Word: recountings
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...hour, day or night, there is a Republican on TV complaining with a straight face that Al Gore will keep demanding recounts until he has enough votes for victory. What Gore has wanted all along is one thorough recount. It is the Bush side that has been purposely running out the clock. There are actual, substantive disputes here too, of course. Reasonable people can differ about dimpled chads, and even about recount deadlines. And yes, the Gore side has made fatuous arguments of its own. But the Republicans' campaign to delegitimize Gore's efforts has been dishonest even by prevailing...
There was plenty of time for a fair and thorough recount after Election Day, and there was nothing to stop Katherine Harris from using her discretion to allow one. Al Gore says there's still time. We all ought to hope he's right about that, because if he's wrong--if it's too late--we have just done serious damage to American democracy. Not fatal damage, to be sure. But just a month ago we thought it was invulnerable...
They accuse her of attempting to "summarily disenfranchise innocent electors" by adhering to the deadline. Really? Then what about the court's own deadline of Nov. 26? It caused Miami-Dade officials to shut down their recount completely. According to its own logic, the court has disenfranchised thousands of Miami-Dade voters. But the whole disenfranchisement charge is absurd in any case. The plain fact is that any deadline must necessarily "disenfranchise" voters--or it would not be a deadline, i.e., a date after which otherwise legal ballots must be ignored. We must nonetheless have deadlines, or no election would...
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...
...headline still says "Gore Loses in Supreme Court, Recount Hearing" and that's more grist for the concession mill. (It even sparked a brief "Bush rally" on Wall Street.) A "very gratified" James Baker came out at 3 p.m. to explain how the high court had reinforced the Bush camp's arguments against the extensions and hand counts, even if it had given the Florida Supremes another crack at addressing them. But as hard as Baker was working to convince reporters the Supremes had handed him a win, he wasn't about to call anew for Gore's surrender when...