by Ken King

I was hoping that by now we would know whom our next President would be (officially).  I have been toying with the idea of looking into some of the basic differences of the sexes as they relate to the holiday season and, more specifically, shopping.  Maybe this is a godsend that this controversy has sustained the past several weeks and has consumed my thoughts and energy.  I’m sure it has helped me from putting my foot deeply into my mouth as I explored these differences.  I’ll keep it on file and maybe I’ll get back to it in the near future.  Right now, though I want to talk about the election.

This election, like the Clinton era, will strike a mark in our history as one of the most unique and challenging for the country.  For nearly a decade, we have been subjected to embarrassments, legal maneuvering, incompetence, and an attitude of being so powerful that if the laws don’t fit your plans you ignore them or change them to meet your wishes.  This mentality is being carried on by Al Gore and the Florida Supreme Court.  Never before in our history have presidential election results been subjected to the judicial review the Florida election (and the loser’s reluctance to concede) has seen.

The manual counting of these votes, and the method the court has outlined, exceed the laws that were in place prior to the election.  This obviously will be corrected by the US Supreme Court and hopefully the certified results of Florida will be accepted.  The failure of that to occur will activate lawful procedures within the Florida legislature to determine who the state’s electors will be.  Similarly the US House of Representatives will be looking into accepting those as the rightful electors or, if they deny those appointed electors, carry out their Constitutional duty of selecting our next leader by voting by state.  Which would easily favor Bush as he carried more states than Gore.  

The turmoil in Florida caused by the sniveling of Al Gore is placing an undue burden on all of us.  As a person seeking the presidency, you would think that the person is of such character that they would put the interest of the nation ahead of themselves.  This isn’t Al’s style though.  He learned from the master of deception and unseemly behavior how to whine, snivel, cry foul, and cheat to get the result you want.  Think about it, is this the type of person that should be entrusted with the highest seat in our government?  I say no. 

Even if Gore gets his next wish granted and these undervotes are counted, it might not swing it for him, especially if all undervotes are counted.  That’s right, the Florida undervote and the recounting of those votes might not be that bad for Bush if all counties with undervotes are counted.  Let me explain, I found the Florida county by county data showing votes for Gore, votes for Bush and the undervotes reported.  Of the 67 counties in Florida, only 42 reported undervotes totaling 40,757, add these to the 5,825,426 credited to both candidates and it equals 5,866,183 total voters in Florida.  The undervotes count for approximately .7% of the total Florida vote.  Is this level of error sufficiently significant enough to justify all of this rigmarole? 

Using the percentage received for each candidate out of the total awarded for each county allows for the computation of the average undervotes for each candidate for those counties.  That is of course if the tendency stays the same (level of error between the two for the undervotes is equivalent to that of the percentage won in that county) then Bush should end up with a final lead of 2928.  Bush would pick up approximately 21,766 while Gore would get approximately 18,991 additional votes. Again, this is just using simple averaging and the true results might differ as you apply the human factor into the recount.

Old GW has survived each and every blockade that Gore has flung at him so far.  There, of course, have been minor setbacks but the results have not changed since Secretary of State Harris certified him the winner.  It’s time to make it so and Al Gore should concede and salvage what little character he has left before he destroys everything he has spent his life working towards.  Not to mention that he will need to spend a considerable amount of time finding someone to hire a person of his demonstrated character.  I think that will be a greater challenge than this election.  I beg you Al, think of the country and throw in your crying towel.