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Gore Counting on Florida Dimples
By DAVID ROYSE
.c The Associated Press
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - Al Gore needs the dimples.
With Gore trailing George W. Bush by 930 votes, Democrats are pressuring election officials in three South Florida counties to count ``dimpled'' chad ballots as valid votes.
Dimpled ballots are those on which a punch card has a bump, as if someone meant or tried to punch out the perforation to indicate their choice for president.
They are not being counted in Broward or Palm Beach counties. And in Miami-Dade County, some are being counted, some aren't, depending on whether the local canvassing board members can determine the voters' intent. Broward is setting the dimpled ballots aside for later consideration. A Palm Beach County judge plans to take up the dimple issue Wednesday.
The quasi-punched ballots are now at the center of the question of who will be the next president of the United States, because there could be hundreds or thousands of dimpled ballots. With Florida's yet-to-be-awarded 25 electoral votes come the keys to the White House.
Experts in voting behavior say that because the three counties recounting ballots all lean to Democrats, if dimpled ballots are counted, many are likely to favor Gore.
But even if Gore gets the majority of the dimpled ballots counted for him, everything still depends on whether the Florida Supreme Court says the recounts should be considered at all.
Another question is when to count a dimpled ballot as a vote.
``For 100 years the standard in Florida has been to discern the intent of the voter,'' said Lance deHaven Smith, a Florida State University political science professor and elections expert. ``And that's what the election's about, the intent of the voters. The question is, as a practical matter: Can you do that?''
As the Florida Supreme Court deliberated Tuesday over whether to accept any hand recount results, it also was dealing with a parallel legal fight over what standards should apply to dimpled ballots.
The Gore team raised that issue before the court, but the Bush team was trying to keep it out of the legal fight altogether, arguing the Supreme Court lacks the power to set such standards statewide.
In Florida, it has been up to the counties to set rules on whether to count dimpled chads as votes. Until now, there has been no ruling on a statewide standard.
In at least one state, Massachusetts, the state high court has said dimpled ballots do indicate voter intent, said Art Wolf, a law professor at Western New England College in Springfield, Mass., and a former U.S. Justice Department elections lawyer. But since that ruling, the state has gotten rid of all punch card ballots, making the ruling moot there.
In Bush's state of Texas, rules that predate his term as governor allow county officials - but don't require them - to count dimpled chads as an indication of a voter's intent, and therefore count the ballot.
If dimples are counted in Florida, the question becomes: Will enough of the dimples look enough like Gore votes for the vice president to erase his vote deficit?
Dennis Newman, a Democratic lawyer, said that in Palm Beach County, with 176 out of 531 precincts counted, there were 557 dimpled ballots in Gore's stack, and 260 for Bush. County officials have not provided their own dimple numbers.
So far, those ballots have not been considered in the county's recount figures, despite Democrats' objections. Palm Beach has worked since 1990 under a rule saying that at least one corner of the chad must be dislodged for a ballot to count. A hearing is set for Wednesday in Palm Beach Circuit Court on a motion by Democrats seeking to force the canvassing board to consider dimpled ballots.
In Miami-Dade, the canvassing board was reviewing approximately 10,750 ``undervoted'' ballots on which no vote was registered by the machines. Board members didn't want the regular counting teams to use their discretion in determining what constituted a vote.
Republicans accused board members of twisting and turning ballots to determine voter intent, looking for votes that weren't there.
``Unfortunately, Miami-Dade has become ground zero for producing a manufactured vote,'' said Rep. John Sweeney, R-N.Y., who called the elections officials roaming the counting room ``pit bosses.''
Courts have been reluctant to rule on dimpled ballots' acceptability because sometimes they hint at the voter's intent and sometimes they don't.
For example, sometimes ``it was the voter who put the stylus down, drew back and changed their mind'' and punched the hole for the other candidate, Wolf said. In such cases, a dimple shouldn't count.
But if no other hold is punched, a dimple is as good an indication of a voter's intent as anything, deHaven Smith said, particularly if the person voted a straight ticket in all other races.
``Why would they vote for everything else and not the president?'' deHaven Smith said.
AP-NY-11-21-00 1729EST
Lots of people chose not to vote for President because they didn't like any candidate. (Not me) Some are only interested in local issues. To some it is a protest vote by not making a choice there but everywhere else. Not unheard of.
Won't happen. Lawyers for Gore admitted that they changed the criteria for considering a ballot from the "two-hole" rule to the dimple hole. This in itself is in violation of federal law. I wouldn't count on these votes.
Meanwhile Gore's team continue's to manufacture votes elsewhere.
---max
What really gets me is that the are so pro abortion, which is changing someone's mind during pregnancy, but they are so adamant that pregnant chad counts, and voters don't have a right to abort their votes and change their minds in the voting booth!!!!
``For 100 years the standard in Florida has been to discern the intent of the voter,'' said Lance deHaven Smith, a Florida State University political science professor and elections expert...Except if they are in the loathesome military, in which case we couldn't give a f@ck..!
This just in: John Travolta has just declared his chin a valid Florida ballot for Gore. His "ballot" was nullified when a nearby FReeper dropped trou, bent over, saw his dimple, and raised him one.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
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