OK, if the results are counted ten times, and the result is the same....WHAT THEN?

"If at first you don't succeed, count, count again."

Ummm... Jack...

There's been exactly one machine recount and the vote count has gotten closer. A hand count is advisable and if at that point Christine Gregoire is still behind she can make the decision to concide or not.

You know Jack, you are starting to enter sphere of the Usenet Kooks. You probably should be a bit careful

You see Jerry, there you go, I post a simple response, an I get called a name.

Jerry, in Florida, after all the BS, CAUSED BY GORE, the ten I think recounts done by independent sources like the NY TIMES and others like them......GUESS WHO WON?

You might get this one, BUT WHEN DO YOU STOP FOR THE GOOD OF THE NATION.Even Kerry had more class then Gore or you.

If Dino wins, Ted is the lone D on the left coast. GOP guns would be pointing at OREGON, since the D's are on the in the deficit of the 55 governors Republicans:31 Democrats:23 PD:1 --Peurto Rico With come Jan. 1 2005 it will be if Rossi won: R: 32 D: 22 PD: 1

With Virginia(D), North Mariniana Islands(D), New Jersey(D), Hawaii(R) up this in 2005.

As well as the article stating that the R governor's that want a seat on the table dealing with the future and shape of the Republican party agenda and for '08 presidental election selection process. Republican governors The New Jersey and Virginia seats are extremely critical for us to keep. The protectrate of the North Mariana Islands is important too-though they don't have that many electoral votes to truly sway the presidental race.

"for the good of the nation"

Dear Kenji.WHEN YOU LOSE, if it's by one vote or 3.5 million, you people just don't get it!

PS. I get a kick out of the idea you can't raise your voice EVER! If the point can't be made "in a quiet voice" as I tried when I got into the so called public area of an issue, the HELL with you all.

Dear CC, Thank you, THANK YOU!

  The world here is different then the world out there.

  I will try, but it may not always be the end result.

Jack,

By all means keep the caps to a minimum. Resorting to often block caps is distracting and quickly becomes irritating.

In the interest of a more enjoyable and productive argument, I hope you won’t mind my sharing an admittedly purist opinion, that goes beyond the question of block caps:

One of the things I like about written disputation is that it excludes the use of volume and gesticulation to make a point. These can be useful tools in live debate, to be sure, but excluding them encourages the writer to concentrate on language, which is to say on clarity of thought.

Achieving that clarity is difficult, and online writers who wish to avoid that difficulty resort too readily to “emoticons” and block capitals.

The point puts me in mind of a professor of mine who was intolerant of the excuse, "I know what I mean, but I can't put it into words." His response was, in effect, "If you can't put it into words, you don’t know what you mean!"

That’s not to say that the writer doesn’t have the inchoate beginnings of a worthwhile thought, but he faces the challenge of making the potential actual. And that’s no small feat.

Let me be clear that my beef with you was strictly on the issue of caps, but it put me in mind of this broader point that I thought worth sharing with everyone. I know for my own part that it’s fun and easy to shoot from the hip. But one’s best contributions generally come only after a process of refinement – of sorting out the ore from the dross and carefully shaping something clear, coherent and complete.

And it’s no defense to beg off by saying, “Well, I’m not a writer.” If my professor was right, if you don’t strive to be a better writer, you’re not striving to be a better thinker.

CC,

First, I did say it was a purist opinion!

Second, and more directly to your point, I didn't proscribe the use of caps or emoticons; I said that people sometimes resort to them "too readily."

Whose suggesting that someone who uses emoticons can't write? Obviously the presence of an emoticon doesn't void the quality of the writing that surrounds it. Often, however, it's used a substitute for articulate expression.

Probably you'll also think I'm pedantic for noting that "written" communication is "verbal." ;-P

Now, is it fair to suggest that to advocate clarity and coherence means that someone must be taking himself too seriously?

And by the way, what do you mean by "writing for the sake of writing"? Surely you always write for the sake communicating, and whether you do so formally or informally, gravely or whimsically, clarity is always to the purpose.

I see that kenji, while indifferent on caps, is adamant on clarity.

Who can blame him (or is it her?)?

And it’s no defense to beg off by saying, “Well, I’m not a writer.” If my professor was right, if you don’t strive to be a better writer, you’re not striving to be a better thinker.

I have used this excuse, its not a good one,the guilt I feel that sometimes shows up in my posts is the fact my education comes from the school of "hard knocks" and not the class room.

The public speaking I have done comes easy, it was in the 8th grade I was in a speech class and did real well, that carried into high school where I was slected as a freshmen for the senior speech and debate team.The point people I didnt carry it past there. I will try to "improve" over time.

Thanks again for your patience with me, at 57 yrs old..a type A. and stuck in my ways, it's hard.

If both candidates really wanted to find out who actually won the election then they would join forces and equally split the cost of a statewide final hand recount. By working together and recounting each and every vote the winning candidate would never be under the cloud of not being legitimate. Just a thought!

Please clarify your response. Your response is kindly appreciated.

Kenji, Your request is kindly taken, in time, I think as a candidate, when the legal ramifications are satisfied as what is needed to validate any election, the "peoples business" must come first.

Yes folks, even if Gore had won in Florida's Dade county by 537 votes. Then the needs of all of us are met, not the party line.

Jack - Kindly reply here in the forum for all to see. I have not read or opened your email. If you have a comment or a question ask it right here!

Thanks Jack,

Pedro

The recount I heard was to be paid by the DNC or state DNC...the problem(along party lines) would be if you were in Kalamth Falls Oregon, would you want the recount in their county to decide, or Multnomah to end it if the paying party gets to choose where its done? The whole state is counterd again, or the last guy leading wins.

That happens as you well know in this state on most all elections now.

FYI there are always set details involved in recounts (I was once a volunteer observer when a friend ended up narrowly losing a primary). It was my understanding that the campaign and not the party pays for recounts--in this case, that would be the Gregoire campaign, not the Democratic Party of Washington. Note that DNC stands for Democratic National Committee, and RNC stands for Republican National Committee, contrary to the wording of this post.

The recount I heard was to be paid by the DNC or state DNC...the problem(along party lines) would be if you were in Kalamth Falls Oregon, would you want the recount in their county to decide, or Multnomah to end it if the paying party gets to choose where its done? The whole state is counterd again, or the last guy leading wins.<<

In the statewide recount I was involved in, each county did recounts (and then our county ended up recounting a small town local election the same day). The laws are quite specific at least in Oregon. For instance, there is a mandatory state (or district or whatever)recount if the margin is less than a fraction of a percent. As I recall, the margin after the original election certification was Rossi by 261 and that is why they had a machine recount. Had it been less than 150 then it would have been a mandatory hand recount--which the state pays for. Now, apparently, the campaign pays for any other further recount. If there were irregularities in, say, King County or a county in E. Washington, the campaign could pay for the recount to be done in those specific counties. I don't know if there are criteria for which counties to recount other than if the losing campaign wants to pay.

But my guess is that no matter which candidate is behind, they would want the recount to make sure. In 1968 Bob Packwood was first elected to the US Senate after a recount, and Denny Smith called the 1988 result "the Boeing recount: 707 vote margin".

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A clipping I scooped up along the way -- NY Times; sorry, no link

Margin Now Just 42 Votes in Washington State Race By SARAH KERSHAW Published: November 25, 2004

SEATTLE, Nov. 24 - The election was already achingly close, but the recount in the race for governor of Washington State was almost absurdly close, ... Mr. Rossi's 261-vote victory last week, coming two weeks after Election Day and delayed by the counting of hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots, automatically brought a machine recount under Washington's election laws. Any political party can then request a further count, by machine or hand, but the party must shoulder the cost. That cost would be some $700,000 if the Democrats demanded that the new recount take place in all 39 counties.

If that recount, even if held in only one county, were to change the outcome of the election, making Ms. Gregoire the winner, then Secretary of State Reed would be required to order another, final, statewide count, this one by hand since that was what the Democrats demanded Wednesday for the second recount. The cost of the final count would be paid by the state, Mr. Reed said Wednesday.

The next count could last weeks, even though Mr. Reed said he and the current governor, Gary Locke, a Democrat who decided not to run again, would certify Mr. Rossi as the governor-elect on Tuesday. The parties have until three days after the certification to request a recount.

The results of both the initial count and the recount were stunners, because Ms. Gregoire had been expected to win easily. [Emphases added.]

I thought the explanation of recount law and cost was simple and direct and, probably, accurate. FWIW.

Anyway, it is that explanation of the method which leads me out of the confusion in the comments about it. (And it perhaps needs to be copied into the other post, "Rossi by 42," with uncertain recount-mechanics comments there, too.)

A bigger deal for me is how there continues a four-year glaring gap of explanation of the reason for recounts. That is, from Florida 2000 to FL, OH, WA and elsewhere, 2004, the mass mainstream media (broadcast and press), completely skip Chad for Dummies and as a result people skip the same gap in their own undertanding.

Here are some Parameters of Punch Card Ballots which I hold from prior experience combined with stray media mentions. Prior experience: It was almost exactly forty years ago, (plus or minus a lifetime, I suppose), when I scooped up my first handful of chads, learned that word, and played with them. They are fun by the quartful and not like confetti -- chads are heavier. Each chad from the so-called 'IBM punch cards,' (the original name for them was 'Hollerith cards,' after the inventor), had on it one of the numerals from '0' to '9,' for the printed rows across the cards where chads got punched from. Within a few years I learned the punch-out combinations for the letters of the alphabet and could 'read' a Hollerith card, such as the electric bill, by holding it up to the light. It's not complicated to learn and the same codes are still used. (For the uber-nerds, it is EBCDIC code which predates ASCII.) And my other memorable hands-on experience with chads was on an occasion of directing a certain labor pool to sort a gallon of chads into ten drinking glasses according to the number on the chad -- an occasion without further description, and I mention it only in case you never heard of such a thing: Now you have.

It was mentioned in media I saw, stray facts tossed in the chad salad since that word first appeared, certain things about the voting booth chad-punch equipment. One was important: Under the ballot 'table' is a three-quarter inch deep (shallow) collection tray. Period. A poll worker's responsibility is to empty the tray every hour or so -- keep it cleaned -- on election day. Three-quarters of an inch is about the thickness of 200 punch cards, as an educated guess. When that many votes in the same location for the same candidate pile up a stack of chads in the tray underneath, later voters cannot push the stylus through the ballot because the stack blocks the hole from below.

Or the stylus may only partially sever the chad from the card. The card-reading machines have fingers that touch the hole to count it, and where chads partially remain the fingers don't find the hole, don't count it, and in some hanging-by-a-thread situations the finger 'touch' dislodges the chad so that if that same card was immediately re-read through the machine then fingers would find a hole and count it.

I never saw the media mention that Oregon punch ballots, done one-by-one on kitchen tables in the hands of voters who could and mostly did use a fingernail to clean off any dangling chads, just did not have a chad problem in the card reading machines. The problem being, again, when the machine fingers brush off the looser chads each time the deck of ballots is run through the reader which changes the tallies (a few) each time they are counted. Oregon ballots did not have hanging or partially punched chads, ever, to speak of. There is nothing wrong with punch card ballots, per se. I say it's the punching and reading devices that need to be checked.

I never saw the media explain that the poll workers could jam a polling booth machine, (in a precinct with a lopsided or preponderant voting pattern), by letting the chads stack up to plug the most-voted hole and not cleaning out the chad collection trays. But it's a fact worth reporting.

Often, simply by examining the partial-punch ballots, it is obvious to the eye who the voter chose on a dimpled ballot or 'hanging chad' ballot.

The 'stuffed ballots' are not well characterized as a statistical percentage of ballots. Rather, it goes in blocks of all ballots voted after the last time the tray was cleaned.

As I said, maybe some of these points belong in the "Rossi by 42" thread.

This thread is about Liars. I noticed earlier this week that Liars li'l fibber understudy, Jeff Kropf, got the newspaper to fall for it again and publish the promise that today, Friday, Liars programming would include a remote on-the-scene interview with Kropf in Baghdad, not far from Abu Ghraib, seeing what he could see. Except when I checked today, Liars politics programming was preempted by Blazers game radio and it was all a newspaper LIE. Was the Blazers game schedule available earlier this week -- who knew?

As a rule of thumb, when the media goes over the 5-W's top, and starts reporting a 6th W -- Will be happening, (or Won't), or a 7th W -- Would be happening, (or Wouldn't); those are the words with the lies in them. Que sera, sera. Whatever will be, will be. Journalism is supposed to distinguish between news in facts that happened and editorial in speculative opinion of Would's and Will-be's.

First rule: If it comes from Liars it is a LIE. Second rule: Liars is the jinx for any effort he joins in.

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I was in the "Rossi by 42" thread. Some of the prior comment belongs in the "Liars is a liar" thread.

Ha. Tenskwatawa speak with forked fun.

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There you go again Gregoire - costing the Washington taxpayer more money, just like when you forgot to file that appeal as Attorney General, costing us $18 million. What many of you "recount" folks are failing to understand is that we pretty much have already had a manual recount. The new recount procedures require that any ballot rejected by the machine is to be hand-counted. They've been hand-counted. Rossi still won. Get over it. I'm sure you think Florida was closest in 2000. New Mexico actually was closest, with Gore winning, and us not challenging the results. Next item of business, keeping college kids from voting in mulitiple counties. It's a felony, and nobody is stopping it - absentee ballot vote in King Co., provisional ballot vote at Western Wash. Univ., or Wash. State Univ. We're going to put a stop to it. Yes, every vote counted, but only every "legal vote." You can't vote twice. You'd think the Attorney General would police this up - but then again, the Attorney General IS Chris(tine) Gregoire.

<h2>This just in, after countless attempts to change the results in close elections over the last 4 years by means of 'recounts' and legal action, Democrats are bad losers. No matter how many recounts are done, the vote tallies will never be the same with that many votes. You have to accept the vote counts. After one recount if the same person wins both it needs to be accepted. What if Gregoire wins a 3rd recount by 1 vote? Then how do you know she got more votes? Rossi still won 2 counts, and the last count isnt necessarily the best. Its ridiculous and expensive. Im NOT a republican but Im really starting to hate democrats. What makes a hand count better, its statistically proven that hand counts are less accurate!!! Quit this 2 party squabbling and join a party of principle like the libertarian party. www.lp.org</h2>