Wrangling Over Vote Count

It is unfortunate that we will not have a “legitimate” president of the United States for the next four years, no matter who gets that job. The machines used to count votes have a 3.2% error rate and, as a result, any election closer than 3.3% should be hand-counted. Hand counts are not unusual; they have been used before by both parties. The hand count will be fair because two of three individuals, a Republican, a Democrat and a third party, must agree. It will not be fair, however, unless the entire state is recounted.

The fairest result, however, will not come about because one campaign will not agree to recount all votes. (Remember, some counties in Florida, in the recount process, did not recount a single vote, they simply reread the previously counted numbers off the machines.) Why should the one campaign agree? They’re winning now. Fairness can only hurt them. The campaign argues that the nation needs to resolve this election now. I ask, why? I’m in no hurry to know. I would rather have an honest, fair and correct-as-possible count instead of a fast count.

COLIN F. VAN GORDER

Temple City

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Manual recounts are an open invitation to fraud. Machine counts are inherently more reliable and their alleged undercounts weigh equally on both parties; the alleged undercounts in Republican areas of Florida (e.g., Duval County, where 26,000 ballots were disallowed) were just as severe as in Democratic areas such as Palm Beach County. The photograph of Palm Beach County election officials holding up ballots to the light to try to “discern” voters’ “intent” was worth a thousand words; the Democrats are simply trying to manipulate the vote count until they get the result they want.

Al Gore’s campaign manager, Bill Daley, is trying to do in Palm Beach County what his father did in Cook County 40 years ago in another close presidential election: steal it. The most unbecoming aspect of this whole episode is the hypocrisy of noble posturing when all anyone is interested in is winning.

RICHARD P. SYBERT

Thousand Oaks

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Woe to our democracy if voter perception shifts from “My vote doesn’t really count” to “My vote isn’t really counted.” There lies the wide road to anarchy.

Let’s get it right over the next four years. The House and Senate ought to have plenty of time to address this problem, as it will likely be the only issue on which they can agree.

JOSEPH H. MAURER

Los Angeles

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The final curtain should be lifted and the winner announced. As of this writing, it is Gov. George W. Bush. Counts have been made by machine and by hand and Bush is still the winner. Let this partisan and media frenzy stop. Let’s move on to solving the issues, from education, to health care, to seniors, to defense. If the media and the political arena spent as much space, time and energy on these issues of importance, the country and the world would be better off.

JOHN KRIKORIAN

Glendale

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It is utterly demagogic and reckless for some Republicans to say that Gore is trying to “steal” the election. This is rabble-rousing of the worst kind. But how would Gore steal the election with the whole world watching? If he wins, he’ll win with actual votes cast for him. He’ll be taking only what he was rightfully given by the voters. In no way can that be considered theft.

J.H. McKENNA

Irvine

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Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, by her refusal to allow Palm Beach and Broward counties to amend their vote reports based on hand counts, has demonstrated that she is no more than a mouthpiece for the Bush campaign. She should have followed Gov. Jeb Bush’s lead and recused herself from the vote-counting process.

DAVID PARKER

Pasadena

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There is no reason for ballots in Florida to be hand-counted. Fraud is not an issue. The machines were working properly. The election was not close in the districts asking for a recount. Harris made the only decision possible under Florida law--no more recounting! All of this should be a moot issue now, as we wait for the overseas ballot count to decide our new president.

If Democrats really wanted every vote to matter, they would have requested recounting in all counties instead of just the four heavily Democratic ones. Let’s be honest, they are actively representing their own interests, not the voters of Florida.

BONNIE O’NEIL

Newport Beach

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How can we allow Harris to select our next president, while almost 100 million Americans voted to elect the next president?

HOVIK GABIKIAN

Glendale

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If George W. Bush, James Baker and Harris had stayed out of the way, the manual recount could have been completed by Saturday. The results announced on that day would have been received with greater confidence by most Americans.

DONALD KERNS

Garden Grove

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Gore’s pious declarations of concern for the democratic process are as irresponsible as they are absurd.

No electoral count will ever be perfect. Voters routinely make mistakes, but unless we’re prepared to assume that Democrats are temperamentally more error-prone than Republicans, we must presume that mistakes by each side’s voters will cancel each other out.

In a contest this close, random statistical fluctuation among different counts has the potential to decide the outcome. Gore’s demand for yet another count amounts to a final roll of the dice.

THOMAS EASTMOND

Costa Mesa

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Those who claim that the Democrats want to recount Florida votes until they get the result they want sound as if they’re afraid that Gore might really have won this election. If Bush truly won Florida, no amount of recounting will show otherwise. On the other hand, if Gore really did win, what’s wrong with obtaining the correct result? Regardless of who wins this thing, let’s just get it right.

KURT PAGE

Laguna Niguel

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Every vote counts! That is unless, of course, you decide not to count it. This is a “down-to-the-wire deal” and every screwed-up, uncounted and disqualified ballot needs to be fixed. There are people behind those ballots, and they have the same right to vote as you do and to vote the way they want to vote. So sorry if the recount process is inconvenient, stressful and time-consuming--that’s too bad. We are talking about the right of the single individual in a democracy, which is the constitutional foundation of this country.

CATHERINE FELKER

Pacific Palisades

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First, George and Al tried to buy the election. Now they’re both trying to steal it. McCain-Feingold in 2004.

SCOTT IMLER

West Hollywood

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I am often critical of news media for neglecting historical perspective in this culture where most citizens seem to have no sense of our rich history. I was absolutely delighted, therefore, to see the enlightened 1871 excerpt from Walt Whitman and H.L. Mencken’s typically acerbic comments from 1926 on your Nov. 15 Commentary page. More, please! Lots more!

RONALD SODERQUIST

Thousand Oaks

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I never realized “four more years” pertained to how long the vote-counting process was going to take.

ELYSE VERSE

Los Angeles