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Jewish World Review Nov. 14, 2001 / 28 Mar-Cheshvan, 5762

Debra J. Saunders

Debra J. Saunders
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Consumer Reports

Interpreting the entrails of Election 2000

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com -- THIS JUST in: George W. Bush was elected president. You already knew that. You knew that Al Gore won the popular vote, but that Bush won the Electoral College -- an institution that now enrages many partisan Dems. (If only someone had warned them about the Constitution before the election.)

We know Bush won again because eight major news organizations pooled their resources to find out what would have happened if the Supreme Court had not intervened and stopped an ill-conceived statewide recount of presidential votes in Florida last December. I say ill-conceived because the Florida Supreme Court ordered the recount, while inviting abuse and discord by refusing to set counting criteria -- even after Palm Beach County election officials had changed their definition of a valid vote three times.

That's why the Big Bench -- all bow -- voted 7-to-2 against the Florida court ruling, and 5-to-4 on the separate issue of stopping the recount.

Still, it was only a matter of time before some enterprising group sued to get the ballots in order to answer one of history's great "what if" questions. What if the recount had happened? Bush would have won.

That's what an investigation conducted by the National Opinion Research Center found.

To the news moguls' discredit, they also funded an investigation to see who would have won if they ignored the election laws. Call it a fantasy investigation, in which researchers counted votes that had been thrown out for good reason.

Start with "over-votes" -- the term used for when voters check off more than one candidate. GOP Secretary of State Bill Jones said that California throws them out. California's former Acting Secretary of State Tony Miller, a Democrat, said of over-votes, "They're not counted in California. I'm not aware that they're counted anywhere."

As Washington election lawyer Cleta Mitchell explained, "You cannot have a system that allows people to mark multiple candidates for the same office, and then suggest that anything should happen to that ballot other than it not be counted at all. Otherwise, you have a system where you invest a system of commissars with the ability to interpret ballots."

It's so typical of the left. Take something as unambiguous as voting -- where you check one box, and that's it -- and turn it into something open to interpretation. You'd think that voters would bristle at this -- as it makes their vote subject to someone else's approval -- but Palm Beach County loved the idea.

In that spirit, the news biggies feel comfortable calling a national election's outcome based on 175,010 bad Florida votes. No need for a recount in close states such as Iowa, Wisconsin and New Mexico -- where Gore had narrow victories. Instead, settle the Big Question based on the ballots of Floridians who couldn't vote straight.

Quipped election lawyer Jan Baran, "It shows that the press conducting a recount can be as or more imperfect than the original recount."

By the way, I believe it's very possible that more Florida voters meant to vote for Gore. Let's just say that their incompetent voting is the universe's riposte to all those jokes about Bush being stupid. Besides, as Bill Sammon chronicles in "At Any Cost," Republicans got the shaft as well. After the networks erroneously handed Gore victory in Florida, many Central Time zone Bush fans left long waiting lines at the polls in disgust. Conservative estimates place their number at 10,000.


Comment JWR contributor Debra J. Saunders's column by clicking here.


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11/12/01 Life and liberty
11/09/01 Safety is as safety does
11/07/01 More hot air on global warming
11/05/01 Bumped Pakistani's molehill
11/01/01 Freedom snuffed out
10/29/01 Give war a chance
10/26/01 Airline bill needs liftoff
10/22/01 The Riordan Principle
10/19/01 Before America gets tired of the war on terrorism
10/17/01 Patriot games
10/15/01 I was a 'McCainiac,' and I have seen the light
10/12/01 University of Censorship's fall semester
10/11/01 Poor little rich boy, Osama
10/07/01 Don't feed Israel to the beast
10/05/01: bin Laden is not our Frankenstein monster
10/04/01: Where no man has gone before
09/26/01: Who's bloodthirsty?
09/26/01: What's to understand?
09/20/01: Barbara Lee's line in the sand
09/14/01: You gotta love this country
09/13/01: ENTER TERROR
09/11/01: You can't clone ethics
09/06/01: NOW's goal: equal rights for women without equal responsibility
08/30/01: What's love got to do with it?
08/24/01: A clean, well-lighted place for junkies
08/20/01: Bush should stand up for justice
08/08/01: Don't give Peace (Dept). a chance
08/03/01: Lose a kid, pass a law
08/01/01: Welcome to France, killers
07/30/01: Why it's easy being green (in Europe)
07/26/01: If disabled means expendable
07/23/01: Condit should not resign
07/18/01: Feinstein should learn her limit
07/16/01: A drought of common sense
07/13/01: The catalog has no clothes
07/05/01: It's Bush against the planet
07/03/01: The man who would be guv
06/29/01: Wheeled, wired and free
06/27/01: O, fearful new world
06/25/01: End HMO horrors
06/21/01: Either they're dishonest or clueless
06/18/01: Freedom is a puff of smoke
06/15/01: In praise of going heavy: Yes, you can take it all
06/13/01: McVeigh: 'Unbowed' maybe, but dead for sure
06/11/01: Gumby strikes back
06/08/01: Los Angeles' last white mayor?
06/07/01: Kids will be kids, media will be media
06/04/01: Draw a line in the sand
05/30/01: Just don't call him a moderate
05/29/01: Operation: Beat up on civil rights
05/24/01: Of puppies, kittens and huge credit-card debts
05/22/01: Bush needs an energy tinkerbell
05/18/01: Divided we stand, united they fall
05/16/01: Big Bench backs might over right
05/15/01: Close SUV loophole
05/11/01: Kill the test, welcome failure
05/09/01: DA mayor's disappointing legacy
05/07/01: If it ain't broken ...
05/03/01: They shoot civilians, don't they?
04/30/01: Executions are not for prime time
04/12/01: White House and the green myth
04/10/01: The perjurer as celeb
04/04/01: Bush bashers don't know squat
04/02/01: Drugging our oldsters
03/30/01: Robert Lee Massie exercises his death wish
03/28/01: Cheney's nuclear reactor
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03/16/01: Boy's sentence was no accident
03/14/01: Soft money, hard reform
03/12/01: Banks, big credit lines and consumer bankruptcy
03/09/01: Free speech dies in Berkeley
03/02/01: When rats have rights
02/28/01: Move a frog, go to jail?
02/26/01: They knew they'd get away with it
02/20/01: How Dems define tax fairness
02/16/01: The jackpot casino Carmel tribe?
02/14/01: You can fight school success
02/12/01: Hannibal -- with guts this time
02/08/01: A family of jailbirds
02/05/01: Reality's most demeaning TV moments
02/01/01: Justice for the non-Rich
01/26/01: Hail to the chiefs of D.C. opinion
01/24/01: A day of mud and monuments
01/22/01: Diversity, division, de-lovely D.C.
01/19/01: Parties agree: Give back the money
01/17/01: Get tough with the oil companies, or forget pumping more Alaskan crude
01/15/01: Mineta better pray that no attending confirmation senator has ever driven to San Jose during rush hour
01/12/01: Europeans should look in the mirror
01/10/01: Dems' reasons for dissin' Dubya's picks
01/08/01: Jerry, curb your guru
01/03/01: A foe of Hitler and friend of Keating
12/28/00: Nice people think nice thoughts
12/26/00: The Clinton years: Epilogue
12/21/00: 'Tis the season to free nonviolent drug offenders 12/18/00: A golden opportunity is squandered
12/15/00: You can take the 24 years, good son
12/13/00: Court of law vs. court of public opinion
12/08/00: A salvo in the war on the war on drugs
12/06/00: Don't cry, Butterfly: Big trees make great decks
12/04/00: Florida: Don't do as Romans did
11/30/00: Special City's hotel parking ticket
11/27/00: No means yes, yes means more than yes
11/22/00: The bench, the ballot and fairness
11/20/00: Mendocino, how green is your ballot?

© 2000, Creators Syndicate