I just Saw a Dimpled Chad.

[Johnny Ringo]

I just saw a picture of a dimpled chad on CNN. Now I can see the Democrats point as to why they should be counted. Had to see one to beleive they exist.

Although I voted for Bush, I will now conceed that we should count the pregnant chads. (You really should try to watch CNN and see one to get my point.)

I was also thinking, that theorectically, Bush would most likely win the Florida vote. Since the Election is almost split down the middle anyway, George Bush would most likely get half the votes from dimpled chads.

It would be insulting to insist that only Democrats had problems poking out these chads.

Maybe there has been alot of nonsense on both sides. Perhaps it's time to get on with it. Lets count every ballot. Two weeks have gone by and there has not been any true signs of fraud. Gore did not gain a huge amount of votes in these recounts. My fellow Republicans and I may have over reacted. Let's finish the election and be a United Country again.

Peace.

 

[Guest]

I have dimples? Wow, I never noticed before.

 

[Oliver Clozoff]

theorectically, Bush would most likely win the Florida vote. Since the Election is almost split down the middle anyway, George Bush would most likely get half the votes from dimpled chads.

Actually, this isn't true. The proportion of ballots with dimpled chads for Bush and Gore respectively should be roughly equal to the proportions found for the two candidates in the votes already counted.

For instance, If Gore got 60% of the votes already counted in a particular county, it stands to reason that he'll get 60% of the votes from ballots not previously included.

This assumes, of course, that Republican and Democratic voters are equally likely to vote incorrectly causing a dimpled chad. As you rightly say, we should assume voters of both parties would err with similar frequency.

So in this scenario, if 100 new ballots are included, 60 should be for Gore and 40 for Bush and voila... we have a 20 vote net gain for Gore. This shows why the Democrats are fighting like hell to count every every ballot they can get their hands on and why the Republicans are fighting against inclusion of new ballots.

If the entire state was recounted, we could assume the newly counted votes to be roughly even for each. Under such circumstances, it's been calculated that Gore's chances of overcoming even the narrow Bush lead are 43 million to one. But they're not recounting the whole state. They're recounting only primarily Democratic counties.

Gore's going to gain significantly. But will it be enough?