>There was local law on that issue dating back to the 80's that was tossed out (or rewritten) for this count.

I am not familiar with any local law, not that it does not exist, but I have to see it somewhere to beleive it. Maybe your cousin has a copy <g>. And are you saying this local law applied to all 3 S. Florida counties? And that they all threw them out or rewrote them? If so, where are the legal challenges? Please, don't tell me Republicans want to stay out of the courts. Please be more specific.

From what I have seen, the election boards have broad discretion according to Florida law. Not positive, as I am not a lawyer. And if that is true, then why try to change Florida law? You can't do that until you are in the Florida Supreme Court, John <vbg>.

>Regardless, there are Federal statutes that state that you can't change the laws or statutes (and I'm assuming, standards, as well) retroactively.

I am not a lawyer, so I do not know. But I have a lot of faith in the US Supreme court, and if they say what the canvassing board did was illegal, I have no problem with that. How about all the conservatives participating in this thread? If the US Supreme Court rules in favor of Gore, are you going to say they have over-stepped their bounds?

>If you go back to previous elections, say, the '96 election, nobody challenged anything. The machine counts, with more or less the same percentage of spoilled ballots, was unchallenged. Why change now? No one ever said an election had to be perfect.

Are you talking about the 1996 Presidential election? I am going to take a wild guess here and say the machine count wasn't challenged because even if Dole won (and I do not know who actually took Florida), it didn't matter.

No, the election doesn't have to be perfect. It's just to elect the leader of the free world. But I would not want my vote tossed out by a faulty machine.