On Feb 12, 7:37�am, "Don White" wrote:
While flippin' channels yesterday, I breezed through CNN.
There was some king of panel with Wolfe Blitzer, that tall lanky guy, Jack
McClafferty? and a couple others.
They were talking about some voting irregularities in Washington (state?) by
the Republicans. �Apparantly, the people counting the ballots figured they
could predict the outcome at a certain point in their counting..so packed it
in before finishing. �What the &*^?
Canada may have to start sending down observers to make sure things are run
on the up & up. Afterall someone has to help protect that fledging democracy
you'all call the U.S.of A.

And here's the irony;

Our current state governor (a D) was elected by a margin of a couple
of hundred votes, maybe less. With over a million votes to count, our
state law requires a recount if the margin is less than percent or so.
The quick and dirty first count showed the Republican winning by a
very slim margin. The recount reversed the outcome, with some errors
in the state's largest county (also the most extremely D county) being
discovered. Even though there were at least a few errors in virtually
*every* county in the state, the R team focused on the errors found in
the most urban county and began screaming "Vote Fraud! The count has
been rigged in the liberal county to change the outcome!!"

Roll the clock forward to the Republican primary; With 80-some percent
of the votes counted the officially "preferred" Republican candidate
had a narrow lead. Rather than risk any change in the desired outcome,
the R's decided to simply *stop counting* the rest of the ballots!
(Vote fraud, indeed). Huckabee's legal team put enough pressure on the
state party that counting resumed. It didn't change the outcome, but
it sure took the wind out of the R party sails for the next time they
lose by a narrow amount and want to claim there were irregularities in
the count.

I guess 99.99% accurate is only an acceptable standard if the final
totals reflect the results wanted. Errors are made in favor of as well
as against both sides in every count, but outright fruad is pretty
rare.