Saturday 18th November 2000
Nuffin the Hamster reports on the manual counts
FLORIDA (Tuesday) - So, the manual count
will continue - I think.
There's probably a thousand other laws and
lawsuits applicable here, just waiting in the wings to come centre stage so,
even as I type this with one ear on the radio and another on the television, it
may all be revoked. But, as far as I know, the hand count will go on to
completion.
Whether the figures will ever be accepted is another matter entirely.
It was such a great encouragement to hear Bush's
representative - prior to the judge making his pronouncement - to offer Gore's
party a 'compromise' which was, actually, what they already had. Did I mishear
him or did he actually say that they should withdraw their litigation and let
the result stand the way it was? I had to shake my ears just to make sure my
hearing wasn't being hindered by an excessive wax build up but it appeared not -
they were as clear as they'd always been. Bush's representative really
was trying to offer a compromise which wasn't. Good to know that they're
just politicians, isn't it? For a minute there, I almost thought they were human
beings...
I just wonder when it will all end, though
- not the legislation, I mean, but the count.
On Sunday morning, I watched one of the manual
assessments of votes begin (and why cover it live? Was this prime time viewing?)
and was amazed to see the counting was more complex than the simple '1...2...3'
of my expectation.
There sat a human with a pile of voting sheets in
front of him and, taking the first into his right hand, he looked carefully at
each hole, running his fingers like a Braille student over the card to 'feel'
any indentations that'd failed to pierce the card.
A troubled expression fell on his face as he held
the card up to the light, eyeing each hole and, presumably, inspecting they were
the right shape and in the correct place. Just to be absolutely sure, he brought
the card back down and ran his hand over the reverse surface.
He paused for a few moments before he passed the
card to an assistant beside him who went through the same procedure before
turning to discuss the matter with the first counter, spending numerous seconds
in an exchange which seemed to finalise the voter's intention in both their
minds.
The card was placed into one of five piles, the
next card was picked up and the procedure began all over again. Thank goodness
this ballot paper was straightforward!
One ballot paper completed in a stunning 79.6
seconds (I had a stopwatch handy) and only another million or so to go in that
county. Or, to put it into better perspective, at the current rate it would take
a hundred official counters (the room I saw had far fewer in) working eight
hours a day about 28 days to complete - and that doesn't include any needs they
might have to go to the toilet.
Where was the person who said it would all be over
within the week? With some decent stage management, it could mean vast sums of
overtime until Xmas at the earliest. The prospect of a 97-year-old
oxygen-dependent senator standing in the gap in the New Year was beginning to
look an increasingly likely possibility...
Nuffin the Hamster writes
for the Rodent Weekly.
This article appears courtesy of that paper.
