On 12 Sep 2003 21:27:53 GMT Michael R N Dolbear wrote:
}
} It is common practice in the US not to bother to count postal votes if
} they can't make any difference to the result (normal votes by voting
} machine, postal votes have to be expensively counted by hand) and the
} Presidential electoral college is designed to ignore the size of the
} majority in each US state so the horrors of a nationwide recount are
} avoided.

Each state can determine how it allocates it's electroal college votes.
In the past various states have done so in proprotion tot he popular
vote cast within the state. In most it is now mandated and in the rest
customary for the whole college delegation to vote in accord with the
state elecorate's majority.

This is because both parties see the advantage of only having to swing
the electorate by a few percentage points in order to benefit from the
whole state's college vote.

Whether an individual state carries out a re-count would be the decision
of that state's Attorney General. The only way a national re-count
could come about would be if the Supreme Court determined that there had
been mis-counting in all fifty states, each one considered uindividually

Matthew
--
Záhid sharáb píné dé, masjid mein baith kar
ya woh jagah batá dé jahán Khudá na ho.
http://www.calmeilles.co.uk/