LooseChanj wrote:

On or about Tue, 27 Apr 2004 17:59:26 GMT, Dick Morris
made the sensational claim that:
Manual recounts were an entirely legitimate process under Florida law,
which has long held that ascertaining the will of the voters takes
precedence over all other considerations.

The "will of the voters" was clearly divided. So the electoral delegates
should have been as well.

Not permisable under Florida election law, as it existed on election
day. Changing the standard after election day would have violated US
law.

Under the most reasonable sets of conditions Gore would have won the
manual recount,

Reasonable for whom?

Reasonable to me, at least.

Can you provide any cites which indicate Gore would have
won?

Here are some links to an AP story dated 11-12-2001:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/...in317662.shtml
http://dir.salon.com/politics/wire/2...unt/index.html
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/daily...1/a01wn007.htm

Other 2000 election sites:
http://reason.com/0103/fe.mg.election.shtml
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/election/election2000-0a.htm
http://www.listproc.bucknell.edu/arc.../msg00051.html
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/jbalkin/a...nbushvgore.pdf
http://ourworld.cs.com/mikegriffith1/floridareview.htm
http://votermarch.org/NORC.htm
http://www.literalpolitics.com/Archi...he_recount.htm

Of course, if all of the votes had been counted the way the voters
intended, the exit polling data would have held up and the election
would have been over on election day.

Cherry picking districts to recount sounds an awful lot like trying to
tip it over the rim. Which implies an underhandedness I find extremely
distasteful, and did at the time.

It was a strategic error, but Gore was certainly within the law to
request recounts in whatever counties he wished. The chosen counties,
which tended to favor Gore, were also ones which used the error-prone
punched-card voting system, and, together, were large enough to possibly
affect the outcome of the election. If you want to challenge an
election you go where the disputed ballots are. The Bush team had the
same right to request recounts in counties where Bush was strongest but
they elected not to do so. This quote sheds some light on the matter:

http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/publi...4/zelnick.html
"Baker also rejected suggestions that Bush try to neutralize Gore’s
selection of four heavily Democratic counties for recount purposes by
requesting recounts in a number of heavily Republican counties. That, he
felt, would let Gore define the rules of the game. "I thought we held
the high moral ground," Baker later said. "Our position was it’s over.
We won. Let’s stop counting. Let’s go home." Not all of Baker’s concerns
were quite so lofty. State GOP leaders had warned him against seeking
recounts in GOP counties because their surveys were showing that, even
in those Republican strongholds, the undervotes seemed to be
concentrated in Democratic precincts."

The Bush team criticized Gore endlessly for requesting selective manual
recounts, when they had exactly the same oportunity and chose not to use
it for purely strategic reasons. Then, when the Florida Supreme Court
removed their objection to selective recounts by ordering manual
recounts in *all* Florida Counties they objected to that too! Their
strategy was based strictly on resisting any and all recounts by any
means necessary. "High moral ground" indeed.

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