Flawed Vote Count Still Gnaws

I am interested to know how John Lott Jr. and James Glassman identified ballots as having been cast by African American Republicans, as separate from those cast by white Republicans, African American Democrats, white Democrats, Hispanic Democrats and Hispanic Republicans (“GOP Was the Real Victim in Fla. Vote,” Commentary, Nov. 12). Was there an identifying mark on the ballot? Did Democrats and Republicans receive different ballots in a general election? Or did they extrapolate from a statistical breakdown of registrations within specified districts? How can they be sure the ruined ballots came from the African American Republicans disproportionately?

They assert that George W. Bush was penalized more by the loss of African American votes than was Al Gore, but how can they be sure that all, or even most, of those African American Republicans intended to vote for Bush? They claim that the disparity was more severe in districts where the county election supervisor was a Democrat, but is there any evidence to indicate that this was a causative factor and not simply a correlative one? Their conclusions appear to be based on questionable assumptions, bringing to mind Benjamin Disraeli’s famous complaint: There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.

Catherine A. McCallum

Monrovia

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I would like to take exception to the inference that the GOP was victimized. If a person loads a gun, points it at his foot and pulls the trigger, it would be difficult to claim being victimized as to the end result. Perhaps Lott and Glassman need to remember that Gore, in an effort to have ballots recounted in specific districts, asked Bush to join this effort and include any districts of his choice. The response was a refusal through Bush’s actions when he turned to the courts to stop any and all efforts of recounting votes.

No doubt some Republican voters, as well as some Democratic voters, were victimized by the shoddy treatment offered by the state of Florida. The responsible officials, who obviously did not value democratic principles as applied to voting rights, did nothing to alleviate the many problems. The GOP leadership and Bush showed absolutely no concern whatsoever for trying to solve the problems of the electorate while doing everything possible to be declared winners of the election at all costs.

Robert Barany

Fountain Valley

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Re “Study Points to Miscalculation by Gore Forces,” Nov. 13: Who cares? This is like saying “Boy! If I had bought $1,000 worth of Microsoft stock when it first came out, just think of the money I would have now!”

Don Ericson

Banning

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I found your headline “Bush Still Had Votes to Win in a Recount, Study Finds” (Nov. 12) deliberately misleading, as an equally accurate headline of “Gore Had Votes to Win” would have been. In the eight scenarios posed by the article, each candidate would have won four, by a slim margin. The vote in Florida was a statistical dead heat. The election may have been settled last year, as the White House says, but many of us who voted for the man who won the popular vote still find the way it was settled to be unsettling.

David A. Baird

Los Angeles

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Well, we now know that Gore would have won if all of the “overvotes” were counted. Those would be the ballots where more than one candidate was voted for. One would assume that the only way to count such ballots in a fair and unbiased manner would be to give each candidate voted for one vote. Aside from the fact that this would be clearly illegal, it would also result in more votes being counted than there were voters. I was under the impression that this was only done in Chicago. No, Bush was elected to be our president and, under every possible legal scenario, he is our president.

Steve Reich

Oxnard

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You spent the money so you might as well publish the results. If you count it one way, Bush wins. If you count it another way, Gore wins. I eagerly await your next million-dollar project to tell us how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

Bill Carroll

Newhall

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Under the most inclusive scenario, Gore won the election. Isn’t the idea behind voting to allow all those eligible to cast their votes in good faith so we can know with reasonable certainty who received the majority of votes? There is a reason exit polls were saying that Gore won. The majority of voters thought they had voted for Gore, not Bush. What a crime that our most cherished right is so vulnerable to manipulation. Had Texas law applied, with the standards that Bush supported and signed into law, Gore would have won as well. How hypocritical for Bush to feel entitled to the presidency. I guess the quest for unity is stronger than the truth.

Sara Nichols

Los Angeles

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So let me get this straight. When the prevailing standard is “the will of the voters,” as under Florida election law, Gore wins. Yet all the media spin doctors are still saying Bush won, and we should all move on. The fix was in when the Supreme Court got involved. Whether you like it or not, that is the truth. What about the hundreds of minority voters who were turned away by the police before they got to cast their votes? Regardless of recent events, this administration is as illegitimate today as it was on Dec. 13.

Roy Dickinson

Bishop