I don't have much invested in Gore's cowardice/bravery, or the acumen of his legal team, but I have heard the argument that the legal team rejected Sautter's suggestion because it was thought that counting the overvotes as well would simply take too long and would fail to yield enough legal votes to be worth the trouble, esp. in light of the looming deadline.  We now know that's wrong, but arguably it was reasonable to think so at the time.

Personally, I thought at the time that the only acceptable solution was to immediately call for a statewide recount of all legal votes, under and over votes, rather than waste time with the county-specific challenges the Gore team started out with.  But I wasn't there at the time, so that's easy for me to say. SJM


At 01:14 PM 11/14/2003 -0500, Lash LaRue wrote:

It is not true that no one in the Gore team thought about this; Chris
Sautter, who was part of Gore legal team, argued for counting overvotes.
And Chris was one of the only two lawyers who had experience in
recounts, and had written "The Book" on recounts.

The true explanation for what happened is that Gore is a coward.

Best wishes,  ..........    Lash /


Lewis Henry LaRue
Washington and Lee University
School of Law
Lexington,  VA  24450-0303

email: laruel@wlu.edu
phone: 540-458-8513
fax: 540-458-8488

>>> richardwinger@yahoo.com 11/14/03 11:47AM >>>
See the Nov. 12, 2001 NY Times.  Yes, if all the votes
in the state, overvotes as well as undervotes, had
been counted, Gore would have won.  This is because
approximately 7,000 poorly-informed Gore voters both
voted for him the regular way, and wrote him in as
well.  Florida law for a century had been that the
intent of the voter controls.  By contrast, only about
3,000 poorly-informed Bush voters made the same error.
 No one in Gore's legal team thought to ask for a
recount of the overvotes, so this wasn't discovered
until the news consortium counted them.

--- RJLipkin@aol.com wrote:
>     I recently read, or better put, I recently think
> I read, that
> Vice-President Gore would have carried Florida if a
> statewide recount had taken place. Is
> this correct?  If not, please let me know whether
> there is a final consensus
> on the winner of the 2000 Presidential election.
> Sources would help also.
> Thanks.
>
> Bobby
>
>
>
> Professor Robert Justin Lipkin
> Widener University School of Law
> Delaware
>


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