election-law_gl-digest Saturday, July 28 2001 Volume 01 : Number 050
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2001 15:50:18 -0500
From: "rebecca p. shockley" <shock001@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: FW: How Bush Took Florida: Mining the Overseas Absentee Vote
- --------------EF13DED2330E2D1CDB3CF527
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
In response to the New York Times article and Eugene Volokh (below), let
me just remind people of this point: The 245 votes Gary King estimates
Bush's margin of victory in Florida would have been reduced to (with the
proper counting of absentee ballots) does NOT consider what the count
would have been had Katherine Harris been willing to wait the two extra
hours (from 5PM Sunday to 7PM Sunday) for Palm Beach to get its totals
to the Secretary of State. Gore picked up a net gain of176 votes, all
discarded, in the Palm Beach recount. That brings Bush's Florida margin
from 245 to 69 votes...about which King would have been much less
certain of the actual winner. (Of course this excludes all the other
problems with the butterfly ballots, overvoting, inaccurate
registration, etc.)
On a related subject, the latest New Republic has a book review of
Dionne/Kristol's Bush v. Gore by Renata Adler. Among the points she
makes is that the Court majority seems to think of voting as a "test"
(why can't the voters just follow directions?) that many of the less
educated can flunk, dismissing the law in Florida and most other
states--that the "test" is "the intent of the voter." She also says that
Scalia's dissent in Morrison has proven correct, but that the usurper of
power has been the judiciary. Some of you may want to take a look at
her review (really an article).
Yours, John Shockley
"Volokh, Eugene" wrote:
Just to clarify the possible unintentional ambiguity caused by
the headline: According to the Times, the absentee votes weren't "How
Bush Took Florida" in the sense of being a but-for cause of Bush
taking Florida --
Times asked Gary King, a Harvard expert on voting
patterns and statistical
models, what would have happened had the flawed ballots
been discarded. He
concluded that there was no way to declare a winner with
mathematical certainty
under those circumstances. His best estimate, he said,
was that Mr. Bush's margin
would have been reduced to 245 votes. Dr. King estimated
that there was only a
slight chance that discarding the questionable ballots
would have made Mr. Gore the
winner.
Eugene
-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Hasen [SMTP:Rick.Hasen@lls.edu]
Sent: Saturday, July 14, 2001 2:50 PM
To: election-law@majordomo.lls.edu
Subject: How Bush Took Florida: Mining the Overseas
Absentee Vote
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/15/national/15BALL.html
--
Rick Hasen
Professor of Law and William M. Rains Fellow
Loyola Law School
919 South Albany Street
Los Angeles, CA 90015-1211
(213)736-1466 - voice
(213)380-3769 - fax
rick.hasen@lls.edu
<< File: 15BALL.html >>
- -- Dr. Rebecca P. Shockley
Professor of Piano Pedagogy
Director of Undergraduate Studies
University of Minnesota School of Music
Minneapolis MN 55455
612-624-2806 (office phone)
612-626-2200 (dept. fax)
- --------------EF13DED2330E2D1CDB3CF527
Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en">
<html>
In response to the New York Times article and Eugene Volokh (below), let
me just remind people of this point: The 245 votes Gary King
estimates Bush's margin of victory in Florida would have been reduced to
(with the proper counting of absentee ballots) does NOT consider what the
count would have been had Katherine Harris been willing to wait the two
extra hours (from 5PM Sunday to 7PM Sunday) for Palm Beach to get its totals
to the Secretary of State. Gore picked up a net gain of176 votes,
all discarded, in the Palm Beach recount. That brings Bush's Florida
margin from 245 to 69 votes...about which King would have been much less
certain of the actual winner. (Of course this excludes all the other
problems with the butterfly ballots, overvoting, inaccurate registration,
etc.)
<p>On a related subject, the latest New Republic has a book review of Dionne/Kristol's
Bush v. Gore by Renata Adler. Among the points she makes is that
the Court majority seems to think of voting as a "test" (why can't the
voters just follow directions?) that many of the less educated can flunk,
dismissing the law in Florida and most other states--that the "test" is
"the intent of the voter." She also says that Scalia's dissent in Morrison
has proven correct, but that the usurper of power has been the judiciary.
Some of you may want to take a look at her review (really an article).
<p>Yours, John Shockley
<p>"Volokh, Eugene" wrote:
<blockquote TYPE=CITE>
<p> <font face="Arial"><font color="#000080">Just
to clarify the possible unintentional ambiguity caused by the headline:
According to the Times, the absentee votes weren't "How Bush Took Florida"
in the sense of being a but-for cause of Bush taking Florida --</font></font>
<p><font face="Arial"><font color="#000080">
Times asked Gary King, a Harvard expert on voting patterns and statistical</font></font>
<br><font face="Arial"><font color="#000080">
models, what would have happened had the flawed ballots been discarded.
He</font></font>
<br><font face="Arial"><font color="#000080">
concluded that there was no way to declare a winner with mathematical certainty</font></font>
<br><font face="Arial"><font color="#000080">
under those circumstances. His best estimate, he said, was that Mr. Bush's
margin</font></font>
<br><font face="Arial"><font color="#000080">
would have been reduced to 245 votes. Dr. King estimated that there was
only a</font></font>
<br><font face="Arial"><font color="#000080">
slight chance that discarding the questionable ballots would have made
Mr. Gore the</font></font>
<br><font face="Arial"><font color="#000080">
winner.</font></font>
<p> <font face="Arial"><font color="#000080">Eugene</font></font>
<ul><font face="Arial"><font size=-2>-----Original Message-----</font></font>
<br><font face="Arial"><font size=-2><b>From: </b>Rick Hasen [SMTP:Rick.Hasen@lls.edu]</font></font>
<br><font face="Arial"><font size=-2><b>Sent: </b>Saturday, July
14, 2001 2:50 PM</font></font>
<br><font face="Arial"><font size=-2><b>To: </b>election-law@majordomo.lls.edu</font></font>
<br><font face="Arial"><font size=-2><b>Subject:
</b>How Bush Took Florida: Mining the Overseas Absentee Vote</font></font>
<p><font face="Arial"><font size=-1><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/15/national/15BALL.html" TARGET="_blank">http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/15/national/15BALL.html</a></font></font>
<br><font face="Arial"><font size=-1>--</font></font>
<br><font face="Arial"><font size=-1>Rick Hasen</font></font>
<br><font face="Arial"><font size=-1>Professor of Law and William M. Rains
Fellow</font></font>
<br><font face="Arial"><font size=-1>Loyola Law School</font></font>
<br><font face="Arial"><font size=-1>919 South Albany Street</font></font>
<br><font face="Arial"><font size=-1>Los Angeles, CA 90015-1211</font></font>
<br><font face="Arial"><font size=-1>(213)736-1466 - voice</font></font>
<br><font face="Arial"><font size=-1>(213)380-3769 - fax</font></font>
<br><font face="Arial"><font size=-1>rick.hasen@lls.edu</font></font>
<br><font face="Arial"><font size=-1> << File: 15BALL.html >></font></font></ul>
</blockquote>
<p><br>-- Dr. Rebecca P. Shockley
<br>Professor of Piano Pedagogy
<br>Director of Undergraduate Studies
<br>University of Minnesota School of Music
<br>Minneapolis MN 55455
<br>612-624-2806 (office phone)
<br>612-626-2200 (dept. fax)</html>
- --------------EF13DED2330E2D1CDB3CF527--
------------------------------
End of election-law_gl-digest V1 #50
************************************