Last Updated 29 November 2000

I am very concerned about the integrity of our election process. To that concern I address the following topics, in the hope that both major parties can learn from this experience, and raise the level of their aspirations in future activities that affect our nation beyond usual government policies.

To provide complete disclosure, I did vote for Vice-President Gore, as a means to vote for stated Democratic policies and approaches. I believe that Democratic policies will be better for the country and the world than will Republican policies. However, I am more committed to the integrity of the election process than to either candidate.

Mike Forster, Palo Alto, California
November 29, 2000
(3 days after the initial Florida certification, 2 days before the US Supreme Court hearing)

Topics

Summary: We may never know who received the most votes in Florida

Manual recounts are appropriate

Machine counts alone are not accurate enough for all of the ballots

Manual recounts can be accurate

Manual recounts may include just disputed ballots, and need not include all ballots

Voters should not be disenfranchised by the mechanics of vote counting

There are NOT too many recounts

This process has been entirely partisan - on both sides

Extending the recount deadline was appropriate

"Spin" has been rampant

Neither party convincingly took the "high road"

Summary: We may never know who received the most votes in Florida.

Activity:

If the manual recounts are not allowed to complete, Governor Bush may be awarded the electors from Florida, but we will never know if he "won" Florida.

Comment:

If all of the ballots in Florida are counted as well as they could be, given the mediocre punched-card system in use in many large counties, then the results most likely will have shown that more voters voted for Vice-President Gore than did for Governor Bush. This assessment could be wrong, especially if the 27,000 discarded votes in a Republican-leaning county followed the Republican-leaning voting pattern there.

If all of the votes were counted as well as they could have been, and Governor Bush received more votes, we could all be satisfied and encouraged that our democratic voting process had worked. However, the machine counts by themselves are certainly inadequate, and if the full manual count never occurs, the nation may never know who actually received the most votes in Florida - and that is the worst result of all.

While there is plenty to criticize in both parties' handling of this situation, the Republicans end up looking worse - in this case, Florida 2000. Any vote counting mechanism that discards tens of thousands of ballots is seriously flawed, and opposition to manual counts or recounts to correct for those flaws as much as possible is inappropriate. However, if the situation were reversed, I would not be surprised if the positions and statements of the parties reversed themselves completely as well.

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Item: Manual recounts are appropriate.

Activity:

The Democrats requested manual recounts in (only) four (usually Democrat-leaning) counties. The Republicans challenged in Federal court that manual recounts in only a few counties violate equal protection laws for the voters.

Comment:

Of course, manual recounts are appropriate. Manual recounts occur frequently, all over the country, in close elections. I am distressed that the Republican Party chose to oppose manual recounts in this close election.

Florida law allows any candidate or any party to request a manual recount, and the Gore campaign did so, well within the legal time limit.

Many, perhaps even most, Florida counties use vote-counting mechanisms that are already more accurate than those for punched-card ballots. One could argue that the voters in those counties already received equal protection of their voting rights relative to those in punch-card counties.

Democrats did offer a full recount everywhere in Florida; this was somewhat of an empty offer, because the Democratic Party has no authority to make such an offer or to effect such a recount after the initial 3-day request period had passed. However, it appeared that the Florida Supreme Court might consider ordering such a recount for the entire state, which would have negated the Republicans' objections - the Republicans apparently did not want that.

(To dispel any charges of partisanship on my part, I would welcome manual recounts anywhere in Florida or anywhere in the country where there might be questions about the results of machine counts. The accuracy of the count is far more important to our nation than who wins any individual election - a lesson that it appears that both major parties need to relearn.)

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Item: Machine counts alone are not accurate enough for all of the ballots.

Activity:

The Democrats requested manual recounts in selected counties. The Republicans have repeatedly stated that the machine count and then recount were all that was needed.

Comment:

Republicans have insisted that machine counting is the most accurate. However, I have not heard a Republican explanation of how the first "accurate" machine count and the second "accurate" machine count differed by at least 1400 votes over the entire state of Florida.

It is known that machine counting of punched cards is often inaccurate - CNN mentioned that machine counts of punched-card ballots are "notorious" for inaccuracy. In any case, it is clear that the machine counts reject tens of thousands of ballots as uncountable in large counties - this 1%+ rejection rate may be customary, but by itself it is unacceptable in an election as close as this.

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Item: Manual recounts can be accurate.

Activity:

The Democrats requested manual recounts in selected counties. The Republicans have repeatedly stated that manual recounts are inaccurate and subject to "mischief".

Comment:

Republican arguments against manual counts or recounts are spurious. Manual recounts of all kinds of ballots, including punched-card ballots, occur all the time, nationwide. While manual counts will contain errors, they are the best and only means we have to resolve questions about machine counts. Note that Canada just completed an election where all of the millions of votes were hand counted. As has been stated many times, even Texas has a law, signed by Governor Bush, that hand counting is the most accurate method.

Manual counts in these Florida counties have progressed using criteria very similar to those used for punch-card ballots nationwide, similar to those spelled out in that same Texas law.

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Item: Manual recounts may include just disputed ballots, and need not include all ballots.

Activity:

In at least one case, in Miami-Dade County, the canvassing board considered counting only the ballots rejected by the counting machine. The Republicans involved protested that decision vehemently, with the result that the manual recount in Miami-Dade has not occurred. In general, Republicans have been challenging that, if a manual recount has to occur, it must recount all of the ballots, not just disputed ballots - not just those rejected by the machine count.

Comment:

One the one hand, Republicans claim that machine counts are the most accurate. As a computer consultant, I would tend to agree - if the machine can count a ballot, it almost certainly does it accurately. If that is the case, then in general there should be no need to manually recount the machine-counted ballots. Effort and calendar time can be appropriately saved by counting or recounting only those ballots that were rejected. Republican opposition to this position rests on tenuous grounds at best.

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Item: Voters should not be disenfranchised by the mechanics of vote counting.

Activity:

Tens of thousands of votes have been discarded by the counting machines, and thus never counted. Democrats have been calling to count "all" of the votes. The Republicans have been silent on this issue.

Comment:

I am distressed by decisions of the Florida Secretary of State. She of all people should have as her first priority to see that all voters' ballots are adequately considered for counting. She should have been the one fighting for every legal option to extend deadlines, to enable manual counting and ballot evaluation where machine counting failed. Instead, at both opportunities to exercise her discretion, she chose to shorten the counting period rather than to extend it.

I am even more distressed by the attitude of the Republican Party leadership in supporting the lack of counting of tens of thousands of votes. Every citizen's best interest should be that all votes are counted, leaving no questions. Our political leaders should always be unwaveringly committed to full counting of ballots.

The Democrats also earn fault here as well, by challenging the inclusion of some overseas ballots. Some of these ballots may have been missing an item mentioned in the law, such as the postmark. However, clearly the intent of the law was to include all ballots for which there is evidence that they were mailed or received on time - e.g., those that were received by November 7 but without a postmark. Also, it could not have been the legislature's intent to exclude ballots due to circumstances over which the voter had no control - e.g., military and government employee ballots may not receive postmarks, or may be postmarked in Washington later than the day they were posted.

Although the Democrats have been calling to count all of the votes, I am not satisfied that this is a strong party conviction, partially evidenced by the challenge to some overseas ballots above. If the situation were reversed, I would not be surprised if the positions and statements of the parties reversed themselves completely as well.

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Item: There are NOT too many recounts.

Activity:

The Democrats requested manual recounts in (only) four (usually Democrat-leaning) counties. The Republicans have often criticized the Democrats for requesting additional recounts.

Comment:

Unfortunately, many Republican spokespeople reduced the stature of the Republican Party, and insulted the intelligence of the American voter, by frequently and inaccurately referring to "recount after recount after recount".

The Democrats requested only one manual recount, which is their prerogative under Florida law. There was the original (mechanical) count, followed by the (mechanical) recount mandated by Florida law and requested by no one; both resulted in tens of thousands of ballots being excluded. Based on the Democratsí request, a partial 1% recount was undertaken in one or more counties, per Florida law. The results of these, in the view of some canvassing boards, justified a full recount in some of those counties.

It has been this single full recount requested by the Democrats that has been completed only in Broward County; it was completed but not counted in West Palm Beach, and never completed in Miami-Dade.

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Item: This process has been entirely partisan - on both sides.

Activity:

Not one Republican (to my recollection) has said one word in support for any Democratic position on any issue around the Florida recounts.

A few Democrats have said a few words in support of the Republican position on only one issue (to my recollection), that being the counting of as many overseas military and government employee ballots as possible, interpreting the law liberally but not ridiculously; otherwise, not one Democrat has said one word of support for any Republican position.

Comment:

Perhaps the saddest comment about this entire situation is that it appears to be 100% partisan. There appears to be no Democrat nor Republican leader who holds the interest of the nation higher than their desired results of this one election. In this instance, the stated Democratic position of counting all the votes is the correct position for the nation. However, I expect that the Democrats are as partisan in this as the Republicans. It is likely that, if the tables were turned (e.g., if we were talking about three Republican counties in, say, California), that the positions of the parties would be exactly reversed.

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Item: Extending the recount deadline was appropriate.

Activity:

The Democrats requested an extension of the seven-day certification deadline to allow the legally-requested manual recounts to complete. The Republicans have opposed such an extension, to the point that they have raised this issue to the United States Supreme Court. The Florida Secretary of State refused to extend the seven-day deadline. The Florida Supreme Court, seeing that there was a conflict between that deadline and the apparent intent of the Legislature to enable manual recounts, extended the deadline.

Comment:

The Florida Supreme Court acted correctly as all courts do - the justices interpreted the law, in this case arriving at one resolution of an obvious conflict within the law. Republican assertions to the contrary are simply self-serving.

That extension allowed Broward County to complete their manual recount. It could have allowed West Palm Beach to complete theirs, if the Secretary of State had used her discretion to be inclusive rather than exclusive. The Florida Supreme Court set the recount deadline to be 5 pm Sunday Ö or 9 am Monday, if the Secretary of Stateís office was not open on Sunday. The (Republican) Secretary of State could have simply closed her office on Sunday and accepted the final counts on Monday, if she were more interested in a complete recount (and in not totally wasting hundreds of hours of peopleís time).

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Item: "Spin" has been rampant.

Activity:

Both parties have consistently presented only those arguments and statements that could help their own positions.

Comment:

Despite the 24-hour media coverage, the interested parties themselves have provided little enlightenment to the nation during this process. The examples are far too numerous to list - one example from each party will suffice.

The Republicans frequently asserted that the seven-day deadline for vote certification was Florida law that must be followed. Of course, that presented only one side of the situation - they failed to present the fact that Florida law allows for requests for manual recounts to be submitted for up to three days, which would allow only four days for a manual recount, which is not reasonably possible in a large county.

The Democrats frequently refer to having won more popular votes nationwide. This is true, but it is not applicable to the Florida situation, simply fills airtime, and is of no value.

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Item: Neither party convincingly took the "high road".

Activity:

Democrats called for manual recounts in only a few, Democratic-leaning counties. The Republicans have opposed manual recounting at all.

Comment:

The Republicans had the opportunity to take the very high road this time, by calling for a complete and accurate manual recount, even at risk of losing the election, but they chose not to.

Vice-President Gore does have one large high-road point in his favor: he was willing to concede, and in fact did so temporarily, based on exit polls and early returns now shown to be untrustworthy. The Democrats also had the opportunity to take the very high road, by requesting manual recounts in every county in Florida, but they did not do so within the three-day time limit. We'll have to wait until another situation, in which the Democrats appear to be winning, to see if the Democrats rise to that occasion.

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