10 Years After Bush v. Gore: Election Lawyers, Courts and Computers Still Decide "Elections"

[Bill Bored]

Key New York Races Remain Undecided

By DANNY HAKIM
Published: November 14, 2010

ALBANY — Nearly two weeks after Election Day, New York is having a “hanging chad” moment.

Republican and Democratic Party leaders in Washington have dispatched lawyers and staff members to help candidates in Syracuse and Suffolk County still fighting for Congressional seats, and this week both candidates vying for the Long Island seat are headed to Washington, laying claim to being the district’s officially elected representative.

Appeals for money have been sent out across the country to help in the battle. “Please rush a contribution of $5, $10 or more to help our voter protection efforts to keep the fight going,” the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee wrote in a recent fund-raising pitch, while some of the political action committees that helped Republicans win elections are now helping pay their postelection legal bills.

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One election law expert, Jerry H. Goldfeder, said the struggle over some of the disputed races “could go on for months.”

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“I think the question is, what happened?” said Senator-elect Michael Gianaris, a Queens Democrat. “The old lever machines were far more reliable and faster in producing results than the optical scanners.”

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Neal Rosenstein, an elections experts for the New York Public Interest Research Group. “If that means putting this in the hands of elections lawyers and poring over each ballot, it’s something I think should be done.”

Mr. Goldfeder, who served as a special counsel to Governor-elect Andrew M. Cuomo earlier in Mr. Cuomo’s tenure as attorney general, suggested that the state’s chief judge, Jonathan Lippman, should set guidelines for the various State Supreme Court judges overseeing the Senate race challenges.

Read the whole story at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/15/nyregion/15vote.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

1. I guess they

are "the deciders".

[Bill Bored]

2. First they decided not to allow the lever machines.

Now they're fighting over whether to hand count more than 3% of the paper ballots!

Predictably, the apparent winners oppose hand counts and the apparent losers want 'em. Same old shit; different bag.