November 30, 2004
Just Asking
Has anyone heard a single Democrat say count
every legal vote, or every legitimate vote, when they discussed the count and recount in the
Washington governor's race? Do they ever add an adjective, as former governor
Dan Evans
just did, or do they always say just "count every vote"?
Whenever I hear Paul Berendt, Christine Gregoire, or some other Democratic spokesman say
"count every vote", I now add something snarky like "legal or not".
And while I am on the subject, has anyone heard a single reporter ask a Democrat whether they
really mean "count every vote", or whether they actually mean "count every legal vote"? I
haven't seen that either.
Although the "count every vote" phrase has begun to get on my nerves, I am not asking rhetorical
questions. If some Democrat, or some reporter, has added the necessary qualifier, just
once, I would like to give them credit.
Posted by Jim Miller at November 30, 2004
01:57 PM | Email This
1. I haven't heard any of them say it. What also bugs me is the
lack of polls asking the voters if they prefer a recount.
2. It is implied that it is legal. Who is for counting Illeagal votes not this Dem. I think the faulty thing here is the assumption that anyone would want to anything but count legal votes. In FL thousands of legal votes were never counted. If the entire state had been counted Gore would be President. Dems all the have the assumption that most elections are rigged against them, more truth to that then any other assumptions.
3. That's clearly false ray, on several points.
Several of the Florida papers did the full recount themselves - which still fell short. (But by less, that's true.)
The missing signature votes aren't _legal_.
"Found ballots" with no provenance aren't legal.
If either of those things _are_ legal, then "finding" another thousand wouldn't be difficult. A blank ballot has no seals, no signatures, and essentially nothing preventing duplication. "Honest officer, I just left a bag of paper here, I didn't _cast_an_illegal_vote_, I just left a pile of perfectly legal paper."
Signatures likewise.
4. Come on Ray, get off it. Can you even offer one shred of proof that
thousands of legal votes were never counted in Florida in 2000? If you really believe that, you should read something like
this (for once, that's not a shameless self-promoting link to my blog).
In addition, if you want to be taken even remotely seriously, you should start by dropping the belief that "most elections" are honestly "rigged" against the Democrats. Can you even offer one shred of evidence for that, either? Even one?
Yikes.
5. Skor, nice find. The komo poll last night had similar numbers last I checked...71% wanted the recount over. Although I like the poll you posted better, since it has 4% that want to change their vote from Gregoire to Rossi. The komo poll didn't have that option.
6. Heh... Looks like the Dems have their Pat Buchanan now...
http://www.komotv.com/stories/34186.htm
7. ""We need to resolve this one way or the other," Locke said. "Even if a person wins by one vote - if all the votes have been tallied and have been counted and someone wins - that is it. The voters have spoken."
Got that wingers? No whining, either win, or get out, don't you dare try to go to the courts. Lose gracefully.
8. Some Democrat shill is on the radio right now insisting that Gregoire hasn't lost the Governor race yet...even though we all know she has lost it twice already.
I think these people must have learned about democracy in the Ukraine.
9. I for one, only want them to count Democratic votes.
Is that what you wanted to hear? Come off it. If the first count had a 42 vote margin, we would have had a mandated hand recount. The law still provides that Gregoire can pay for one, and she will, and when it's over, whoever has the most votes wins.
If you don't like it, change the law.
10. I don't like it, and would love to change that law, amongst others.
Problem is, it is not the Democrat's intent to 'count every vote', but rather it is their intention to steal this election from the rightful Governor-Elect, Dino Rossi.
11. It's truly shocking to see the insular comments that Ray posted above. It's unbelievable that there are people out there that still really think that Gore won Florida in 2000. I suppose you believe the earth is still flat as well. Even after very liberal newspapers conducted several studies that conclusively demonstrated that Bush would have won under any scenario. Unreal.
It's this kind of insular thinking that is exactly why liberals are having so much difficulty selling their ideas and indeed are beginning to lose at the local, state and national levels.
Ray, wake up and realize that "every vote counts" does not imply every legal vote, quite to the contrary it means "every Democratic vote." There are many pieces of evidence that show this to be the case. Gregoire has said this, Berendt has said this, etc. The reason why the adjective has been left off is that it leaves room for interpretation. For those of us on the right, the interpretation is that of course they only mean "every legal vote" but for those on the left it clearly means "count anything that you can, use a less accurate hand recount, partially marked ovals, unsigned provisional ballots, ballots that may indeed be the names of dead voters, ballots of those who voted in two precincts that were never authenticated, etc., whatever it takes, just count every vote until Gregoire wins."
What else could Gregoire possibly mean in demanding a recount when two highly accurate counts thus far have shown that Rossi won?
12. I know where you all come from on this and it is just a hugely fundemental differnce in attitude about voting. I have a Co-worker here and we had a discussion about voting. My thoughts are that voting should be simple and easy as possible. Republicans will walk through broken glass more often then Dems to vote. I agree. So strategically the more voting is difficult, no provisionals, no absentee,(yes republicans used to be against that), the more republican votes. So it is hard to change politically but, I agree with Dick Gephardt on this -Two day national holiday, Tax credit if you voted. Now before you say it is a privledge to vote - we give credits for how you water your lawn, how many kids you have, if we can do all that we can credit $50 and incent a larger population to vote. The reason the U.S. is lagging in Political evolution compared to Europe and Canada is because we just don't get enough of our citizenry involved in the process. I take it all a step further if we can hire census workers to come house to house, we can certainly have people come house to house to assess the vote or at the very least access those where we have questions. Call me crazy (I'm sure you will) It is just a perspective difference. It should be take more seriously and the burden of proof in not counting a vote shoud be the same and criminal court - beyond a resonable doubt. So lets at least count the vote. I program for a living. I take a human over a computer any day of the week.
13. I think, David, that most thoughtful people would agree that the law as written must be changed. It essentially allows candidates who've lost two vote counts to game the system by picking a single district that's controlled by their party, demand a hand "recount" (that is, an exercise of discretion by partisan vote counters), and, if that "recount" reverses the statewide results, go to a statewide, tax-funded hand "recount" that introduces all of the problems with vote-counting discretion that seven justices of the U.S. Supreme Court found obnoxious in the Bush v. Gore case.
A system like this that is expensive, invites corruption, and taxes the patience of Washington voters clearly must change. And I'm sure it will under Governor Rossi.
I wonder: Doesn't the Democratic party -- with a reputation for voter fraud that stretches all the back to Andy Jackson -- owe it to the rest of us to concede a close election without playing games?
14. Also if all counties had been counted Gore won FL. We know that from the USA today study.
15. RB, link please.
16. I'm astonished ... Ken Schram has come out against "counting every vote". The punchline:
"Or - and maybe this is an idea worth considering - maybe the noble duo of Christine Gregoire and Paul Berendt should consider that with the votes from THIS election already counted and recounted, they should quit trying to turn this into a two-bit race."
Check it out: http://www.komotv.com/stories/34187.htm
17. One more thing. I wouldn't call you crazy, RH. Just staggeringly ill-informed. Did you notice that the voter turn-out this November was the highest since the 1960s? Did you notice that the Democrats were annihilated across the board anyway? Do you understand that this gives lie to your patronizing suggestion that your Democratic peers are too stupid or lazy to vote -- and shows once and for all that increases in turnout do not help Democrats? And are you aware that rates of voter turnout in "politically evolved" Europe have been falling for a decade?
I'm afraid your co-worker got the better of you this time...
18. RB,
Please show the evidence of your assertion that Gore won Florida...what USA Today study?
Back to Gre-Gore; some spokesman for the state Dem party stated on John Carlson tonight that they are trying to come up with some $750,000 for a state-wide re-recount (by Friday, I think) and have some $200,000 towards that goal...somehow, I am sure they will come up short of that and get to play "cherry-pick" and the election will be decided by the courts.
19. I doubt it. There are plenty of rich Democrats in this state that could fund the entire amount.
Either Gregoire will realize that it is not worth the risk to her political career and just plain wrong to drag the state through such a mess, or she will "find" the dollars to make the hand recount happen.
It really does not matter whether she tries the cherry picking strategy or not in that the whole point is to introduce enough sources for error into the process so as to find 43 votes. The more counties for error, the better, even if those counties favor Rossi.
Although a cherry picking strategy would almost certainly be challenged in court as illegal per the US Supreme court decision on Florida.
20. So, because Gregiore has not inserted the word "legal" or "illegal" in that sentence, you're presuming she means illegal? Establishing what someone means by what they don't say doesn't always work. Surely, you can come up with a better piece of fiction than this.
21. I heard Christine Gregoire on the radio clearly saying, in very dramatic tones, that it was every BALLOT that should be counted. Perhaps she didn't have her guard up 100 percent right after her alleged 'tie' was unbalanced by 41 more votes than were needed to win the election.
In King County, they're awfully good at coming up with ever-increasing Gregoire-friendly ballot counts.
22. You can easily glean the context of Gregoire's remarks to "count every vote" from her subsequent actions. Every vote has been counted, in fact twice. All experts agree that a machine recount is more accurate than a hand recount. Gregoire says that she intends to pursue a hand recount to resolve the "tie." And she continues to say that "every vote must be counted."
Given these facts, it is clear that she wants to count the votes until such time as some circumstance of counting ends up with a result in her favor, be it a less accurate hand recount that results in simple tabulation errors, more ballot examination with partisan bias that shifts ballots, etc.
If Gregoire truly meant the interpretation of "every vote counts" to be "every legal vote counts," then her action that would reflect this would be to concede. Every legal vote, and indeed many that were questionably legal, but in her favor were counted twice and in both cases, she lost.
23. What happened to the lawsuit the GOP filed against the 300 or so provisional ballots brought in by the partisan dems? Did I hear right that that was withdrawn - if so why? Also the recount was not really a REcount at all since King County got to divine what the rejected ballots meant and add them to their totals. This whole thing just infuriates me! Any solace is appreciated! Thanks
24. As I remember the newspaper analysis of the Florida vote, they tried many different cases; recount of only the four Gore counties and the whole state being only two. They used the different standards of a legal ballot; hanging chad, etc. What they found was Bush won every case except the whole state with the most extreme standard; the dumple.
It is typical of the left to find the one case that makes them a winner and claim it is justified. What losers.
25. CP, according to the GOP, they voluntarily dismissed the case on the grounds that it was moot: according to the second recount, Rossi won. The Republicans wanted an injunction to stop the counting of the provisional ballots, and accordingly had to prove that irreparable harm would result if the provisional ballots were counted. Because Rossi's won, there's no harm and, therefore, no claim.
If Gregoire gets her way and cherry-picks a reversal of the results, the GOP will no doubt file suit again, this time on the likely grounds that the hand recount does not have statewide standards and is therefore unconstitutional under Bush v. Gore.
26. Thanks DJ - I feel an all-out battle coming on, what a shame. Hopefully in all this adversity, we will find the seed to an equal or greater good.
27. Ray, I am not asking that Berendt or Gregoire always add an adjective such as legal or legitimate when they say "count every vote". I am asking that they do it just once. And if they have, I want to give them credit -- as I said above.
Republicans often do add the adjective. If you read the Dan Evans op-ed, you'll see that he says "every legitimate vote has been counted", and I have heard Rossi say similar things.
The Florida 2000 election shows us why the adjective is important. The Miami Herald (which endorsed Gore) found that 5,600 felons voted illegally in Florida in 2000. Some of them were left on the voting rolls by Democratic county boards that refused to enforce the state law, which requires them to purge felons from the voting rolls.
Felons, like college professors and journalists, are heavily Democratic, so Gore probably gained at least 2,000 votes from this group. If he had won a narrow victory in one of the recounts, he would have owed his margin to the illegal votes of murderers, rapists, car thieves, drug dealers and other miscreants.
28. The reason the U.S. is lagging in Political evolution compared to Europe and Canada...
ROFL!!!
29. "Felons, like college professors and journalists, are heavily Democratic,..."
Or, "felons, including college professors and journalists, are heavily Democratic,..."
30. Naw. College professors and journalists are just people who lack the social skills necessary to be a successful felon, so they had to choose a like-minded career path.
31. I am a Rossi voter, and as much as I would like to see the race conceded by the dems, Gregoire does have the legal right to get the hand recount. It seems to me the law needs changing; but right now it is the law. Considering the dems allege not to have the money for a statewide recount, does anyone have any insights into which counties they want done by hand? This selection is a high stakes gamble, because if the outcome doesnt change, they are through (assuming even the dems may not be stupid enough to mount a judicial challenge--although admittedly that IS a big assumption)
32. I used this post in my Rip & Read Blogger Podcast. Listen to the blogs on a walk on your MP3 player. I will try to find a democrat who uses adjectives!
33. Come on people...if you're going to dredge up 2000, it's not that hard to google for a source.
The USA Today study can be found here:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2001-04-03-floridamain.htm
Contrary to DRE's comment, Gore did not win by the most lenient standard. It seems to be the opposite case and the irony being if a recount had happened by the Republican's preferred method, Gore would have won....and the opposite for the Dem's preferred method. There's a lesson here somewhere.
I'm sure there were plenty of other studies showing all sorts of different results. If we can't make a system infallible, we at least need to try to be more consistent and then have a consistent way of counting what is/isn't a vote instead of trying to figure out "how" to count in court later.
34. Oops. I misread what DRE said. He(?) had it right. Anyway, the link is above for anyone who wants to read it.
35. Ask for an adjective, get an adjective. In the middle of the Gregoire email sent out early this morning, there is a request to "count every legitimate ballot". Good for her. (Granted much else in the email is dubious, as others have explained in posts above this one, but she did say it.) That's one example. Let's hope for more.
Is it possible that the Gregoire staffer who wrote the email saw this post and responded? It's possible given the timing, but unlikely.
36. Amusingly, the counters _enhanced_ballots_ by removing chads in Palm Beach. So even the '3 vote win' chronicled by the USATODAY as the only possibility of a Gore win _would_ not have been a win had they not enhanced ballots! (Which they did on live TV.) If the 'strict standard' was applied initially no 'enhancing' would have happened before the process was stopped when the vote was certified.
37. Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle, a Democrat, twice vetoed measures that would make vote fraud more difficult. In Minnesota, the democrats continually obstruct any reforms that would reduce or eliminate vote fraud. So, when you hear Demo-gogues crying: "Count Every Vote," it's just a smokescreen. THEY are the party of fraud.
I say count every LEGITIMATE vote, and prosecute anyone convicted of vote fraud.