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| Dr. David Marlett, Editor | theconservative@usa.net | Number 46 |
http://www.wilderness-cry.net/tcn | ||
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| Dr. David Marlett, Editor | theconservative@usa.net | Number 46 |
http://www.wilderness-cry.net/tcn | ||
While the media breathlessly reports each new vote added to Vice President Al Gore's column in the Florida recount, reporters have been all but silent on the tens of thousands of new votes that have been added to President-elect George Bush's nationwide tally in the last 24 hours.
When the TV networks decided early Wednesday they were wrong to call the election for Bush based on the close vote in the Sunshine state, Gore led Bush by 222,127 votes nationally.
But in new vote tallies published Thursday morning, Bush has closed the gap considerably. With most states still not finished counting, the New York Post reports Gore's popular vote margin is down to 97,773 votes.
Absentee ballots, many of which are still uncounted, could theoretically vault Bush into the lead.
California's million-plus absentee voters were not expected to be tallied till after election day. New Yorkers' absentee envelopes weren't even scheduled to be opened till Thursday. And Florida's absentee vote count may not be finished till next week.
Jeb Bush announced at a press conference today that he is recusing himself from the state's three-person board that certifies elections.
"Because of the closeness of the presidential election results here in our state, an automatic recount, as provided by law, of Florida's ballots are currently under way," Bush said.
"From the beginning, I've always said Florida would be a hard-fought state. ... Never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine it would be this close," he said.
Interestingly, Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth, a Democrat, is not recusing himself from the voting recount process - even though he is Al Gore's state campaign chairman.
Rep. Robert Wexler's claim that some 3,000 voters mistakenly voted for Pat Buchanan because their ballots were rigged against elderly voters is "at best a Gore-style exaggeration" or more likely "a deliberate lie," writes Jay C. Robbins in Wednesday's National Review Online.
Wexler, D-Fla., best remembered for his boorish performance during the House impeachment hearings when he embarrassed his colleagues on the Judiciary Committee by ranting and raving while questioning witnesses, claims he saw "about 3,000" Floridians vote for the wrong man "with my own eyes," according to Robbins, a patently absurd accusation on its face.
Wexler, Robbins writes, "must have either 1) been a partisan illegally watching the polls from inside, which is a serious crime in Florida; 2) have X-ray vision; 3) be fibbing to the country."
** Democrat Produced Palm Beach County Ballot **
The ballot, now widely known as the "butterfly ballot," was produced by the Palm Beach County supervisor of elections, a Democrat not likely to have been involved in some kind of scheme to deceive fellow Democrat voters.
The ballot requires voters to punch a hole in a space next to their candidate's name, which appears on the left side of the page. The space is to the right of the name. In the butterfly ballot, other candidates' names appear on a facing page on the right with the space to be punched to the left of the candidate's name. It abuts the space to be punched for the candidate's name on the left-hand page.
Some voters complained that they were confused and might have punched a hole next to Buchanan's name rather than the one for Gore.
Says Robbins, a Florida voter himself: "I've never known this simple process to fail. Ever. There are no moving parts. The push pin thing always perforates the card. And the print is large enough for even the visually impaired to read with ease."
Wexler, Robbins concludes, is trying "to set Mr. Bush up for future accusations that the Democrats really won this unprecedented race. And perhaps the move is also calculated to steal from the soon-to-be president-elect the strong moral position and mandate that a clean and clear victory in Florida will necessarily carry.
"In any event, it is not going to work. And that's not because Mr. Wexler doesn't have the will to try. He surely is doing everything he can to confuse and skew this issue. The real reason that he will fail is because our system and our voters are too strong and too wise to swallow his type of ill-conceived poison."
WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary William Cohen predicted the military vote will have a strong impact on whether Florida's electoral votes - and thus the presidency - go to Republican George W. Bush or Democrat Al Gore.
"I think there obviously will be a role for the military personnel who have retired in Florida and who also are registered to vote there," he said.
"I think it's too early for me to reach any judgment in terms of the proportionalities, how they are going to vote, but they certainly will have an impact in a race that close in that state."
Cohen, a former Republican senator, is in the unusual position of serving in the Cabinet of a Democrat administration.
The military has a historically higher voter turnout than the general public - about 65 percent, compared to 49 percent.
The majority of the military vote is cast by absentee ballot.
The military is largely presumed to be heavily Republican, with some estimates counting as many as 80 percent of the 1.2 million active duty personnel.
Military officers at the Pentagon say this sounds like a reasonable proportion because service members tend to be socially and fiscally conservative.
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