They don’t call it Reason magazine for nothing:
Why Every Vote Should Not Be Counted
Look, this is not very hard. In Ohio, you have a certain Bush lead and certain number of provisional ballots. Once you determine how many of those p-ballots are, in fact, valid ballots per the laws of the state, you look at that number. If that number is smaller that the amount of the Bush lead, you do not have to count any of them…
This is what happens routinely in recounts for dog catcher or city councilman around the country. The goal is to put the right person in office, not make some fetish out of counting things.
I am not going to link to any of the lefty blogs that demanded that Kerry not concede until ‘every vote had been counted,’ as they have had a bad enough couple of days and don’t need taunted further. However, I would suggest that demanding that the Secretary of State in Ohio and his staff physically tabulate each vote for the benefit of democracy is idiotic. The only reason for such a demand is to serve to delay the inevitable- that having been the Kerry concession.
When it is said that every vote should be counted, what is meant that every vote should be equal in value and mean something. They don’t mean every vote has to be individually tabulated for no reason whatsoever. Slowing down the forward progress of the body politic for a pedantic and meaningless count of every vote, regardless of the fact that has no impact on the election, is so stupid it is offensive. Besides, that will be done eventually.
BTW: As a side note, if it is known that there are 160,000 provisional votes, then technically, they votes have already been ‘counted,’ at least in the base sense of the term as it was employed rhetorically as of late.