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From: Jasper
Date: 12/28/00
Time: 6:19:00 PM
Jean,
All it takes is a little here and a little there and he next thing you know you have a cumulative effect that can turn the whole process on its head.
My biggest complaint, though, is with the media. A margin of less than one percent is not a margin of victory. It doesn't even cover a normal margin of error. The so-called margin of Victory for George Bush in the certified count is a small fraction of one percent. Any way you count it, it does not rise to .01 percent. That's one one-hundredth of one percent.
In other words, given that small a faction of one percent as the difference in the vote count there is no way to tell who was ahead or by how much. The real margin had to be in the thousands. If you're arguing five hundred or a thousand votes, you may as well be arguing five or ten votes. Percentage-wise, there isn't that much difference. In terms of the statistical significance, there is no difference at all. NONE, NADA, ZERO, ZIP.
Most people believed that George Bush was ahead in the count when the votes where certified because the media reported that he was ahead 900 times a day. Maybe he was. Maybe he wasn't. It's for damn sure that the media couldn't tell by a margin of .009. To suggest that they could is a huge, history-altering error in fact that they knew they were making. It's what you and I call a lie. --Jasper