THe minimum I would expect from any ethical person, regardless of their politics is an agreement that in an election the best possible way should be found of determining who got the most votes, and that this should determine who gets elected.

I would also expect that every ethical person would also agree that where difficuties arise, than those doing the count should take as long as they need to take in order to achieve the maximum acxcuracy.

That having been agreed I'd expect that, if it so happens that the ballot forms have been designed in such a way that it is difficult to countb them, there might be disagreement about what is the best way of ensuring that all votes were correctly counted. I'd expect in this particular case that you might get some people saying "pregnant chads" should be allowed, and others saying they should not. (Good grief!"

But what I find astonishing and rather distasteful is the way in which seemingly decent people are taking sides on those issue according to who is likely to benefit politically. Because that should be completely irrelevant.

How can your poltical orientation have anything to do with what you believe about the right way to decide whether a vote is valid or not?

The election is about taking sides and trying to help your own candidate. The count is about something completely different, and far more important.

In another thread I used an analogy, and here itbis again. What has been happening as if members of a jury were voting on whether someone was guilty or not, not on the basis of what the evidence looked like, but because they liked or disliked the politics of the person being tried. Or their skin colour. (Which of course is what happens a lot of the time, so why should I be surprised? But I really find that I am.)