IMPORTANT:

To the Hand Counters in Florida,
Given the recent Florida Supreme Court decision allowing for manual recounts to continue, please use the following guidelines when assessing the ballots.

1. Dimpled Chad for Al Gore: Clearly, the voters intended to cast a ballot for Al Gore, but failed to fully penetrate the paper due to being too weak from not receiving badly needed prescription medication because they can't afford it.
   COUNT THIS VOTE FOR AL GORE.
2. Hole punched for Pat Buchanan: Since nobody in his right mind would vote for Pat Buchanan, the voter was obviously confused by the butterfly ballot. Further, only Democrats would be confused by this ballot so
   COUNT THIS VOTE FOR AL GORE.
3. Dimpled Chad for George Bush: Obviously, the voters started to vote for George Bush, then had a change of heart and decided not to.
   COUNT THIS VOTE FOR AL GORE.
4. Both Al Gore and George Bush hold punched: What most certainly happened here was that the voters intended to cast their ballots for Al Gore, and punched the hole. Then, spying George Bush's name and realizing he would take away their social security, the voters became enraged and stabbed the name with their stylus.
   COUNT THIS VOTE FOR AL GORE.
5. No vote indicated: Voters were so worried about accidentally voting for Pat Buchanan they decided not to risk it, and didn't vote at all. Alternatively, they figured it was only common sense that they would vote for Al Gore--who else would they vote for? They assumed it was silly to have to go through all the effort to punch a hole for somebody. Either way,
   COUNT THIS VOTE FOR AL GORE.
6. Hole punched for Ralph Nadar: Look, the only reason these people voted for Nadar was because they assumed Gore would win. Imagine their horror the next day when they discovered they may have given Bush the margin of victory! Since these voters did not want to vote for Bush,
   COUNT THIS VOTE FOR AL GORE.
7. Military ballots: Hey, if these people don't even have the ambition to get to the polling places, what right do they have to vote?
   DISQUALIFY THESE BALLOTS.
8. Hole punched for George Bush: Our poor, confused citizens clearly didn't understand what lay in their best interests. Our task here is to determine their INTENT, which was to vote for the candidate most likely to provide additional, badly needed federal programs.
   COUNT THIS VOTE FOR AL GORE.

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