More on Washingtom Recount

Just the start of an interesting thread over at BlackBoxVoting.org,
discussing the washington recount of DREs...
Keying on the legal definition of a ballot, and Bush v. Gore uniform
process....

  But aside from this, and possible irregularites, my original point
  was: Can they just perform this process and call all these 8 1/2 X 11"
  sheets of paper legal "ballots" ? Doesn't "ballot" have to be defined
  in the election law? Maybe as something a voter actually "casts"?
  Color me stupid, I guess, but it seems to me that if they can just
  make up a process and call these things "ballots", then what's to keep
  Sam Reed from doing the recont on his fingers and toes and declaring
  Rossi the winner? Wouldn't that be a "recount"?

  Also, think about Election 2000 and the Supreme Court's ruling in Bush
  v. Gore. They said that the manual recounting of ballots had to
  follow a uniform process to conform to the Equal Protection clause.
  Aren't Snohomish and Yakima Counties using a wildly different
  recounting process than the rest of the state?

  I'd love to get an informed legal opinion on this. I think there's a
  legal case (or two, or three) here. Let the Dem's spend a million
  bucks on this hand recount, and then let's get the entire election
  invalidated. I guarantee that would be the death knell for paperless
  electronic voting systems nationwide.

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Received on Fri Dec 31 23:17:03 2004