Florida Court to Decide on Vote Count

Re “Election Heads to Court Showdown,” Nov. 20: Regardless of which side one is on, it seems to me that the courts in Florida are handling this situation irresponsibly, and it could lead to the most divisive situation possible.

I believe that they should not have allowed the recount to go forward unless they also rule that recount is going to be made part of the final tally. Nothing could be more disruptive to our political process than having a situation where the recount shows Al Gore to be the winner and then to have the courts decide not to accept it.

SANFORD THIER

Los Angeles

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The attacks on Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris are misplaced and unfair. The people of Florida decided to put the oversight of elections in the hands of an elected official. That elected official is Harris. She is relying on the laws adopted by the Florida Legislature long before this election. It is no more fair to assume that she will exercise her discretion in a biased way because she is a Republican than it is to assume that the Florida Supreme Court will make its decision based on the fact that all but one of its members are Democrats.

SUSAN D. SALISBURY

Rosemead

* Gore has asked the Florida Supreme Court to help provide a “generous” definition to the current recount effort that would now include counting “dimpled” chads. Despite two recounts, the Democrats resorted to a manual recount process, which was flawed from the beginning. Now the Democrats are asking the state’s highest court for assistance in stealing additional votes that could not be garnered within the law.

The Clinton-Gore era troubled Americans with the impeachment hearings, but Gore has set a new standard for “low.”

KAREN JUAREZ BOYD

Monterey Park

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Much has been made of punch-card ballots, hanging chads and votes not counted by machines. In any manufacturing process, there are statistical variations in product quality from item to item. It is inevitable that punch ballots vary somewhat in paper thickness and the strength with which the punch holes are scored. It is thereby possible that two ballots could be punched with the same amount of pressure, in one case severing the chad, in the other leaving it partially attached. The unaware voter should not be denied a vote because he or she failed to check the underside of the ballot.

If a machine cannot count some votes because of imprecision in the manufacturing process, it behooves the election officials to correct that deficiency in the vote-counting process. Is it too much to expect that Florida ensure that all votes are counted in such a close contest?

BERNARD ROTH

Santa Barbara

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As a veteran computer professional who was part of the generation that designed paper-card-reading equipment, I can tell you with certainty that the chad ballots were never designed to be manhandled. The manhandling used for the hand counts is likely to introduce multiple errors by compromising the integrity of those cards. Due to manufacturing imperfections, stress-inducing movements such as bending, flexing, etc. can cause chads to accidentally appear as having been punched. Furthermore, human error due to fatigue of the human readers is a high probability.

Please stop the hand count. Please rely only on the machine count for which these cards were designed.

TED LALIOTIS

Los Altos, Calif.

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Getting a recount done by the same voting machine is like having the same doctor give you a second opinion.

ALLAN KATZ

Los Angeles

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Why bash the media on exit polls? It seems the only one they got wrong was Florida, or did they? People voted for Gore, exited, and the winner was George W. Bush!

DAVID WILTSE

Lake Arrowhead

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To think that the U.S. is always sending election observers to other countries to make sure everything is done by the book. I guess they forgot to bring the book back (to Florida, anyway).

RAUL PEREZ

Chino