Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - December 15, 2000, Winnipeg, Manitoba Focus a15 Winn Pix 2000 Justice clearly the loser the Maxim its not Over till its Over has been invoked frequently during these Many weeks since americans thought they had chosen a new presi this the supreme court rendered a decision that settled the immediate the aftermath May take much longer unfold the Means by which the out come was settled Are Likely to have a significant Impact on the new adminis George Bush has promised that he would seek to end the partisan wrangling in Washington and would establish a bipartisan had he won he might have construed the result As a mandate to pursue a strategy of transcending partisan differ which would have had the advantage of reducing Bush dependence on the most conservative ele ments of the Republican he assumes with no such for Vic president Al Gore won the popular vote by a third famil lion it is that the very electoral circumstances which would now justify establishing a broadly based bipartisan coalition May make it All the More difficult to it became Clear in the closing weeks of this electoral agony that whoever won would be perceived As having got there by dubious either by excluding in Bush Case valid votes or by including in Gores Case invalid the worthy of a Gilbert and Sullivan is that the Winner will be perceived As the moral and the loser perceived As the moral happier result on this May turn out to be a happier result for the democrats than the the after have some significant consolations though they lost the they won the presidential popular vote they made unexpected gains in the which is now evenly divided Between the two parties and which will remain so now that senator Lieberman will not be required to resign his Senate seat to become and they made sufficient gains in the House of representatives As to Render almost evenly divided As when one adds to this the we Wiz robbed sentiment that democrats will now one could imagine that the democrats in the Short run Are Likely to be feisty and disinclined to co operate with on the other will face pressure to satisfy the elements of his coalition with neither the personal Man Date nor the legislative Power to do there in no Rule that the future must be like the perhaps Bush will prove conciliatory and skilful in dealing with this situation perhaps his supporters will understand the necessity of his trying to govern from the Cen that one of the most striking Phenomena in current american politics is How distaste fully partisan the Politi Cal culture has the american predicated on a separation of Powers As Between the the Congress and the judiciary has prided itself on the relative weakness of party the fluidity of its partisan lines and on the Independence of the judiciary from partisan there has been scant evidence of either fluidity or Independence in recent one searches in vain for any prominent member of either party who has dared to question publicly the Strate Gies pursued by their Only for seemed Able to remember that Bush had signed into Texas Law a provision allowing for count ing ballots judicial decisions More was the extent to which judicial both in Florida seem reflective of the electoral interests of the parties that had appointed the particular judges on both both courts produced decisions which seem to Fly in the face of common sense and of none was this More True than the two critical decisions of the supreme court which seemed calculated to play out the clock on Bush these decisions demonstrated some thing noteworthy about american elec toral Justice and even More about american judicial one of these decisions moved jus Tice John Paul Stevens to write although we May never know with Complete certainty the identity of the Winner of this years presidential elec the identity of the loser is perfectly it is the nations Confidence in the judge As an impartial guardian of the Strong stuff and if it want Clear Justice Stevens has made it v vote system in chaos ballots land in tips Rig vote machines because ballots can be thrown out or sent to nobody knows with any precision How Many votes go uncounted in for Florida has riveted the nation with a mind numbing array of failures misleading contradictory counting discarded votes in one county but an examination by the los Ange Les times in a dozen states shows that Florida is not the it is the elections across the country Are badly ill equipped and poorly election workers Are pay is a pit training is Brief and voting sys tems Are frequently the examination shows i new York City voters use Metal lever action machines so old they Are no longer each with similar machines in Louisiana Are vulnerable to rigging with a a cigarette lighter and a i in vote whores do favours for people in return for their Absentee sometimes the canvassers or As they prefer to be simply buy the some steal them from i Alaska has More registered Vot ers than voting age Indiana has jammed its registration lists with hundreds of thousands of people who should not be including the dead and Many who have registered i in More than of the states million voters might have mailed in ballots this year that were signed by someone some Stu dents in Wisconsin say they voted As Many As four i Louisiana former election com Jerry pleaded guilty two weeks ago to a Kickback scheme with a voting machine Deal in the state of Deal ers program vote in they go As far As to help feed in the Federal standards for voting equip ment took effect in but they Are not a number of including have written some or All of the standards into their own but decade sold systems in Florida and elsewhere Are much of the bumbling is caused by inexperience and Lack of people if we can put a Man on the Why cant we have an elec Tion system that works says William a Deputy director at the Federal election i and it will Cost just about As did not get counted Rebecca a computer scientist at Bryn mawr College in Penn and Curtis director of the nonpartisan committee for the study of the american estimate that at least 2 million ballots did not get counted this year across the the Only mistakes that can be Esti mated with Confidence Are those committed by vote counting providers say the machines have error rates of per cent to per if counting machines alone could have made As Many As mistakes this year an average of votes per that is far More elections across the Are badly ill equipped and poorly than Texas George Bush margin in Florida for the voting jurisdictions across the country use five varieties of lever operated six kinds of punch 10 sorts of optical scanning sys tems and six types of touchscreen every system has its Metal lever action machines stand 6 4 voters flip toggle switches to choose then pull a big lever to record the choices on a mechanical parts the 900pound called Are stored in five warehouses and in new Are hauled each election Day to polling an automobile has parts a voting machine has says Richard a voting machine the machines also Are comparatively easy to with his cigarette Louisiana state Emile Peppi Bruneau demonstrated he softened a Lead plug that sealed the machine then used pliers to remove a Copper wire embedded in the with a he took off the Back cover and a plexiglas lid protecting the vote counting Mecha with a he prodded the counter digit by manipulating the vote total As easily As he might reset an alarm punch card systems that produce chads Are particularly prone to prob sometimes the chads tiny rec Tangular pieces of cardboard Are left counting machines Force them Back into their holes and read what should be a vote As a the systems deliver votes at Only seven cents a and they remain popular in voting jurisdictions coast to other Security concerns Are raised by internet despite what Ari Zona democrats regard As a Success Ful Experiment in their primary this William the Feder Al election commission Deputy direct Calls it a Breeding ground for four years ago in Yolo a system reversed results Between the firsthand Las place candidates in a City Council someone had positioned two of the six candidates out of order when the computer was just As troubling is voter registry Alaska has More names on its Rolls than it has voting age Popula Virginia spokeswoman for the state division of says the Rolls Are hard to purge because people come and Alaska has always been Boom or one of every five names on the Indi Ana Rolls is according to Aris Totle a company that helps clean up registration Aristotle representatives say six other states have Rolls with bogus names of 20 per cent or higher okla Utah and voting is one kind of election says Jack police chief in is hiring a vote whore to help you while they prefer to be called Polit ical consultants or vote whores Are paid by campaigns to do favours for people in return for their Absentee the last i Compton it was a sometimes votes Are stolen out my brother and a coworker and a lady were stealing ballots from mailboxes to vote for a candidate in says an Alice who declines to be my brother want being paid he just wanted the candidate to so they would take the ballots and give them to they put them in the the heat would open the they make the vote for whoever they at Marquette University in Mil where the Campus newspaper polled 174 said they voted three or four one told the times he voted twice for Bush once at a polling place on the Marquette Campus and then by Absentee ballot in where he would have been among those who gave Bush his whisper thin by most the preferred Way to cheat is with Mailin this was the first presidential elec Tion in which All Oregon votes were cast by the ease of sendin Vot ing gave the state an 80 per cent turnout among the highest in the the Post office robs peo ple of their in a few Small coun ties in Long and heavy ballots were returned this year for postage but the most egregious postal failure came in Washington Steven and Barbara Forrest and their mailed in ballots from Bellevue on election several Days two of the ballots were found on the Island of in Den Hodgepodge some of this voting chaos is because there is no such thing in this country As a National citizens vote in a Hodgepodge of coun ties with local election officials have no uni binding rules for Federal now in the process of being Are Volun each state decides which voting machine systems can be sold within its like patients in a health insurance counties and cities make their purchases from the state Gary Greenhalgh says he favoured mandatory standards with Teeth when he directed the Federal election commissions National Clearinghouse on election administration from 1975 to but Congress did not want to impose new Cost require ments on the he and the standards became los Angeles times letters to the editor the free press welcomes letters from they must include the authors address and Telephone letters May be letters to the 1355 Mountain r2x fax email License those drive by shooters about the recent drive by shootings one Consolation is by All these drive by shooters will have obtained their firearm Possession certificates and on the application form where it says occupation they will have stated drive by then the victims will know that they have been shot at by a person who has a Legal right to possess a if these drive by shooters do not get a Possession then they will not be Able to Register their weapons or to buy this May cause much wringing of hands and in the ranks of the criminal but no need to worry the Queens cowboys can then swoop Down on Retiree Joe Smith who neglected to get a Possession certificate for his Rusty old single shot Rabbit haul him off to the Clink and the system Lou Spakowski Winnipeg classic collaborators have struck again the voters have rewarded prime min ister Jean Chretien of All people with a third consecutive majority Gap Dungeon of despair cruel Fate and pitiless disaster those classic collaborators at every election have struck All is desolation he called the unnecessary election a Yea Randa half at a Cost of million of our tax dollars that could have been better spent on health care and tax Relief solely for the purpose of per Sonal perhaps hell wait two or even one before he Calls another and receives a fourth consecutive majority after we lame brains from Ontario will vote Liberal no matter Many poor souls vote Liberal from Force of habit until they become liberals like pod As the song what can i say after i say in sorry How if Chretien Canada will then be governed by Sheila Paul Allan Brian or some other pig in a poke that no one voted William no compensation in response to your editorial entitled Ash tons note that the government neither conservative nor nip has not offered the Winkler inn any consideration for compensation when the volts were removed by retroactively applying the vat control act in an arguable Case of Viola Tion of our constitutional our loss of volts was not a failed proposal but a contract the govern ment of Manitoba Tore up for what was clearly Only a matter of political the severe negative Impact on our business warrants no considerations from minister yet a failed proposal for a Casino deserves consideration of Bompensa one really must question whether Aston actions Are a result of inexperience or questionable Albert Siemens Winkler inn doonesbury by Garry Trudeau Tirane put wont ;