Word: beachings
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Under Florida law, local canvassing boards have a lot of discretion. Palm Beach County circuit-court judge Jorge Labarga ruled that dimpled chads should count as long as the board could discern the voter's intent. The board has apparently stuck to a restrictive approach, not counting dimples in the presidential race if a voter made full holes in other races on the ballot. Its reasoning: a voter who left dimples in many races probably had trouble punching clear holes. But a voter who left a dimple only in the presidential race may have been reluctant to vote in that...
Democrats counter that the Palm Beach equipment made it particularly hard to punch through the presidential column and that any dent clearly shows intent. At a hearing on Friday, they brought in a developer of the system and others to testify on why it was harder to punch holes in the presidential column. Gore has said that if he loses partly because these dimpled chads were not counted, he will make it part of his suit contesting the election...
...stories come out about what is happening in the hand-counting rooms: the changing standards, the interpretations of dimples and dents, the cheating; the ballots misplaced, used as fans, taped up, dropped; the throwing out of military absentee ballots. Newly assertive Republicans begin to protest, to march on Palm Beach in suits and ties. It goes to the U.S. Supreme Court...
...indisputable that a badly designed ballot in Palm Beach County misdirected or disqualified thousands of votes intended for Gore. It is beyond reasonable dispute that those votes would have given Gore a clean win in Florida. Nevertheless, Gore offered to forswear any effort to claim those votes if Bush agreed to a fair and thorough recount of ballots as they were actually cast. Bush said...
Moreover, the court repeatedly defined its role as tribune of the unspoken plaintiffs, citizens whose votes have gone un(re)counted. Why then did it not order a recount of all the counties of Florida? If refusing to reconsider spoiled ballots disenfranchises voters of Palm Beach, how could the court tolerate residents of 64 other counties having their dimpled ballots languish forever in un-hand-counted obscurity...