the ways they tried to limit the power of government by preventing mob rule was to come up with the electoral college. It was designed to prevent populous states from becoming the sole determiners of the presidency. This was neccessary to protect new or smaller states from being outvoted and exploited. Can you imagine what would happen if the President was always chosen by New York? It is bad enough that urban areas rule over less populated rural areas as much as they do- we could not survive if the president was handpicked only by the City of New York. A President must be chosen by the states and not by popular vote, otherwise the whole country would be ruled by one populous city. He must reprisent the whole country, not just urban America.

It's their tough luck. It's too late to change things now. Bush has the power and that's all that matters.

What power does he have? His authority is only to enforce the law- the executive branch of government. He does not MAKE law- he cannot legislate. He cannot even judge the law.

As the old adage advises, "All's well that ends well," or, put another way, "The end justifies the means."

Are you a communist Chinese, by any chance? You sound like a communist. Communism believed that anything goes so long as it advances 'world socialism.' Lying, cheating and stealing were acceptable to advance world socialism and its dangerous utopian dream of mob rule. To that end, the communist USSR openly advocated the destruction and subversion of the American system of Rule of Law, the infiltration of American institutions, even our schools, with the intent of undermining the moral and ethical foundations of our society. All for the purposes of advancing world socialism and getting POWER.

The END does NOT justify the means- it is the rule of law and preservation of individual liberty that matters, not 'power.' Our system is the opposite of 'power'- the system is designed to ensure individual liberty even knowing that that very freedom makes us VULNERABLE. Our system is unique in that we are one of the few countries on earth where the Constitution places no limitations on the people- but instead places limits on government by telling it what it CANNOT do.

[piasa]

Now that is a pretty picture. NOtice no one is getting beaten or killed, as happens in Pakistani demonstrations...and no one has managed to set himself on fire by burning an American flag. ; )

[Howlin]

It sure is, isn't it? It's Luis'. But it sure looks wonderful! I wish MORE people would take to the streets like that.

[piasa]

It would be even more interesting to se ethe results had the media not called the election in Florida before the polls were closed- those people's votes couldn't be counted, much less recounted, even if we wanted to do so. It would also be curioous to see how many military votes were thrown out in other states without even being opened. But we will never know, because the ballots in other states were destroyed.

[4CJ]

Dims want everyone to think that we are a democracy, especially that the Presidential election is decided by "majority" vote.

Thank God the founders had common sense!

[4CJ]

Dims care, because if they than distort the truth enough Dims will get mad and turn out in droves the next election. They could (and will) use the disputed results for election "reform" (read abuse) and funnel more government monies into their pockets.

Florida law expressly prohibits the counting of overvotes (two or more votes). It is the voters responsibility to obtain a new ballot to correct this type of error. The canvassing boards are not "Karnak" or Miss Cleo (BTW, did she predict 9/11?).

Undervotes can only be counted by the canvassing boards, and can only be considered a vote if they are CLEARLY marked (of course, to a Dim a dimple is a clear mark right?) SCOTUS took care of this argument - the voter MUST follow the directions - if it says to punch out, then it must be punched out.

Lastly, the standards in place before the election cannot be changed within one week prior to the election. Meaning that dimpled chads etc were not counted previously, the canvassing boards had not stiplated that this election would follow different guidelines, so even if SCOTUS ruled that dimples were ok they still couldn't be counted.

Judge N. Sanders Sauls (A GREAT AMERICAN!) decided the case perfectly. And the Gorons knew it.

[KineticKitty]

From time to time I keep seeing this "660" lead, thrown out there to "prove" Gore won.

1st off, We already have a winner, GWB.

But I say we conceed and give Gore/Loserman the 660 votes that they are working so hard to get with their tantrums!

~BUT ONLY~ if they agree to count the hundreds thousand or more Military votes they didn't waste one word on in the media trying to get counted. Funny how everyones vote counted but the ones that didn't support them.

Let them re-count & re-count & re-count, Until they start "re-counting" ALL votes, They can just shove their dimpled chads where the sun don't shine for all I care.

[eaglebeak]

That's all nice and good, but you're overlooking that the dems are lying about this. Gore did not win Florida. There is no credibility in this latest recount. What this consorium did is to go through the ballots and count them in a manner contrary to the law. So whatever they come up with is not credible and wil never be credible.

Does anybody know what consortium this is? Who is doing this? All I heard is that WSJ is involved.

[eaglebeak]

From what I understand, the consortium of media outlets paid Florida state employees by the hour to do a real recount -- that is to say if Fla's election board had gone ahead with the recount as recommended by the Florida Supremes.

I dug around and found out who is collecting the data Its not Florida state employees. These Are the People Gathering the Data

[alnick]

I think It's the Washington Post and the NY Times. The WSJ is probably trying to keep these guys honest, but I believe they should have risen above it. It's a crock and if I were making the decisions at WSJ, I would treat it for the joke that it is.