Word: counted
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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...just look at them? Usually no one looks at undervoted ballots because there aren't enough of them to change the outcome. Because election officials so rarely examine them, they haven't set uniform standards for how to count them. Clashes occur when some counters say a mere dimple in a chad - even though the chad remains attached on all four sides - should be counted as a vote...
...What does Florida law say about which undervotes count? Nothing, which is the problem. The legislature has said only that a legal vote exists if there is "clear indication of the intent of the voter," a frustratingly rubbery phrase. In its Friday ruling ordering counts of the undervotes, the Florida Supreme Court simply quoted that vague guideline. Nor did Judge Terry Lewis, who was implementing the hand count, offer any specifics. So on Saturday, before the U.S. Supreme Court halted the counting, each of 64 canvassing boards was making its own decisions - on dimples, on who would observe the counts...
...pricier voting technology used in more Republican areas. Brevard County, for instance, which went 53 percent to 45 percent for Bush, uses optical scanners. "There are no dimples, crimples, pimples or anything else to interpret," says election supervisor Fred Galey. That's good for him but - if the hand count resumes - bad for Bush, since Brevard's 277 undervoted ballots probably contain few votes. By contrast, Pinellas County's 4,226 undervoted punch-card ballots could contain hundreds of votes, and Gore won Pinellas. Across the state, undervoted ballots tend to be concentrated in Democratic areas. One explanation: Elderly...
...five Justices now in the "conservative" box - Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas, O'Connor and Kennedy - evidently agreed with Bush's claim that the undervote count was not only an unlawful conjuring by the Florida Supreme Court but was doing his candidacy "irreparable harm." More ominously for Gore, they may also agree, as Bush's application claimed, that the Florida Supreme Court decision was unconstitutional, that it conflicted with Article II - which says the legislature chooses electors - and that it violated the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In which case, they'll toss the whole thing out, and go back...
...majority seemed to feel that it would be harmful to presidential legitimacy to allow the hand count to continue and perhaps undermine the President-elect - read Bush. The dissenting opinion essentially said, Let the recount continue so that we at least have the numbers in case we decide the Florida Supreme Court was right. What's the harm? they wondered. The majority seemed to believe the harm was irreparable...