LETTERS: BUSH CAMP FIGHTS RECOUNT TO STAY AHEAD

To the editor:

From the beginning, the Bush campaign has been committed to court proceedings designed to prevent the accurate hand count of ballots that the machines either failed to count or counted incorrectly.

The essence of this position seemed clearly to be demanding that the election count stop while George W. Bush is ahead for fear that an accurate re-count might reveal Bush is not the winner. Had both candidates demanded immediately following the first count debacle to support a statewide recount with clear guidelines, we would be finished by now to everyone's satisfaction.

Now we find the Bush camp still fighting in court to avoid ballot counting when it is clear that some ballots have been repeatedly rejected by inadequate machines unable to detect a vote. As Vice President Al Gore persuasively noted, when the checkout machine at the grocery store fails to register the price of an item, clerks do not infer there is no price. They hand check the bar code. Surely counting presidential ballots in a democracy is at least as important an event as paying the bill in the local grocery store, and surely it demands a hand count when there is doubt.

As Senate minority leader Tom Daschle pointed out, eventually these ballots will be counted. Again, surely it's better to get the totals correct now than halfway through the term of a president who turns out to have been the loser in Florida.

ALAN JOURNET

Cape Girardeau