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Election Wrapping Up (Part 2)
Things shuffled a bit as CNN recalled Florida from Gore, and left
the electoral votes at 217 for Bush and 172 for the VP. Things have kind of lagged a bit as apparently the wires are being a little more careful about calling states. And I was hoping to get to bed on time *grin.* Update: 11pm EST by CT : polls on the west coast have closed, Gore inched up 230/217. Update: 11/08 5:45 AM EST by C :By now you all know that Florida, originally awarded to Gore, then later awarded to Bush, is now recounting the votes in a race that is way too close to call. Surprisingly enough, it appears that Gore has now won the popular vote. With the results split between the EC and the people, will this affect how the next president will be able to govern the U.S.?
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all misspellings were intentional.
And it looks like Nader did play the role of the spoiler after all, in Florida at least. Well, Ralphie boy, hope you're proud of yourself; now you're going to have to live with the consequences of your actions. If someone doesn't run you over with a Corvair first :-).
I hope Bush remembers that he has no real "mandate" as a result of this election. If he tries to pull anything too radical, he may face a wholesale housecleaning of Congress, giving it to the Democrats. It happened to Clinton in '94 (after his "health care reform" proposal basically scared the piss out of everybody); it can happen to Bush in 2002 just as easily.
Now I think I'm going to go down a shot of something while my wife wonders if she should leave the country...
Eric
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Be who you are...and be it in style!
The problem here is that many Linux voters aren't voting for Linux; they're voting against Microsoft. "Linux isn't Windows" is a really weak platform, and I think it's amazing that Linux is doing as well as it is. If the Microsoft candidate wasn't as distasteful as it is, I bet at least a third of the today's Linux users would have stayed on Windows. *BSD probably would be stronger, though, since its supporters are really supporting the platform (and not trying to deny another OS.)
I live 6 miles down the road from a state college where I can find people willing to engage in a rational, friendly, and openminded discourse regarding America and it's history of interaction with the world.
Americans are pretty good at telling each other how great their country is. They were equally good at doing that about slavery, racial discrimination, status of economy right before Great Depression, witch hunts and other darkest pages of their history -- I am sure, you can find a lot of very friendly supporters of propaganda about this one. But until you will talk to your opponents, research what really happened in WWII by something other than US propaganda, and try to make real arguments instead of slogans and insults, you will remain ignorant. Ignorance is, of course, bliss, and collective ignorance is even better, but hangover can be a bitch.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Fact: For every 2 Gore votes 'stolen' by Nader, one was 'stolen' from Bush. So let's re-align your numbers, and grant your wishes by pretending that Nader doesn't exist:
Bush = 2,835,930 + 31,440 = 2,867,370
Gore = 2,780,481 + 62,880 = 2,843,361
Result: Bush still wins. So, pipe down, dry your eyes, and stop complaining. The fact that Gore lost the election is Gore's fault, not Nader's.
At least my vote meant something -- And no, I'm not sorry. Try again in 4 years.
my karma ran over your dogma
A man of unparalleled stupidity is now the most powerful man in the world. Excellent! I can certainly see the cause for jubilation. O happy day!
If we weren't already the laughingstocks of the world, we are now.
The exit polls usually are correct, but when a state is as close as Florida was, I doubt that the accuracy holds up. Also, the fact that the polls were still open in western Florida when the call was made left room for voters to make a "correction" and that can only add to any inaccuracy that exists in the exit polls.
Like I said, when the election was called in Florida for Gore, I think this is what happened:
1. Gore supporters who had not yet voted decided not to (complacency)
2. Bush supporters who had not yet voted decided to get out and do it (getting busy)
Who cares what exit polls said up to that point. The election was called in Florida while the polls were still open in Florida.
I like to play children's songs in minor keys.
"We're all sons of bitches now." --J. Robert Oppenheimer
That's just spin. Speculate about it this way:
For every 1 Nader voter, there were 10 other non-aligned people who made up their mind in the the voting booth.
For every 1 Nader voter, there was most likely 2-5 solid democrats who failed to make it to the polls for what ever reason.
For every 1 Nadar voter, there was someone who was drummed up by Jeb Bush's operation that wouldn't have voted otherwise.
When I hear the word 'innovation', I reach for my pistol.
http://jolt.dpb.vii.com/pics/beavisbushcheny.jpg
Mad props to all candidates and voters for making this the most entertaining, stimulating, and nerve-wracking election race not just in my life, but arguably, in the past century.
But with Nevada firmly in the Bush camp, and cnn.com reporting a Florida margin of 50K with 98%, it's over. (Shit, it ended "officially" while I hit "Preview" on this post and "Reload" on CNN, how's that for down-to-the-wire predictions? ;-)
So now - the hard work:
Dubya - you preside over what is arguably the most divided America in a generation. 50/50 splits to within epsilon in the popular vote, the electoral vote, the Senate, and the House. Moreover, those "50/50 splits" mask serious racial, income, and geographical gaps among the various demographic and voting blocs. It appears that the campaign rhetoric that most matters tomorrow isn't gonna be about tax cuts, Social Security, Medicare, foreign policy. It's gonna be that fluffy stuff about "being a uniter, not a divider", and it's about to be put to the ultimate test.
That said - good luck, sir, and congratulations.
Am I the only one who saw George Bush mispronounce "subliminal" not once, but several, times on national television? The guy is a total loser. He can't even speak correctly -- how can he be trusted to make decisions about our future. I've been waiting for an excuse to move to Amsterdam.
This applies in many other circumstances that spring to mind. The French had one of the two monolith democratic national leaders of the last century, Charles de Gaul. (The other was our very own Sir Robert Menzies, PM of Australia twice, the longest period being for nearly twenty years
Miterand is credited with breaking this, by getting communist electorates to feel included by his platform. He gave lots of sway to the left of his party for long enough to rout the communists in their core seats before sweeping into the presidency.
My details are hazy, but what you said has triggered some memories.
In South Australia at the moment we've got it even worse. The (Liberal) government is already absolutely at the limit of minoirity government positions. Our least minor party, the Australian Democrats (mid left -> central, certainly left of the US Democrats generally, totally wealthy chardoney socialist base) are expected to pick up four or five seats. They are aided by the fact that they only need to beat one of the major parties to pick up a seat, because the major parties put each other rock bottom on their respective tickets. Now in a balance of power situation, the Democrats are likely to side with the ALP against the Liberals. Yet in the electorates where they are elected, there is likely to be a non-Labor vote well above 80%, in some cases above 90%. That's in an almost completely two-party system. Preferences can be ridiculous.
I favour an optional preferential system. I understand Tasmania to be one of few first world states to have such a system (not that they don't have problems of their own
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Believe with me, my saplings.
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all misspellings were intentional.
Whoever loses: You can at least rest assured that your opponent will be laughed out of office if he claims a "mandate".
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Actually, most polls I've said say that well over half of Nader voters say they would have voted Gore if Nader hadn't run. That includes me, by the way. On another note, the poll they showed on cnn said that 10% of nader voters would have voted bush. Who are these people? I don't understand what they support that they shifted from bush to nader. are they just confused?
Care about freedom?
I'd rather be lucky than good.
will we be able to make a BEOWULF CLUSTER out of them?!?!!?!? MAYBE they can run LINUX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!
You guys need a two round election. If no-one gets 50% in the first round, the second round would be between the two who got most votes.
And cut this voting system involving electoral votes. Just vote on the person and count the votes. Or at least don't give the whole state to the winner.
It doesn't matter who wins and what side you're on. National and statewide races are always neck and neck. The world didn't end when Kennedy, Carter and Clinton won, and it didn't end when Nixon, Reagan and Bush won. All you young guys running scared will learn in time that it never matters who wins the presidential or senate races. With either side you'll get the status quo as they both pander to the middle.
The fact that these big races are invariably 49/51 illustrates that there is no majority. It's a crap shoot. In fact, this nearly even split between parties is unnatural. Pick any issue that people care enough about to get their dander up on, and it will NEVER be a 50/50 split.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
It's okay, it was so close that Bush knows he can't pull anything remotely radical because that'll get him booted out fast in four years. Whoever would have won would have had to stay pretty centrist.
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it just explains all of it. doesnt it?
Safety First Day?
Given that it is politics, you indeed have a choice to make it your business, but it is a very poor choice, fueled by prurience and media craze rather than by any enlightened self interest.
-- look, cheese ahoy!
SEC. 23. Section 85301 is added to the Government Code, to read:
85301. (a) A person, other than a small contributor committee or political party committee, may not make to any candidate for elective state office other than a candidate for statewide elective office, and a candidate for elective state office other than a candidate for statewide elective office may not accept from a person, any contribution totaling more than three thousand dollars ($3,000) per election.
(b) Except to a candidate for Governor, a person, other than a small contributor committee or political party committee, may not make to any candidate for statewide elective office, and except a candidate for Governor, a candidate for statewide elective office may not accept from a person other than a small contributor committee or a political party committee, any contribution totaling more than five thousand dollars ($5,000) per election.
Ok, I know I said that I would leave you with the last word but damn, that just calls for a response. When I mentioned rational openminded and friendly discourse, that included people with a less than flattering take on America's role in history, just without your closeminded bitterness. What makes you think that I don't have access to a different account of history than my government provides? You accusing me of not making real arguments and spouting off propaganda and insults is like the pot calling the kettle black. How about the Cherokees journey along the "Trail of tears", some of my relatives live on a reservation in Oklahoma thanks to resettlement efforts by other peoples with whom I share ethnicity. My current girlfriend is of African descent and I am aware of her ancestors history and our nations role in their enslavement. Some members of my family have a history of a lack of racism, can you say the same for your family or yourself? Most Europeans I have met would frown on my mixed heritage and tendencies to mix it up further. I have had Russians I work with point at a black woman and joke about how I should date her, not realizing that I would. I won't even go into my Italian relatives views on non-white people in general. Maybe the real propaganda is being spread by people like you who have a rabidly anti-american mindset. You lack objectivity, and you take any facts put in front of you and interpret them to suit your ends.
Fuck bush, fuck gore. Well, the greater of two evils has won tonite. Thanks to the fucked up 2 party system. Yeah! I think something was accomplished tonite. I spoke to my father 2 days ago when I told him I was voting for Ralph, he predicted Gore's loss because of Ralph. I told him that it would be a wake up call for the stupid fucking conservative facist democrats. They will no longer be able to say, "Hey, we are pretty fucking conservative nazi bastards, but don't vote for the republicans because they are bigger conservative nazi bastards!" FUCK THAT!
Now, we have a retard president elected by a bunch of fucking hillbillies in the retard hick midwest states. The fucking heartland, lots of fucking heart no fucking brain. YEAH! I love having idiots elect dumb people who have good personalites. Now my commander in chief who can send me to die with a nodding smirk. Bush is a fucking loser dumbfuck who is only in the spot he is now via intense NEPOTISM and FUCKING CASH coming out of his ass. He had his servants do his school for him and his fucking daddies friends get him kickass oil jobs, where he can make a killing in a fucking dead oil economy. YEAH!!! I hope he gets shot! YEAH!!! I could be arrested for saying that!!! YEAH!!! SEIG HEIL BUSH!!!!!! FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK
We real americans in the cities on the coasts are held hostage by stupid poor gun toting hillbillies who are so god damn fucking idiotic fucks that they vote for goddamn nazi bastards who will rob them of what little goddamn money they have and give it all to the fucking filthy rich who will finance some shiney new commercials to make more hillbillies vote for more stupid rich fucks!!!!! ITS A VICIOUS CYCLE!!!!! BREAK THE TWO PARTY SYSTEM BY FORCE!!!!!!!
I'll just sit here awaiting arrest.
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get jiggy w/ ayn rand!
But you are assuming that Gore would be better than Bush. If one doesn't agree with this presumption, then your conclusion doesn't follow. I still remember voting for Johnson so we wouldn't get into a war in Vietnam.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
My knowledge of World War Two is sparse relative to yours. Though I agree with your assessment that it was our material support and sheer numbers that overwhelmed the German war machine. Not that our troops didn't have heart or ability, but our war machine and industrial might was not superpower class at the start of the war. Also you're right in that the Nazi's contribution to science was enormous. Basically I was just trying to lighten the mood, and I really do like the Nazi's style, if not their clinically evil worldview. The tragedy of the Nazi regime is how their zeal and nationalism mixed base degeneracy with otherwise highly respectable achievements
The above you should remember as my first serious post on the subject of World War Two, which was simply an agreement with another poster. I basically say that America's most important contribution to the war effort was materiel aid, and that in no way lessens the sacrifice of the many American troops who lost their lives in the war effort, some 140,000 of them. If you say that is a small number relative to the 60,000,000 other people who directly or indirectly lost their lives, your right, but would you go so far as to trivialize them. Do you think that 140,000 American lives amounts to nothing and that all of those men died on a cakewalk or a fool's errand, and their individual sacrifices amount to nothing? You don't think that someone, somewhere, owes their life or existence to at least one or more of these men? If your opinions are the norm for what non-Americans think of America, I'll not support military intervention that doesn't involve defending our own borders or interests, because, it is either unappreciated or not necessary if I am to believe you. Tell me Alex, why should one American life, or one American dollar be spent helping people who have only hatred and bitterness with which to thank us?
I have no idea how you can teach me about things that happened where I lived, with my relatives and neighbors, and call what you have picked at your school after decades of anti-soviet and anti-russian histeria in this country something other than propaganda.
As a matter of fact, I learned absolutely nothing of World War Two during my time in school, all of my knowledge is based off of some British documentaries, a few odds and ends I picked up over the years, and the history behind the weapons of the era gleaned from resources that mainly focused on the technical merit of the weapons and important battles in which they were employed. The British documentaries corrected any inflated notions I may have had about the significance and nature of America's involvement in the war long before it ever occurred to you to give it a try. Of course you just assume that everything I say is just propaganda that I have been spoon fed, truth of the matter is, the schools I went to didn't care what I knew about anything one way or the other. You make it seem as if you have been exposed to less propaganda than I have, how can you guarantee that? What can someone like me teach you? Nothing, since you have already made up your mind about what the correct opinions to have about the facts are.
Saying "both sides were somehow right" is not the right way of discussing history, no matter how they teach you "tolerance" in this screwed up education system -- looking at facts, actions and their consequences is the only way to find out the truth. I would respect Americans much more if they will openly admit how wrong they are and teach their children it as an example that never should be repeated -- after all, Russians openly admitted how wrong/evil Stalin's rule was as early as in 50's (yes, I know, you Americans missed it), Germans denounced Nazi even earlier, and regarding US and WWII we are looking at a bit lesser kind of shame than either. Accept it -- at least stop hiding the facts from students that take your history classes -- and you will be respected more.
At what point do I say "both sides are somehow right"? Putting words in my mouth is as dirty a conversational tactic as any you accuse me of, but I'll get to that later. Educate me then, tell me, what part of American history even remotely compares to the genocide and atrocities committed by the Nazi's or by the Russians under Stalin's rule? All of America's ugly truths wouldn't fit on the small toenail of Germany or Russia's past misdeeds this century. I'll be more than happy to admit to America's wrong doing and make note to myself to do what I can to prevent it from happening again. You can accuse America of clumsiness in it's handling of foreign affairs, but not of outright malice. Ask a citizen of Kuwait what they think of America and our intervention in Iraq's invasion of their country. Then ask a citizen of Iraq the same question. I have had the luxury of speaking to both, one a doctor, the other a student at the local school I mentioned earlier. It doesn't take a genius to figure out who supported American involvement and who opposed it. Right and wrong are relative concepts, historical facts are historical facts, you can use the same facts or statistics to prove or disprove anything you want. That leads me to wander why it is that you want so badly to have America collectively admit to some sort of wrong or have some cathartic hair rending revelation of our past misdeeds. I don't owe the world an apology, personally or collectively, and I am more than happy to accept any fact that I can, or care to ascertain to be true.
And I don't think, you should use counter-accusations of racism (or whatever else) toward me to change the subject -- again, you should leave your cheap discussion tricks for something else. First, racism was merely an example of dirty page in US history that was defended and distorted by "patriots" for centuries. Second, being of jewish/ukrainian origin (yes, "jewish" can be a nationality, and it's unrelated to judaism or any other religion) in Russia I was a target of enough hate and discrimination to feel nothing but disgust toward all kinds of racial/national discrimination, no matter who is the target.
I was not changing the subject, you challenged my knowledge of past American atrocities and I gave you a personal account of my knowledge of some of them. Then I challenged your assertion that you were in any position to speak on the subject of racism and backed it up with my personal stake in the issue. The fact that you are Jewish and have been persecuted for it doesn't prove to me that you are not a racist. It's not that I believe that you wouldn't discriminate against someone due to any racial or ethnic factors. But how closely would you associate with someone who was different than you, would you be friends, marry, engage yourself in their culture? As close as I do, I doubt it, but I won't assume that you would or would not, note that I do ask the question of you rather than assume anything about you. All you have to go on about me is that I call myself Kalabajoui on this forum and whatever else I choose to reveal about myself, real or imagined. Keep that in mind next time you make a wild guess about myself or my background. Your last line about disgust at discrimination of any kind is kind of ironic, since it's that same feeling about your prejudice against America that keeps me wasting my time replying to your posts. (Coincidentally, your assumptions about me without basis of fact would be a good example of prejudice as the word applies to an attitude, not just racism.)
That may be true, though some of the arguments seem to me to be a bit short of totally convincing. But the real question is how dissatisfied will people be on the average. And it seems pretty clear that one could do a lot better than the current US system. The instant runoff system is probably a much better choice. There may be a better choice, but I don't know ...
Just be sure that "None of the above" is always a valid candidate, and I think that instant runoff is a clear winner. (But you may need to hold repeat elections frequently for awhile!)
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Actually, Nader wasn't stealing votes from Gore. Nader, as well as major Republicans, were out getting MORE people to vote. They weren't pulling votes from general voters, as much as they were getting more and more people, especially absentees, to vote when they normally wouldn't. I doubt the outcome would be much different without Nader. There would just be fewer votes all around.
Dragon Magic
Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
Americans have proven themselves to be despicable today.
More like we've proven we're tired of having 40% of our hard-earned money stolen from us and wasted.
Republican's aren't perfect, and will tax too, but not as badly as the Dem's.
- My favorite error message: xscreensaver, running on an old Sparc 5 w/ 8bit color: bsod: Couldn't allocate color Blue
- If I had my way, Nader would take a single state worth 3 electoral votes. The other candidates would come in at 269 and 268.
Well, you got the next best thing!As of this moment, with 90% of the country's precincts reporting, all Gore required was 1/6 of Nader's green votes (ONE SIXTH!) and he would have been elected president by popular vote.
Yeah yeah, I know there's more to it than that - electoral college and all that jazz. But still, losing by some 400,000 votes... To use a football analogy, Nader knocked the ball loose from Gore's hand allowing W to recover it.
At the end of the (long, long) day, the Greens should be proud because we got exactly what we wanted: the power to effect an election.
Isn't it ironic? Don't you think?
o/~ It's like rain on election day, o/~
o/~ It's the free ride for your college stay, o/~
o/~ It's the kickass high from a line of cocaine o/~
o/~ And who woulda' thought it'd be Nader...? o/~
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so you voted for gw because he's not a liar right? if a burglar was to break into your house and wanted to kill your children where would you send them? would you send them to friend (a) who had a coke problem, was an alcoholic, and frequently did anything the mob said in exchange for money? or would you give your children to friend (b) who has lied on occasion, but only because it was for the greater good (lying doesn't equal bad, take a philosophy class)
"Tread softly because you tread on my dreams"
Is this, then, a hallmark event signalling a challenge to the two-party system? Will the Democrats respond to this by working together with the Greens henceforth, or simply drowning them out by moving their agenda back to the left? Gee, let me guess...
No. Remember who Nader is.
Nader likes the spotlight, but doesn't really care how he gets it.
He's not the consumer-advocate man-of-the-people that everyone who got suckered in by him seems to think that he is. He's a *lawyer*. And a bad one at that, who used to be known for frivolous lawsuits, before he found fame with "Unsafe at any Speed" and the Chevrolet Corvair.
The Green Party was all about Nader, not about their platform. And a whole bunch of poor or unrealistic people who want to restrict your employer's freedom to pay you what you're worth. And to force you to ride public transit with the lice-infested hotel chambermaids and convenience store clerks of the world.
A Gore-Nader alliance is not going to happen. Probably Gore would welcome it for obvious reasons, but Nader has tried and been rejected several times from getting a Democratic nomination. This election was designed to be payback for Nader.
I do like the third and fourth party concepts, though, because like many people following this election, I was forced to think of Gore as being the lesser of the two (viable) evils. I still hope that Gore gets in.
The Reform Party, with Buchanan at the helm, is completely out to lunch. Want to see what his America would be like? Replace Iran's mosques with Baptist churches, and there ya go.
But Reform is pretty badly split. Note that Jesse Ventura, Reform governer of Minnesota, is a polar opposite to the Reform presence in this federal election. Ventura's version of the Reform Party appeals to me; Buchanan's terrifies me.
In the future, if the Reform Party eventually gets itself figured out and moves back towards its center-left position, and if the Libertarian party gets their act together, then the Democratic Party wouldn't be such a shoe-in for my vote.
Not that I'm an American citizen, so for the moment it's all an academic discussion. I'm watching this from the sidelines of Canada, with a huge number of American frieds calling and e-mailing me about the results. I love politics, and had 4 TV sets set up, watching the live coverage on ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN.
But this was not the election for a protest vote like Nader, no matter how disillusioned the two-party system makes you. If Bush wins Florida (which, let's face facts, he probably will), he's going to be the President.
Philosophical disagreements with the Republicans aside, Bush is an idiot. I have no respect for the man. Not because I disagree with him - that's okay, I still respect lots of people I disagree with. But Bush commands no respect. He's an imbecile. Immature, unqualified, unprepared, and unaccomplished, he's not half the Presidential figure that his father was.
Gore may be boring and smug, but he at least understands international policy. He understands how to get things done. (The Texas record proves that Bush doesn't.) And, most importantly between two otherwise uninteresting candidates, Gore is at least someone who will uphold the honor and dignity of the most important office in the world.
With an idiot like Bush at the helm, all nature of bad things are going to happen. I hope the Florida recounts save the world from Bush.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Bush 2,887,426 49%
Gore 2,876,620 49%
Nader 95,076 2%
The margin between Bush and Gore is 11029 votes, which I would not say is a victory. I personally am not going to decide a winner until all votes have been counted in Florida, which may take much more time.
My friends and I have been watching the election for seven hours. The past four have been the most interesting, especially if you look at the G vs. B numbers from Florida as they tallied votes. At one point, Bush lead by 100000+ votes. However, that narrowed to 20,000 an hour ago, to rise to 55,000 a paltry 45 minutes ago, to fall to 11,000 in the past few minutes. Keep this in mind as you gloat (or mourn) for the next few hours.
To all of the Canadians out there: "I'm SO sorry you had to watch this."
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Mike Hollinger
Michael C. Hollinger
Obvious, we don't agree.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
- if you love something, set it free; if it doesn't come back, hunt it down and kill it
I hope not, considering that the Canadian federal election is November 27.
Oh damn. Ah well... Perhaps the nation will become so upset and disgruntled with the silly fool, and politics in general over the next 4 years that something -signifigant- will actually happen next election. This may be just what an upstart 3rd party has been waiting for. hrm. -Robert
See, I'm not sure about India having a forced election, such as that of Brasil. Brazilian elections are forced, in the sense that everyone must vote. period. It also, of course, changes the campaign a lot, since votes aren't concentrated on the elderly, as here in the U.S. Oh, although I'm not sure about being forced to vote in India, I am sure that Brasil's are the largest electronic elections on earth. I've heard that they are the largest PERIOD, but I'm not sure. In 1998, we had 57% of all voters use an electronic election. Now, it is absolutely, positively, 100%. Now that is pretty cool.
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Score 3? For what? Being wrong, at length? - smirkleton
Bush doesn't need to screw up in office - he has enough skeletons in his closet to keep the US in scandals for the next four years at least.
Here's one for you. The Howard Stern Radio Show got a hold of a rumor that, back in the early 1970s before abortion was legal - and right in the middle of Bush's party-boy days when he was drinking and doing lines of coke off the toilet tanks in bars - Bush managed to get a woman knocked up, and the baby was aborted.
Again, this is Bush. The Republican ?candidate? ?President-elect?, and he's in the right rear pocket of the Right to Life campaign. Further, abortion was *illegal* back then.
Howard Stern called the Bush campaign headquarters several times throughout the week leading up to the election, seeking a confirmation or a denial.
Finally, yesterday, on election day, came the news from the Bush people: "We do not make statements to the tabloid news.", or something to that effect.
Not a confirmation, but certainly not the "you've-gotta-be-kidding" adament denial that one would have expected.
I would suggest that this bears further scrutiny.
As a sidenote, the Bush campaign should have considered using the tabloid media that they so eschew. It strikes me that Star, Globe and the National Enquirer are probably the best media outlets with which to address his strongest states.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
I thought that I already explained to you that I don't know the first thing about the use of HTML.
Sorry if my last post was hard to read, when I have some time I will look up the appropriate resources to learn how to use it or play with the examples provided on the pre-post page. In any case it was just one of your many off-topic cheap shots towards me. Kind of how it would be a cheap shot for me to make fun of your frequent spelling errors. Also, you again assume that I am ignoring Russia's role in World War Two. That's not true, just for the sake of time and space I lump Russia together with the rest of the Allied powers, and atrocities committed in Russia with those in Germany. I won't even go into the rest of the distortions you make to my position's, because I am tired of debating you.
It doesn't surprise me that you live in America yet have not one good thing to say about the country that allows you freedom from the discrimination you faced in your home land. Actions speak louder than words, so why don't you use that American passport of your's and move to a country where the people and the politics match your views and principals? The act of staying here alone is to support the corporations, individuals and the government's present and future foriegn policy mistakes. Especially if ALL Americans are ignorant and complacent about our government's activities as you claim so often. You know that you can't make a difference and you are fooling yourself if you claim to be here for any other reason than your own personal gain. You are entitled to your opinions under America's political system, you are even entitled to hate America while reaping the benefits of living here.
That's ok, I am entitled to think that you are an ingrate who needs to show the country you choose to live in some respect or else pack up your bags and leave.
This is my last post on the matter, because I have said my piece and I don't have anything more to say to you.
So, will we be seeing this kind of coverage of the Canadian federal election to be held ton November 13? Probably not.
HellOOOOOOO!
It's called splitting the vote.
Teddy Roosevelt did it with the Bull Moose Party, and so did Perot at least once.
The facts are, as it seems, that the majority of Nader's votes come from people who wouldn't have voted anyway. The rest are would-be democrats ;).
You question whether Bush'd be what the American people want? I'll tell you what:
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all misspellings were intentional.
Oh please Alex, you make it sound like I said America singlehandedly won World war Two. Granted, America entered the war late, but you can't dismis out of hand the many lives American soldiers lost because they are less in number than the 20 million Europeans who died. Especially if it is as you say and we were "beating a dead horse". If that was the case, why should we have wasted a single American life or materiel resource to help Europe beat the Axis powers? What did or does America owe any country in Europe? Not that there would be a Europe free of Soviet influence if not for our substantial and expensive military presence in Europe after the war. Oh, and a belated congratulations to France for getting America mired in Vietnam and then pulling out. While I'm at it, thanks for helping out in the Persian Gulf war too, we appreciate the token show of support on Europes part in stopping Iraqs naked territorial aggression against Kuwait. Europe having no strategic or economic interest and all of that, in what goes on in the Middle East or Northern Africa. I won't even go into Serbia, and Europe's lack of interest in doing anything about Milosovichs Hitler-esque atrocities without American backing. Go ahead and shed your tears, they aren't America's fault or problem.
This day will be known in history as the November Pearl Harbor. The day that the decline and fall of the USA began.
Well, unfortunately who would you have suggested we vote for? Bush was the republican nominee (don't blame me, I voted for McCain in the primaries).
Oh, absolutely. McCain would have made a far better President than Bush. I don't agree much with the Republican philosophy, but at least Gore would have had a worthy opponent, and the US would still have had a great statesman as President, whether Gore or McCain won.
McCain is a statesman. Bush is a bumbling fool that I wouldn't even hire as a tractor salesman.
That Bush got the nomination proves, of late, there is something very seriously wrong with the Republican party.
I'm sure as hell not going to vote for ol' baby-killing tax-and-spend Al Gore and his band of merry liberal pot-head cronies.No. It's a much better idea to have an alcoholic admitted cocaine-user in the White House, especially since he's got 20 years of his life unaccounted for.
Try getting a job with even six months unaccounted on your resume.
Geez. I say deal with it America. We (Republicans) had to live through years of torture when democrats controlled the congress and the executive branch so I hope you guys get to have a taste of what that's like.If it were just about the fact that the Republicans won, that'd be fine. The country has spoken, that's the direction that people want.
But the fact that the Republicans appear to have won with George W. Bush at the helm, to my way of thinking, very seriously calls into question whether the people are intelligent enough to be allowed to determine their own fate.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
The democratic party can go about forever being a nicer version of the GOP. As such, it can smooth snome rough edges in our life. But this is a loosing battle. The new democratic party has no new ideas except polling people to death. It has no meaning except that decadence can be smooth and not too painful. It doesn't have a direction because it's constantly walking back, since it's only vision is to push back the right wing tide.
Yes, we we will be better off if with a little less right wing control of our life, but the democratic party cannot carry the message and convince anybody because it smells like a dead fish. And nobody buys new ideas from dead fish.
Nader helps put this in perspective. He shows that an unapologetic lefty can get people to pay to hear him talk. I hope the few undead people in the democratic party take this to heart, and understand that their job is to set the progressive agenda, not to be commanders of the great retreat. And costing them the white house is probably the best way to pass that message to them.
In this election, I loose and I win anyway.
the only clear win, BTW is Hillary Clinton. I am just bursting with pleasure at the thought of all those male chavinist hysterics to whom a women who doesn't apologize for loving power is the devil incarnate. Go hillary, castrate them all!!!
-- look, cheese ahoy!
I agree 100%
"He would have one today, had he been a winner." Julius Caesar ( re: Pompey)
-- look, cheese ahoy!
I may her fuck her before and after, but she ain't escaping the beating.
You are assuming that all the people who voted Nader would have voted Gore, and, frankly, that is not the case at all. Nader was certianly above Gore on my list of candidates - and it was quite probably the same for others. In addition, many Nader supporters claimed that they would not have voted for anyone had it not been for Nader - so, Gore would not have gotten (many) more votes. At any rate, let's hope Nader get's his 5%. It certianly will be interesting.
Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.
This is false, according to what the networks are reporting. The networks report that 1/4 of those voting for Nader would've stayed home Nader was not in the race. The rest would have voted for Gore. This 3/4 difference would have been enough to swing Florida to Gore.
Yup...his dad destroyed the economy, and his dad wasn't an idiot. This does not bode well for the next four years.
Add the (at least) two rightists he will put in the supreme court, squandering the SSN funds to his investment pals on wall street...
The way his dad ignored the pleas from the DOJ that the S&Ls/Insurance companies were ripping off america...and kept it all under wraps til america got totally screwed and it was too late to fix.
Finally, the house, senate and president are all republicans...Bill Gates just got his reprieve.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
There's one problem with this reasoning...
Most Nader voters would not vote for Gore, they simply wouldn't vote otherwise...
I voted for Nader because we live in a democracy and I want it to stay one: I want to vote for who represents my opinions, not for who i'm told to vote for, not because I was influenced by the media, and not because I am afraid of Bush.
~ The Irony is, The only reason I'm not at Berkeley right now is because I was on acid during my SAT's..
Most of the news sites have officially predicted Bush as the winner, after he took Florida late tonight. One site said they may ask for a recount in Florida.
The Republicans are in almost complete control now. The Democrats majorly f'd up when they were in a similar position back in 93/94. Let's see what happens.
Will they come through on their promises to reduce the size and role of government? Or will they screw it up - raise taxes, put the ten commandments in all of our face, ignore the debt, and waste too much money on corporate subsidies and the military?
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
Not all three - Gore snagged one of them about an hour ago. Made my heart flutter. Yay for Bush! :-)
Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.
"Pass the crow, please."
...and boy are our faces red.
ABC to the world: We have shifted our projection back to "Too Close to Call"
There goes the whole "Not Bush" vote
Wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy To early. Florida is one THE states that will make or break who wins this elections.
Wahoo! go gore!
Even if you get a majority of the individual votes from actual voters themselves, the electoral vote is what carries you through?
Are YOU listed?
Ahh, since you're not from the US, I'll excuse your ignorance of the fact that we're a Repulic (or Representative Democracy) NOT a Democracy. Subtle difference, but a huge one. Most notably, we don't elect our president, we elect the people that elect our president. In the future, it's better to wait until a topic you understand comes up to get sarcastic about it.
hopefully he still hasn't killed gore. DAMN I WANT BUSH TO LOSE... smelly bush, you know I hate them
The voices in my head don't like you
Unfortunately, the electoral college weakens smaller states because nearly all of the states have a "winner-takes-all" electoral mechanism. This forces candidates to spend much time and effort courting high-electoral count states, such as Florida and California, while generally ignoring smaller states, such as Oregon and Iowa. If the states divided their electoral votes between the candidates based on state vote percentages, the electoral college would work as it was intended; 1 Florida (electoral) vote would be 1 Florida vote, equal to 1 Oregon vote. This would also have minimized the "Nader" problem the Democrats suffered from -- third parties would receive some electoral votes, but it wouldn't hurt other candidates as much as it did the Democrats in this election.
What is more interesting than whether Nader cost Gore the election, or whether the U.S. is headed to hell in a handbasket as our fuzzy foreigner friends seem to agree on, is how this affects the Microsoft ruling.
I'm torn. I agree with Judge Jackson's findings of fact. But I don't trust the gov't to make things right and rosy.
With Bush president elect we are probably heading for an amicable solution. That is, the gov't won't be delegated to solve all MS problems, yet Microsoft will still have to change their ways.
I guess I just figure we'll beat Microsoft even if the fight isn't fair. And if not us, some game console will.
p.s. No disrespect to non-U.S. residents, but I'm allways rather reassured when you dislike our choices.
... I know for absolute certain that if we stay the course now with Al Gore and do not do something to radically change the entitlement (privatize, etc) I will NOT ever by able to enjoy the benefits of the program. It just won't exist anymore.
Exactly. Anyone under 40 (hell maybe even 50) in the US, that thinks they'll get SocSec when they're 65, is deluding themselves.
How dare you assume that anyone that actually gives a shit about how THEIR hard earned income is spent by the federal government is a greedy asshole.
Exactly. I have nothing against helping people, but the current system of tax, tax, TAX.. and then waste most of it on programs that don't work is stupid. I'd prefer a strong military, which increases jobs in companies that support defense projects, and increases the need for soldiers.. let people get money through jobs and/or military service in a system like that, don't weaken our defense and pay people via welfare programs. That, and pay the enlisted men a little more so they aren't so poor.
- My favorite error message: xscreensaver, running on an old Sparc 5 w/ 8bit color: bsod: Couldn't allocate color Blue
I watched the returns coming in with a few of my intellectual Cuban-American friends, and they were wincing -- shouting to their imagined reactionary brothers and sisters in Florida, "Don't do it! Don't vote payback! You'll get exactly what you *don't* want if you do!" I think they're probably right, sadly enough.
Argh. The Supreme Court, decided by a two-year-old blowjob. What a depressing night.
Aw, You just wanna join us. 8P
I couldn't have said it better myself.
"It's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."
- Abraham Lincoln
Maybe, but frankly, this is none of your business, and it will be a very sad day when someone divorces in order to appeal to nosy voters.
-- look, cheese ahoy!
yep, and they're at 99.9%, which i calculated in the 5000 people range left. What fun! And write-ins (which old people like to do) aren't counted yet. This'll be down to the .01% deciding. Isn't it great that .01% deciding who's going to be elected?!
And at the official website it's at 630. So the 600-700 mark is correct
Yes Nader cost Gore the Presidency. Thus spoke those who believe in democracy, not just a 2 party system. Back in '92 it was Perot who cost Bush his reelection. Maybe Perot was apologizing when he came out last week and supported the Son of Bush on November 7th.
The lesson: Ideals have a price but if you don't support your convictions you also lose.
Reality is just a clever Hack, and the Planck constant is the refresh rate.
And with the FL recount underway, and the margin of victory within the margin of error, all I can say in response to my original "Good luck" post is is that I like my crow served piping-hot and stuffed with breadcrumbs. With a little imagination, it tastes just like turkey!
--
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Yardapes Unite.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
OK, I'm a little unclear on the system, but this is how it works (right?):
Which ever candidate gets the most popular vote, their party gets to pick the electors (the electoral college)). The don't just get the votes, there are people.
Okay, so the electors cast their vote for who they want, and since the party gets to pick them, they usually vote for their party, but since its off by as little as 2 electoral college votes, say a couple Republicans decided they have personal Grudges against Dubya, couldn't that change the election beyond prediction?
If I missed something please correct me. Its not exactly a clear system, sp don't moderate me either.
Twitter.com/TrentonHyatt
A Fundamentalist Christian, who beleives that the Bible is the exact word of God - including that wacky fire-and-brimstone Revelations ending - has his finger on the fucking button.
"Tell me when, lord, tell me when..."
PigPog.
Seeing all my mistakes and slips, I should probably go to bed now.
-- look, cheese ahoy!
Do gay minority Wiccan women prefer Bush or Nader? Your post wasn't clear.
Kevin Fox
Kevin Fox
And the Greens' total is much larger than it was in 1996.
Green voters could have voted held their nose and ended up with Gore as President. But it appears that libertarians did hold their nose and got the candidate that prefers smaller government, lower taxes, and partial privatization of Social Security.
In comparison to Greens, I'd say Browne voters and sympathizers have nothing to complain about.
2004 won't be such a close race. (I mean, let's get real, how could it be any closer? ;-)
And then, third parties on the right and the left will probably improve their numbers. Make no mistake, enough voters are interested in alternatives to the Demipublicans that both parties will have to take notice.
Oh please Alex, you make it sound like I said America singlehandedly won World war Two. Granted, America entered the war late, but you can't dismis out of hand the many lives American soldiers lost because they are less in number than the 20 million Europeans who died.
20 millions _Russians_ only. Other european nations had more losses. Guess what, Americans die all the time, just like anyone else, but the point is, they did near to nothing to help Europeans when they needed help most.Especially if it is as you say and we were "beating a dead horse". If that was the case, why should we have wasted a single American life or materiel resource to help Europe beat the Axis powers?
To keep Russians out, and to establish military and political presence (what became NATO) and economical ties in Europe, of course.
What did or does America owe any country in Europe?
Americans insist that everyone owes them their lives.
Not that there would be a Europe free of Soviet influence if not for our substantial and expensive military presence in Europe after the war.
Soviet and American influence would be worth each other -- no matter what propaganda of each country's government was telling for decades about the other. And if US got into Europe earlier Soviets wouldn't have much opportunity for expansion there either -- as they would be more busy repairing their own country anyway. However it worth to be noticed that after WWII Soviets quickly learned to limit military involvement abroad to situations that were seriously threatening them or their direct allies (for right or wrong reason). OTOH, US started (and continues) to throw its military weight around while being completely unprovoked.
Oh, and a belated congratulations to France for getting America mired in Vietnam and then pulling out.
France got beaten in Vietnam with heavy losses and got out. Americans went there, got basically the same with less losses but while pissing off more people, and pulled out. Result: a lot of people killed.
While I'm at it, thanks for helping out in the Persian Gulf war too, we appreciate the token show of support on Europes part in stopping Iraqs naked territorial aggression against Kuwait.
US behavior in Kuwait was a great example of doing everything to piss off Iraq people, destroying economy of Iraq, thus leaving no chance for recovery with or without Saddam, then extorting oil for worthless food while maintaining embargo (as sending food to starving person can help that person, but sending food to starving country can only harm its economy further). Yeah, a lot of reasons to help.
Europe having no strategic or economic interest and all of that, in what goes on in the Middle East or Northern Africa. I won't even go into Serbia, and Europe's lack of interest in doing anything about Milosovichs Hitler-esque atrocities without American backing. Go ahead and shed your tears, they aren't America's fault or problem.
American aggression in Kosovo is one of the most blatant examples of US sticking its nose where it doesn't belong. The only result of this was strenghtening Milosevich's position in Serbia and weakening of opposition precisely at the time when he needed it most. "Atrocities" mostly started after US attacked Serbia/Kosovo, basically fighting at the side of Kosovo rebels that even now are neither a legitimate organization, nor a positive force in Kosovo politics. Don't believe all the propaganda, especially when it comes from CNN.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Additionally, Nader has garnered 2,349,225 of the popular votes. Considering that many Nader voters may have voted for Gore had Nader not been a candidate, this makes me even less confident in tonight's election. Maybe we should have a run-off between the two major candidates if one of them gets less than 50% of the vote. But, of course that will never happen. Now, I know that it is the electoral college votes that really choose the presidency, but in an election this close, I'm not sure that some of them won't defect and possibly vote for Gore. In fact, with myself supporting Gore (and not because I like him, but because I like Bush even less) the only thing that comforts me as I go to sleep tonight is that very thought that perhaps some of the electoral college voters will not vote with the popular votes in their state and will vote for Gore. Hey, stranger things have happened.
--------------------------------------
If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
...we'll be able to bring our guns to church.
Having exclusively used the public transit system during my first years as a programmer (quite happily, mind you), I'll kindly ask you to go suck an egg for posting such narrow-minded stereotypical crap. I actually agree with just about everything else you said, but that kind of garbage only serves to undermine your message.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
As of 2:18amEST, accoring to CNN, we're fucked.
In this crowd it's a dangerous allusion, but I am reminded of the words of the olden days 'Wobbly' labor organiser Joe Hill, shot to death by the cops. (You think this stuff is _modern?_)
"Don't mourn, boys. Organise."
Yhcrana
The voices in my head don't like you
This is totally illogical.
Here's my logic:
1) Exit polls are usually correct.
2) Bush supporters assume that GeeDub has no chance, so they may decide to punt.
3) Gore supporters assume that their candidate has it locked, so they may decide to punt.
4) Many of the above go and vote anyway because they are already on the way from office or school to the polling place.
One of my favorite parts of these suppsedly fraudulent voting situations was when they held the polls open for longer in Missouri. Apparently there were many people standing in line, so a judge said they could keep them open. I guess I might be the only one who doesn't see the problem here. I could see the argument made that possibly many people didn't go to the polls because they thought they were closed when in fact they weren't. But, isn't the point of the election to see which candidate the people want? I guess I may just be naive, but I think its a great thing that they left the polls open, no matter if the electors in the state went to someone else because of it!!
OH you mean like Clinton?
Get your PostgreSQL here: http://www.commandprompt.com/
As I mentioned in an earlier reply, this is false, according to what the networks are reporting according to the exit polls. The networks report that 1/4 of those voting for Nader would've stayed home Nader was not in the race. Even 1/2 of the 3/4 left voting for Gore would be enough difference to swing Florida to Gore.
There is a definite problem to this system, and that comes in with the write-in vote. How do you rank it? Do you limit the amount of people that you can vote for in order of preference? Do you come up with some scale for the amount of people that you ranked -- and can you assure that in that situation that the person who ranked more candidates votes are counted the same as the person who only voted for one person?
With these situations in mind, I think that the only way to do this, is through the "vote for all whom you would like" method (I can't remember the technical name"... in this situation you can write in as many names as you want and give them each one vote!!! I think if this were the case, Ralph Nader would have gotten a great deal more votes than he did, as I can personally think of a good number of my friends who were holding out to the bitter end, in hopes that they wouldn't have to vote the hate vote (that they hated George Bush more than they liked Ralph Nader), myself being one of them.
I think with a system like that, you would open up the system to 3rd parties and get a much bigger variety of people in the government. Something which I personally think needs to happen!!
In your example of why you think it's a bad idea, did you consider that the same thing would happen with the rankings? If someone's main objective is to vote against Gore, he'd give Gore the lowest ranking, to make sure that no matter how close it came, his vote wouldn't promote Gore over anyone else.
1. Bush
2. Some guy I vaguely recognize who isn't Gore.
3. I dunno who he is, but he's not Gore.
4. I think this guy's a fascist, but he doesn't really have a snowball's chance in Hell, and he's not Gore.
5. Gore.
I really think that in that system, people would have this issue pointed out to them, and they'd bother to learn who all the candidates on the ticket are (or at least the majority would vote strongly against all the ones who they don't recognize).
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Whose daddy was the head of the CIA and the president of the United States? Who, upon discovering that polls had put Florida's electoral votes into Gore's column ditched his own election party at the Four Seasons Hotel, fleeing to the governor's mansion... with daddy? Whose daddy has the power, the means, and the will to change a few votes in Florida? I smell a rat! I demand a recount, and you should too!!! Something fishy happened in Florida, that much is patently clear. Come on, you can't blame calling Florida for the wrong candidate on faulty data entry... Have all the absentee ballots been counted... accurately? Not if George "W" Bush and his DADDY have anything to do with it...
Against Corporate Welfare
For Universal Health Care
For Social Justice
Against WTO, NAFTA, World Bank
For Gay Rights
For, Drug problem = Health Problem
Against Death Penalty (unlike Gore or Bush)
For Family Farm Not Big Agribusinesses
Against Your Tax Money going into Billions in Military Spending
For Minimum Wage Increase, Living Wage
For Environmental issues
For Individual Privacy
Nice wish list. Now, thanks to Ralph Nader giving the election to George Bush, you get to see the Republicans pass legislation that stomps every one of those concerns, with the possible exception of privacy.
And what prize did the Green Party get for leading the nation into darkness? Nothing. They didn't even get their 5%.
Way to go, Naderites! You really showed the system!
stay the fuck away from here man, we are about to have an election to, and we dont need your bad juju.
I am become Troll, destroyer of threads
oh please, nader didn't have a chance in hell of winning. He did suprisingly well in my state of Colorado with 5% though.
cheese logs keep my wang warm at night.
When I see the map of the areas that voted for Bush it almost makes me wish the North had lost the Civil War.
I voted for Nader, and i'm glad i voted for Nader.
Granted, i didn't vote for him in a swing state, nor did i encourage anyone to, but i didn't discourage it, either. I let people make up their own minds on whether they want to vote out of fear or vote their conscience. Frankly, i see both sides.
Anyway, in those swing states, everyone seems to say, "oh, if you had just added Nader's totals to Gore's totals, Gore would've won." It'd be nice if the world worked like that. However, Nader supporters are OFTEN not Gore supporters. Some of us are, but many of us would have voted for other third party candidates. A lot of us wouldn't have voted at all, and some of us-- a significant portion of us, actually-- would've voted for Bush. You can't blame Nader, just 'cause we didn't vote for Gore. Why not blame the +100k people who didn't vote for ANYONE? How about the people who actually voted for Bush? How about blaming Gore for not addressing issues that a segment of the left obviously cares about?
You'll see a lot of polls that try to break down the Nader vote into Gore, Bush, and not voting segments, but this is a definite manipulation of the polls. A very large portion of Greens would, if given the choise between those three, pick Gore, but if Nader had dropped out, then voted for another third party instead.
Don't try to blame the Greens when the Democrats fail.
Here come the flames.
-benc
Yes, ignorance wins again. Well, actually, ignorance winning was inevitable. Hopefully Nadar will pull the 5% needed for matched federal funds, but that doesn't look like it'll happen either. Well, at least we have our guns.
System possessed? # grep deamon
this fucking sucks
Then you're just not doing it right.
Mark
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
- if you love something, set it free; if it doesn't come back, hunt it down and kill it
Florida by county
Broward County. 600,000 votes, 94% reported. That leaves 36,000 votes uncounted in Broward.
With Broward going 70% Gore and 30% Bush, that's a spread of 15000 votes.
That's within the margin of error for Florida as of 0351 EST.
I don't fuckin' believe it, this thing ain't over yet, recount in Florida or not.
UN - FUCKING - BELIEVABLE.
Wasn't there a story yesterday about how there would be no meltdowns this election night?
/re port.asp?Date=001107
http://enight.dos.state.fl.us
HTTP/1.1 Server Too Busy
I wonder what the httpd is?
Anybody who voted Nader because of what he HAD TO SAY will be totally immune from this sort of blackmail. He was and is RIGHT. Both the main parties are so completely corrupt they are indistiguishable. Hell, they are so indistinguishable they produced probably the closest Presidential election in history. It's time for the Demopublicratians to get out of the way. They are _slime_ and their candidates are slime too.
And your question, 'what good has it done you?'?
I didn't vote for slime. I voted based on issues and a platform that backed my personal concerns and beliefs. Try it sometime if you have the guts.
Ignoring the Nader vote, Buchanen got enough votes in Florida to swing the state, had they gone to either of the other two candidates.
~Cederic
Which highlights the problem with Canada, and why the Reform party started in the first place: the entire western half of the country only has 90 seats. The election can be over before the polls close in BC.
Couple that with virtual dictatorship power for a majority government, and you have effectively no representation in Ottawa at all for the country west of Winnipeg.
The CA was an attempt to stop splitting the right wing vote, but the eastern Conservatives refused to play ball. Instead they dig up old Joe Clark, the west's last major PC player, other than perhaps Mazankowski, supposedly appealing to western regional interests and the eastern red Tories.
So once again, we face a split right wing, a disenfranchised west, and an unchecked Liberal party. Sigh...
this is where the OFFICIAL RESULTS are coming from and it's the website that NBC is referring to. but it's getting HAMMERED right now. it's crazy. tom brokaw isn't lying. only about 600 votes.
and the main results page is at http://enight.dos.state .fl .us/001107RACES.ASP?DATE=001107
sorry about the quick incoherent post. but this is just....insane. god bless america. :)
1200 votes out of 1.2 million.
Granted, the election's over with Bush taking FL. So this is all hypothetical. But given the closeness of the races, consider...
1200 votes. Six hundred people changing their minds in a two-party race, or one non-voter in a thousand getting off his or her ass and voting, could have changed WI's 11 electoral votes one way or the other.
In a parallel universe not too different from our own, the Presidency was won by WI's "scanning-tunnelling-electron-microscope-sharp" 600-voter margin, rather than FL's "merely razor-sharp" 50,000-voter margin.
Back to our universe, let that be a lesson to anyone who said "one vote doesn't count". (And for that matter, the guy who said "voter fraud shouldn't be a felony")
Do you really think you can speak for all those who voted for Nader?
I knew it was sometime out there, but I wasn't sure when. Thanks. :)
Boo
-- lk t lv ll th vwls t f wrds. T svs lts f tm t wrt bt ts pn n th ss t rd nd mks m lk lk cmplt dpsht.
I admit defeat. Nader did indeed cost Gore the election
Perhaps. Keep in mind that if it weren't for Ross Perot costing George Bush the 1992 election, we might not have Al Gore running in this election.
It's obvious that we need to use a different method of voting, and we need to cripple the two-party duopoly that the Dems and Repubs have put in place to keep themselves in power. I think we'd be well off using a Borda count (see the November 2000 issue of Discover Magazine for a discussion of alternative methods).
Like a large segment, possible most, of the population, I am tired of the president being either a guy that the Republicans want to be president or a guy that the Democrats want to be president. It's highly doubtful that a person who fits either of those descriptions will ever be someone that I want to be president. There are a lot of us who feel that way. At its worst, we end up choosing between the lesser of two evils. But, almost by definition, the person who wins isn't the person that most people would have wanted.
A Borda vote can change that. Until then, I did the smart thing and voted for Harry Browne.
Michael
Do you have ESP?
Nader is a frail, 65 year-old man. He may very well be dead in 2008, and the Green Party will not long survive him. Personality-driven parties never last (see Bull Moose & Reform parties as examples).
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
slashcode's long-line breaker seems to be screwing up links after previewing... So let's try that again without a preview:
I hope not, considering that the Canadian federal election is November 27.
Yhcrana
The voices in my head don't like you
Is anyone woried that Bush now being president and the fact that the Republicans now control both the senate and house and how Bush will appoint 3 supreme court judges will make the Republicans too powerfull?
Well lets see how the recount in FL come out.
I think that the Green Party, instead of being blamed for losing Gore the election, should be complaining to it's members about how their last minute compromise of conscience resulted in the Green Party's loss of federal matching funds in 2004, and still didn't make a difference in the election.
144l. ph34r my 133t l3g4l 5k1lz!
I have but one word:
Freejack
In Florida, with 99% of the precincts reporting:
/way/ less happy with Bush than with Gore. Well, you had your chance to keep Bush out of office, and you passed it up. All in the name of 'voting your conscience.'
Bush: 2,835,930 (49%)
Gore: 2,780,481 (48%)
Nader: 94,320 (2%)
Estimated percentage of Nader voters that would have voted for Gore had Nader not run: 75% (YMMV)
Do the math.
To those of you who refused to believe that "A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush", it's time to wake up and smell the numbers.
Most of you Nader supporters (from what I gather) are "disgruntled democrats"; you're voting for Nader because you're not happy with Gore. But I'm sure that if it came down to Gore or Bush (and in the end, it did), you'd be
What good has it done you?
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Gore might win, this is from- FLORIDA's VOTING SITE- http://enight.dos.state.fl.us/report.asp?Date=0011 07
this is in real time.
Bush gets 2,898,508
Gore gets 2,897,939
Both have the same percentage point, the server is getting SLAMMED!
However, 32768 of those were from Georgia. Especially given some of the technical nature of Browne's base, does that strike anyone else as one heck of a coincidence?
Hawke
well over half of Nader voters say they would have voted Gore if Nader hadn't run.
Ok, my sources suck.
On another note, the poll they showed on cnn said that 10% of nader voters would have voted bush. Who are these people? I don't understand what they support that they shifted from bush to nader. are they just confused?
That's a good question!
__________________________________
all misspellings were intentional.
I hope you are happy with what you have done here today. You have made a mockery of the system, and this Country. But you have your DUI convicted, coke-head President. I hope you're happy.
On the serious side, I can say I'm disappointed, but the results were fun to watch. I can definitely say that I found it more interesting than the most recent World Series. The thing I feel the worst about is that George "Duh" Bush will most likely get to appoint 3 new Supreme Court Justices. For all the women in the country, I just hope they leave Roe v. Wade alone.
Flame if you want, but I'd rather have a discussion.
Still, with a plan, you only get the best you can imagine. I'd always hoped for something better than that. -CP
It's all over as of 2:33 AM the wrong guy (for slashdotters everywhere) is in office congrats anyways. -- to GWB on a more positive note, Kantwell beat Gorton...
The only thing I can think of is that I hope that since we have become so centrist in our electoral-college-influenced political thinking, the difference won't be all that noticable. Giving how each politican pandered to all the special interest groups, one can only hope that the victor (George W, ya think they planned that oblique reference to the guy? "I knew George W, and you sir, are no George W...") will ignore them all equally as well as they pay back all that money in well-deserved favors and legislation.
Garry Trudeau, in a caricature of the new head honcho, would have penned an empty suit, I suppose. Is that better or worse than a feather or a bomb?
One last thought: It will be said that Ralph cost Gore the election, and so it should. In the future, such men can control the destiny of our country, but only vicariously... and through the eyes of only the enemy of his vanquished, erstwhile ally.
Oh, one more thing, and then, like all those tired, tired journalists tonight, I will surrender to my exhaustion: (/nasal on) What is the deal with the media telling us that Florida's election tallying computers are on the fritz after they retract that projection of a Gore victory?
I'd like to know!(/nasal off)
http://www.jabin.com/wavs/hello1.wav
SDMI: Finally! Music that won't rip or burn! Brought to you by the fine folks at RIAA.
... now he has time to reinvent the Internet.
All sources point to a rally for a while, due to the prospect of the $1.3 trillion tax cut by Bush. Any stocks that sell materials to the military are probably a good bet... -------------------------- The Sheep In Wolf's Clothing
According to CNN at about 1:30am central, FL is now chalked up as a Bush win, giving him 271 electoral college votes, making him the next Prez irregardless of what happens in Oregon or Wisconsin.
The difference in raw votes cast between Bush and Gore in Florida was about 50,000. Nader got about 93,000 votes. In other words, the speculation as to the Nader Effect can be put to rest, in that he effectively cost Gore the race, while still only garnering about 2.5% of the popular vote nation wide.
As a Democrat (being what we here in Texas call a yeller dawg democrat in that I'd happily vote for a yellow dog if it was on the Democratic ticket), I can only call this depressing. The second thing that comes to mind is "fuckin' nader". The third thing to occur to me is that out of ~84 million votes cast, Bush won by about 600,000, so he will not be a President with a strong popular mandate, a fact which I can only pray reins in the damage he will cause to America.
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News for Geeks in Austin, TX
Here here, God Help Us All.
Bush was declared the winner a while ago, but further Florida counts have shown Bush beating Gore by only 1310 votes. 13-hundred-and-fucking-ten. More votes than that are not yet counted. Furthermore, such a small margin will certainly warrent a recount.
Bush will probably win, but it is still possible for Gore to pull through. Amazing. Simply amazing.
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As of 1AM pst Gore has retracted his concession, and there is only a 1,000 vote difference in Florida...keep your eyes peeled
I only post twice a year, who needs a sig?
Gore has retracted his concession speech. Vote difference in Florida may be less than 1000. See The Miami Herald and CNN.
You need preferential voting like we have here in Australia.
...don't get me started on the college system... ;)
I can vote for whoever I like in the knowledge that if they don't get up, I can steer my vote to a second preference and if they don't get up... etc. etc.
It means my vote counts in every way, rather then removing my vote from helping decide a two horse race.
Marty
"I can't buy want I want because it's free. Can't be what they want because I'm me." -Corduroy, Pearl Jam
That's what CNN is saying now. This is probably redundant, I'm sorry, it's late, I needed to post it though.
---- Yay! I have a sig!
And don't forget that it's Shrub's own running mate Dick Cheney, as a lowly representative from Wyoming, who railroaded the Iran-Contra Joint Investigation Committee's proceedings and ran them into the ground, basically clearing the way for Bush Sr. to escape the incident unscathed and unindicted. The real sad thing I see coming out of all this is that when Clinton was elected, we had the Congress & the White House controlled by opposite parties. (And thus all the investigations launched by one party.) Now, there's nobody out there to attack Bush on his shady dealings with Draft Dodging through the Texas Air National Guard (and going AWOL for over a year)...
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
What we need is the Borda count. See this article in Discover magazine. It seems to provide the best way to select the winner from multiple candidates. It lets you rank the candidates so that you don't have to "waste" your vote. It is apparently used by some scientists because of its accuracy.
"sweet dreams are made of this..."
Maine and Nebraska have the right idea. If all the states weren't winner-take-all, this would've been a much more interesting race.
Kindly don't jump to the conclusion that all Nader voters are racked with guilt. I think Gore is scum _too_. I refuse to consider him a better option than Bush. If I had to choose between the two I'd have refused to vote, same as last election.
Bush appears to have won Florida, giving him 271 votes in the Electoral College.
The difference between whether Gore or Bush won Florida, the last deciding state, was the wasted votes directed at Ralph Nader.
As punishment to Florida and to the Green Party, I'm yanking half the spark plugs leads off my truck tomorrow morning before I drive to work. I hope my small contribution to the cause of global warming gives Nader lung cancer, and melts the polar ice-caps to drown the wasteland that is Florida.
Troll this all you want, I've got more karma than you have.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Well, an hour later the difference in FL may have only been 6,000 between Bush and Gore. All the more reason to curse Nader in my book.
--
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
Great. I spoke too soon and jinxed it.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
Gore is winning the popular vote ATM by about 50,000 votes with 5% still waiting to be counted
I only post twice a year, who needs a sig?
I'm glad I voted 215 times yesterday. Looks like my hard work paid off.
Voter.com has projected Bush the winner of Nevada, which is appropriate considering he has almost 20,000 more votes. So, even if Gore wins Florida, Bush will still win with Oregon (where he leads by 30,000 votes) and Wisconsin (where he leads by over 7,000 votes).
Yes, the election is close, and I can understand the Gore Campaign's reluctance to concede at this stage (I would do the same I think). But it's extremely likely that Bush will either carry Florida or will carry both Oregon and Wisconsin. For absentee votes to turn around all three of those states would be quite amazing.
So I'm going to sleep very confident that a Republican has been elected to the Presidency.
Of course, the real winner in this election, if I might say so, is the United States, who turned out in amazing numbers to cast their votes. I'm so proud of the turnout in this election, and I hope people will gain a new appreciation of the importance of everybody's participation.
I can say with a straight face, "God Bless America". Cheers, John
Actually, I myself have done coke, and I have drank, and however as I cannot say that I have any mafia connections I have had dealings with the underbelly of society at times, yet I have changed, and I feel confident that it is entirely possible that GW has changed as well, you are bringing up things which happened very far in the past, I am speaking of things which are being purveyed upon us in the present time, I cannot deny that Bush has had his problems, but I truly doubt that you yourself Hellasboy are the angel you seem to want us to think that you are, if we went digging through your past what would we find, drugs, alcohol, rape, who knows, but one thing is for sure, we have all made mistakes, we have all done things of which we are not proud of, however basing you decision on events that happened twenty some odd years ago is an asinine thing to do, especially in light of the fact that Gore has lied (my #1 pet peeve about politicians) right to our face, and not twenty years ago, he has lied to our faces in the present, and I consider that a far greater evil than the sins of GW twenty years ago.
CNN is showing 224 votes difference. My apartment building (perhaps my floor!) contains more than enough votes to decide it. Unbelievable...
There will be a lot of scrutiny of the inevitable recounts in Florida. It could drag on and on. Bush should throw in the towel now and submit to the nationwide popular vote.
Actually the vote difference in Florida is about 500 votes and there are about 13,000 outstanding ballots yet to be counted from soldiers that are abroad.
"sweet dreams are made of this..."
The florida results are available here for anyone who wants the best up to the minute numbers since Florida is the only thing that matters now. Good luck getting through though :)
Go ahead and blame Nader for Gore's loss. Start crying about it... But the fact is if Gore was a better canidate all those people would have voted for Gore. The only person that cost Gore the election is Gore.
I'm already sick of hearing about "...if there was only Bush and Gore, Gore would have won" Well guess what? IT'S NOT SO WAKE UP! Bush wins (thank god) and life goes on...
"Madness and Genius are separated solely by Degrees of Success." -Unknown
Thanks for the info. I knew there was a court case that established the precedent, but didn't know what the argument was.
Still, it seems like the tenth amendment pretty specifically addresses where such powers go... wasn't that the argument of state's rights advocates before the Civil War?
I need to study history some more...
Everyone was calling FL for Gore early ... then, suddenly, it turned around (amid rumors of computer problems). The explanation I've heard for this is that the pollsters forgot to take the conservative western part of the state into account. But why would the pollsters make a no-brainer mistake like that?
... but I am saying that someone should count those Florida votes *very* *very* carefully in order to make sure there wasn't.
Some of my friends are suggesting that Daddy Bush called in a favor or two in Florida. This sounds like a ridiculous conspiracy theory, but then, Iran/Contra did too until it proved to be true. And don't forget Bush's role in that!
I'm not saying there was fraud
--
Ben "You have your mind on computers, it seems."
You are correct.
IANAL, but my California Bar Exam results come out on November 17th.
But, read Marbury v. Madison (actually don't read it, it's dense). Essentially, if the Supreme Court cannot rule on the constitutionality of a law or government act, then there's absolutely no point to having a constitution. Ergo, the constitution implies that the Supreme Court has the power of constitutional review.
A bit of a circular argument, but it's the basis of the power of the Supreme Court, and it ain't going to be changed until the revolution.
144l. ph34r my 133t l3g4l 5k1lz!
On many occasions Bush has shown signs of being a not terribly intelligent man, and few signs that he is. Is he just the kind of guy who comes across as a fool but is actually smart?
I doubt it. I can hardly believe this goofball was elected. I am curious to hear what people living outside the USA think of George W.
Do think think he is:
A. just another dumb american
B. dumb, even for an american
C. so dumb that I can't believe even a bunch of dumb americans would elect him
D. I don't care what happens to you dumb americans
With 99% in, Bush has won Florida by 9,163 votes, from 5,757,579 votes cast!
That's the closest race I've ever heard of in politics.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
Bush wins
Gore conseeds
Florida is between 556 votes
Gore retracts consession
Is there ever a greater need for wired voting booths that would provide instant feedback...
int func(int a);
func((b += 3, b));
Checks and balances. The congress is in a dead heat (granted Cheney has some power there) and control who gets through. Remember the coke can?
If you look monroe county in florida They still have not reported You never know. He is only 11,000 down.
Don't worry, Dubya is going to "bring us together" as a nation, and puts lots more money into the War on Drugs. We can all sleep soundly.
BTW. You better start getting your bids together to buy oil drilling rights in Alaskan protected land; You wouldn't want to miss out on that.
"It's overkill, of course. But you can never have too much overkill." - Anonymous Slashdot Coward
God, please help us...
This is getting soooo dull. Does it matter which crook runs the biggest third world country?
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
Mel Carnahan gets elected in Missouri.
He's dead.
You Americans have got a great sense of humour!
I wonder how will they handle this if Gore wins the popular vote but not the electoral votes? I still think there is a very excellent chance that Gore will win Florida. There is also news that there was a faux-pas in that many Floridians accidentally voted for Pat Buchanan when they meant to vote for Al Gore. There was something wrong with the voting booth mechanism lever that caused that snafu. Since we know they were going to vote for Al this could really tilt it in his favor if they "fix" those miscast votes.
"sweet dreams are made of this..."
CBS moved florida back into the undecided category!!!!! they said the margin was so slim that with the uncounted absentee ballots, it is decided that florida is now undecided!!!! gore retracted his concession!!! sooo tired....
-nbot
There will probably be a recount. GORE WILL NOT CONCEDE!!! If he wins florida he wins the whole damn thing. HE WILL CONCEDE IF FLORIDA LOSES!!!
Gore will continue until a recount of florida happens. That is directly from Bill Daley of the Gore campaign at 1:05 Pacific time.
Yhcrana
The voices in my head don't like you
Well, after a very tense night, the Florida polls came in at 11:25 PST, and the electoral vote was launched to 271 for Bush, 249 for Gore, with only Oregon and Michigan to go.
It was a racous celebration in my dorm lounge!
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"Every man, without exception, is full of it." -- Athanasius
Actually, when I see Bush, I keep thinking of "The Dead Zone". For those who aren't familiar with King, that's the one that has a political zealot who is wacko enough to start WW3, but chicken shit enough to use a baby as a human shield. Same thing happens when I look at Indiana's 9th congressional candidate Michael Bailey (who thankfully was soundly defeated by Baron Hill).
/*Insert boring sig here*/
And the final results state:
Bush: 2,904,198
Gore: 2,902,988
Nader: 94,368
But this is without recounts. Which is what they're doing in Dade County as we speak.
You spoke too soon. At 02:31 CST, the hell it does. The reported difference is 500 votes.
((Tax Cut)+(Economy Boost)+(More Big Guns))== Fun;
Talking to a friend of mine in Taiwan via ICQ and he's saying a lot of taiwanese are really excited that Bush is in the lead (or Shao Buo Shi as he's known affectionately over there. Ask a chinese person). They feel that he'll do something about the US's decidedly ambiguous policy towards TW's independence. Personally I think he'll cave to the PRC anyway (on Cheney's rather cold-blooded policy making). Admittedly my friend works at an english language publication with a more 'americanized' staff but still, an interesting perspective. I'd have thought the international perspective would be on Gore.
PS-Gore has decided not to address the Dems personally - probably worried he might not be able to keep both fingers AND toes crossed L:)
I never understood why someone with more money should have a louder voice/bigger amplifier than someone with less.....
...
Yes, I know I ramble and my spelling isn't quite up to scratch. If you wish to complain,
Florida's race is so close that FL law requires a recount AND there are still over 5000 votes left to be counted. The difference is less than 2000...
Yaaaaaaawn.
Yes, Hillary will run for president!!!
-- look, cheese ahoy!
IMO, the parties should change the voting system for their primaries to something sane. Don't have to go through all the rigors of changing the constitution, and it seems like it would definitely benefit the party that did it.
Once people get used to it, then we could see about changing the constitution.
According to the latest wire from AP, announced at 2.19, Bush has been elected to be the last US President.
OOps.
-- look, cheese ahoy!
500 votes now. Really unfortunate.
That means that it really does come down to Florida, as all the network kept saying, and as I kept wondering why they kept saying. Turns out it was I who was wrong all the time, since I completely missed Gore's win in Washington state.
Fortunately, I'm still very confident that Bush will win Florida, primarily because of the absentee vote. The ones that have yet to be counted (or even received) are the overseas military votes, which should easily have a Bush majority. So if I was a betting man, my money is still on Bush. Sorry about my mixup. John
Although florida still can't be called CNBC just said that right now Bush is up 4% over Gore in florida right now. Florida is the key to this election, whoever takes florida will win.
Yeah, but then they got the rest of the votes in and accourding to the Florida Secretary of State, Bush is only winning by 569 votes. Automatic recount!
Guess it's time for bed, then...
chris
It looks as if neither candidate has 50% of the popular vote. Doesn't this mean that the majority of the American voting populace will not support the victor?
(Electoral College not withstanding)
and we all know that networks and polls are inviolate. *coughFloridacough*
--
+&x
he spoke pretty well for this one.
--
+&x
Yhcrana
The voices in my head don't like you
I've heard the "vote for Nader is a vote for change" line for so long now, and I can't help but think it overlooks something very important:
What if you don't beleive in Nader??
Yes, this election has been a choice between two very similar candidates. Yes, both candidates have ties to various business interests. That doesn't mean I should vote for Nader who is probably further from my own views than D "Dubyah" I is...
I voted for Gore not because I was voting for the status quo, or even because I hold the Democratic party in high regard. I voted for Gore because his platform was closest to my own beliefs.
I won't vote for a party if they don't reflect my beliefs, no matter how much we need "change"...
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
Second, Florida (and Michigan and California) are declared Gore instantly when the polls close. Bush leads in all, with a respectable margin, for some time. Gore comes back in Michigan and California, but eventually Florida is declared undecided. Then it turns Bush! That's when it gets interesting.
Third, Bush is declared winner. Gore congratulates him on victory. And then takes it back! No one can accuse him of dishonesty this time; Florida is declared undecided again.
Fourth, no one knows who won. Bush leads by almost a thousand votes in Florida, the deciding state, as I write this. Slim margin, maybe, but that's up from 500 earlier in the evening. Unfortunately, the margin is just too small, and we won't know until most of the absentee ballots are received by mail.
So finally, the dilemma: obviously I can't wait up for the results, since they probably won't be known for several days. So, do I go to bed now, or do I start coding in earnest? Bed, yeah, it's just an assignment that isn't due until tomorrow.
If you are modding me down because you disagree with me, use the "Flamebait" category, not the "Troll" one.
The difference in FL between Bush and Gore is right now 1800 votes (in favor of Bush)
This have to be the strangest elections I've ever seen...
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I can't believe the US are even close to electing Bush as president. I mean, the man is an ARSE
I wouldn't elect him to run my local cakeshop
I know most of you can't check the Secretary of Florida's officials results, so I screen-capped it. http://www.fasteddie.com/florida.jpg separated by 1210 votes currently!
Yhcrana
The voices in my head don't like you
No he did not, things are getting pretty intens since there was a problem in Florida, it can still be Gore, as an european, I can only be happy with this new event. fingers crossed
rope ? I knew I had to bring some rope with me ! now it is to late. Sam Gamgee in The Lord of the rings. J.R.R.Tolkie
NPR is reporting that the difference between bush and gore's popular vote is now in the neighborhood of 600 votes! Unfuckingbelievable.
We are glad you are not living in US.
So let's play a little guessing game.
What will be the first target Mr. Bush or Mr. Gore attacks and when will this happen?
If (and when, unfortunately it looks like that at the moment :( ) Bush is elected, I'd say it'll be sooner rather than later but it's hard to speculate about the target. Though I'd guess Middle East since if we're talking about Middle East, we're always talking about oil either directly or not so directly, but oil is always related to Middle East issues somehow and Bush sure knows something about oil.
If Gore is going to be the new president, he might wait a couple of years but someday he'll fight too. Clinton has shown that also Democrats can arrange nice little attacks. The place? Just a lucky guess... Some small Central American country where extreme left guerrillas have captured some important Americans (say, the senator of California and his family) but the commando operation to bring'em back fails and this is discovered by the media. So the president have to do something in order not to loose faces entirely and that something could be finish off those commies. Not entirely directly, though. Of course the operation would be led by corrupted local officials. But at least the Government of the USA would cry it loud they're involved with the instability in the area, unlike a few decades ago.
What's your bet?
And we have to figure out the prize, too... Slashdot ID below 1000?
So if I understand correctly, the semen stains in the Oval office's carpet will now replaced with beer stains?
Bizar technology?
Just wait... you're going to live a long, arduous life. Me, I'm planning on dying young. That's how it goes, they say -- the good die young.
C'est la vie.
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all misspellings were intentional.
What's wrong with an election in two stages? The primary/caucus system make it a two stage election system already in a sense.
If primaries were abolished, and instead all candidates participated in the first round, and only the two candidates with the highest national percentage of the votes participated in the second round, everyone could vote for the candidate they like most, instead of against the candidate they like least. The fear of wasting your vote wouldn't have to influence your choice.
In a system like that, McCain might even have won the elections, and in the first round too.
Bush never admitted to taking illegal drugs. He did admit to a DUI, but only after the press had already discovered it. His "own business" was solely from his family connections, as is his political career.
As for the people...I suppose they identify better with the man who is the son of a president, went to Yale, and got his start due to his family name, rather than the man who is the son of a senator, went to Harvard, and got his start due his to family name. What a great country!
Also...to all the people who are claiming some sort of message from an election this close: Gore ALMOST won; victory was a margin of only a few thousands of votes in Florida. What ridiculously sweeping conclusions would you have drawn in the opposite case?
Assuming a relatively linear distribution in the US, 50% of people in the US are below average intelligence. 50% vote for Bush--coincidence?
The only certainty is entropy.
Of course, it's not really over until the electoral college votes. 1 vote is a very slim margin. Bush needs Oregon and/or Wisconsin. =googol=
Yhcrana
The voices in my head don't like you
not everyone is obssessed with sex. Remember, when Miterand died, his official mistress came to the official funeral.
-- look, cheese ahoy!
Also, don't forget that the Reform/Alliance party sprang into being from almost nothing in the last couple elections and Liberal support has been steadily declining. The first time it was more of a protest vote from the west, angry that their voice was not being heard, since the party that wins Ontario and Quebec controls the government. From that protest, they've grown into a national party in their own right.
The problem with the conservative party, besides the problems with their leadership, is the fact that since they tend to reduce spending and thus the funding for social programs, they often bring hardship to the people, and of course, that usually gets the Liberals back in for another two or three terms. Afterall, who can forgive the PC party, Brian Malrooney, etc for the GST and the Looney coin.
A similar thing tends to happen here in Manitoba.... The PC party cuts back more and more spending and eventually goes too far, people get pissed off, and start voting NDP instead and we have a few years of an NDP spending spree. It pains me, but just after we got a ballanced budget in Manitoba, the NDP got elected and will undoubtly undermine it by reintroducing all the programmes the Conservatives canned.
Anyway, that's it for my rant. I just hope the Alliance party gets voted in so we can all see for ourselves how badly they will mess up (and they will, like all parties before them).
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
Yhcrana
The voices in my head don't like you
I'm a registered Republican, and I voted for Nader. Point is, both the Republican and Democratic parties have totally abandoned their respective ideals. All my life I've been waiting to vote in this election (just turned 18)- and Nader was the only candidate I could vote for and not feel a tremendous paroxysm of guilt over. Thanks to Ralph Nader The United States as a whole is a better, safer place to live and work. Can the same be said for dubya or data (gore)?
Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep no
Me and a frend have been hitting CNN.com all night, and the deltas in florida got all the way to 224 at one point. We were hoping it would come down to less then ten or even tie that would have been pretty sweet :P
:)
as for the popular, Gore's been going up for a while, so it looks like the EC/Popular is going to reach diffrent results. witch is still cool
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
At the moment - 0423 EST - we may not know for DAYS. Florida will be recounted with Bush leading by 1200 votes, and will determine the Presidency.
At a minimum, we won't have the recount in Florida done until Wednesday afternoon.
The allegations I've seen on the press are just weird - people claiming they voted for Buchanan "by accident", missing ballot boxes, and Lord only knows what else.
I really can't believe what I've seen tonight. But there it is. I'm stunned. And I'm calling it a night on the reasonable grounds that nobody's gonna know who will win the Presidency until sometime later today.
Unfuckingbelievable.
CNN is reporting as I write that the FL secretary of state is calling the margin approximately 600 votes. This narrow a margin means automatic recount under FL law.
The first one to say "Republican Revolution" gets smacked...
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
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President-Elect Bush;
We often comment, down here in Australia, that we are the 51st state in the Union. America sneezes and - so goes the saying - we catch a cold. That is why I have watched the events in the US as closely as I would an Australian federal election.
I am not an American citizen. I have no voice in your country, and no real right to dictate to you or your country how you should govern yourselves. That is your right, and your right alone. However, America finds itself the clear leader amongst equals. Therefore I feel as if I should politely state my views to you, as you will now hold almost as much influence in my life as my own elected government does.
Firstly, I'd like to talk about Congress. In your campaign, you made a series of promises based on a projected budget surplus. Unfortuneatly, Congress is busily spending that surplus out from underneath you. Your first year or two of Presidency are going to need to focus on getting Congress to reign in its expansive spending. The USA simply cannot afford to fritter away that money, and the world cannot afford the USA being fiscally incompetent. I urge you to work with Congress to reduce spending where possible. My own inclination is to cut into defense spending and - yes - to begin shifting social security into the private sector. But apart from that the cost-cutting will not be easy. There is always somebody, somewhere, who will be angered.
Australia's government has managed in the last few years to exercise excellent fiscal restraint. A consistent string of surpluses have allowed a substantial reduction in debt, against a backdrop of political hostility and economic upheaval in Asia.
As an aside, I'd also like to direct your attention to the concept of a "Service Maintainence Fund". An SMF is a "rainy day account" for the nation. It allows government spending to remain steady in times of revenue contraction without the need for government borrowing. Your economic advisors, I am sure, would be able to deduce the advantages of just such a strategy (the advantages - politically and economically - are many). The Australian Liberal Party is currently beginning to develop policy in this direction, with an eye to 2003-4, when our debt is due to be wholly discharged.
On the topic of Congress, you are no doubt going to face a lot of pressure from within the Republican party to tread lightly in your first two years, ahead of the next round of senate elections. Your mandate in the Whitehouse and in Congress is a very close thing. While you have won the election, you are about to face a very tiring campaign against Congress. Your near-victory makes you vulnerable to any Congress member or senator who threatens to cross the floor in voting. If you display weakness you will be savaged. Be careful what you do.
On the topic of your comment, "There ought to be limits to freedom", I am concerned. I hope that in selecting Supreme Court judges you will select judges who will uphold the spirit of the US Constitution. The USC is a contract amongst the American people to form a government from amongst themselves. It is designed to defend their interests against what your founders saw as almost inevitable abuses of power. I hope that in selecting new judges, you are prepared to put the rights of the people before the artificial rights of corporations. As you do so, you abdicate more and more of the power vested in you by the people to what are little more than legal aircastles. Be careful in how far you go: corporations have the money, but it is the people from whom power ultimately derives.
I think that I have run out of things to say here. I know that all things even, you will never read this message. But I hope that you will understand these things: I see in the United States a nation founded on the best of principles. I see in the US greatness but also weaknesses; as much as I can see your continued greatness I can see where you can stumble and take Australia - and the world - with you. It is not just in your interest to be a wise and just President, it is in the interests of all human beings. You simply matter. That is why I write to you.
Congratulations on your win, and good luck in your term in office.
Yours Sincerely,
Jacques Chester.
due to "discrepancies"
things are definitely getting interesting.
"There are some who speak one moment before they think."
-Jean de La Bruyère
This election just keeps getting stranger, the networks have retracted the statement that Bush has won the election and Florida is doing a recount in accordance with state law. It's still anyone's game.
Los Angeles: 1,000 suburbs in search of a city.
wow. It looks like florida might have a recount, as the difference might be as small as 600 votes. looks like we might have to stay up really late to find out who won... -theman2
Check these out:
3:40 AM EST
99% of pricincts reporting
2,890,321 Bush
2,884,261 Gore
96,387 Nader
If about 6,000 of those Nader votes had gone to Gore...
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
I personally hope Gore did win California as I have no desire to live in a christian theocracy, but it's just too damn early to tell.
George "Dubya" Bush now has root. Live with it!
"There are lies, damned lies, and statistics!"
Yhcrana
The voices in my head don't like you
I bet if Bush loses...They'll find him dead at the Govenor's mansion after binging on coke...
-Kat
It compliles! Ship it!
From what I hear, less than 1200 votes seperate Bush and Gore in Florida, and 5000 more have yet to be counted. There is NO WAY you could make any sort of prediction about how 5000 ballots will fall. It is simply too small of a sample in too large of an electorate. Basically, it just comes down to blind luck now.
like anyone has any mod points left in this enormous 800+ thread L:)
He hasn't won yet - it's gone to a recount.
Note the last line:
Runoff election indicated
Runoff? Is this correct?
Then what you get is whoever has the most money, wins. Allowing unlimited spending only leads to politicians having to make too many promises to the people who can give them lots of money ie. big business. You also get the minor parties being completely left out since they are unable to effectively compete for the sponsors backing. Limiting the amount they can spend will mean the politicians need to be more efficient.
Phear my l33t homepage.
My knowledge of World War Two is sparse relative to yours. Though I agree with your accessment that it was our material support and sheer numbers that overwhelmed the German war machine. Not that our troops didn't have heart or ability, but our war machine and industrial might was not superpower class at the start of the war. Also you're right in that the Nazi's contribution to science was enormous. Basically I was just trying to lighten the mood, and I really do like the Nazi's style, if not their clinically evil world view. The tragedy of the Nazi regime is how their zeal and nationalism mixed base degeneracy with otherwise highly respectable achievements.
actually my understanding was that the whole reason there was a new constitution in 1787 was because the federal gov't wasn't powerful enough. specifically two states had an argument and barring war there was no way to settle it. now the supreme court does that.
laws must be interpreted. someone has to stand up and make a judgment as to what is legal or illegal. if not the supreme court then who? it only seems reasonable that congress writes the laws, the executive enforces the laws, and the judges make judgements based on the laws. and if the laws conflict it seems like they should mention that and make a decision.
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
Well, the word is official. Just listening to Peter Jennings, (sometimes the internet doesn't say it all!) and the absentee ballots in Florida can STILL be counted 10 DAYS after the polls close. So with the race in that state down to less than 2,000 votes, those absentee ballots could make all the difference, and we might not know for sure until the end of the day on Friday, November 17th.
From http://www.fairvoteca.org/gloss.html:
Runoff
In traditional runoff elections in the U.S.A., if no one has achieved a majority of the votes in the first round of voting, then another election is held, with only two candidates allowed to run. Does result in the winner having a majority. Unfortunately, the extra election usually doubles the cost of the overall election, is brutally hard on the candidates and their supporters, and, since a special election is usually necessary, results in a much smaller voter turnout in the runoff election. Can be easily avoid by using the IRO system.
Crossing fingers for Gore from germany,
Frank.
My point is this: If you vote Green, and they DO get more popular, or even their 5%, you're contributing to a split among left-wing voters. Not just a split this election, but a split that will last in all the other elections until either the Greens or Dems collapse. Since neither is likely to happen, you'll be handing maybe up to 10 consecutive terms to the Republicans. So that's why I voted Gore even in safe Massachusetts (well, besides the fact that I don't like anything about the Green party beyond Nader himself).
This is very good reasoning and I tend to agree. This indicates that it is simply not possible to have three viable parties. My questions are:
1) Is this an indication that this is a glaring problem in the system, and _something_ should be done in order to facilitate fairness in this regard?
2) It doesn't matter if a viable 3rd party is possible.
I tend to lean more toward 2. To me all that I am concerned for is that laws are not passed with so blatantly violate the US Constitution or common sense rights of Americans (DMCA, UCITA, that anti-hacking treaty which I can't remember the name of, anti-evolution legislation). Something that confuses me is that it seems that too many of these laws are passed, even though it is very clear that they are either stupid or violate the US constitution. Sure, they may be retracted later, but only after how many people are hurt?
Another concern that I have is if the same party controls the house, senate and white house. The above has the potential have happening faster.
I thought this was News for Nerds?
--
Unselfish actions pay back better
People this only shows me one thing your vote does if one person in each precinct change there vote to Gore then He would have won. There might be a runoff in the state of florida this flipping cool. Being I am from there I get to control the fate of this country Hell I am voting for CowBoy Neal.
One of the arguments brought to bear in favor of voting for "third" political party candidates is that, in hotly contested elections where the votes for a third party are greater than the difference between the two major parties, then the winning major party candidate must reconsider their platform.
The argument goes something like this: If X and Y are the major party candidates, with Z as a third party candidate, and the voting goes as follows:
- 48% X
- 47% Y
- 5% Z
Then the winner X is politically compelled to consider adopting some of the planks of Z's platform. Had X chosen to address the Z party's concerns, those 5% of votes may well have gone to X instead, and the outcome would have been more decisive. Likewise, in the next election, the Y party will also have to consider the Z party's platform to try and get some of those 5% for itself.Well, it looks like this election is going to give us exactly that situation. It's not going to be a popular or an electoral landslide. Anything but, in fact. The numbers so far show Bush and Gore within 100K popular votes of each other, with Nader picking up some 1M votes. So, if the theory is correct, both the Democrats and Republicans will pay lip service to, if not adopt, some of Nader's/the Green Party's platform.
Hands up, everyone who thinks that's actually going to happen. (Cynical Leo suspects that Bush, if he wins, will try to declare a, "geographical landslide.")
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Dude, your a FUCKING ASSHOLE. Jeeze, Other guy was just trying to help by posting the link, Some people don't have time to read every single post on a list of 800. Maybe you do but don't the rest of us don't. Thank you for posting the link. Sorry you had an ASSHOLE who has nothing better to do bug you about it. I think I speak for the rest of us when i say, "GO TO HELL" :)Keep up the good work posters!
"Runoff Election indicated"
Does this mean recount, as every news organization has reported? Or do they truly mean a real run-off election? If so, the Nader voters will most likely swing for Gore. I can't imagine a run-off truly happening, though.
Chris
In 1984, Walter Mondale got 85% of the vote in Washington, D.C., barely won in Minnesota, his home state, and lost every other state to Ronald Reagan.
Looking at the current election results, Gore got 85% of the vote in Washington, D.C., and Bush was a distant second at 9%.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
I'll take the ID, if I get this right.
For Bush, I don't predict an international war. I predict a civil uprising. Look at the WTO, IMF, etc. riots. Think about the policies Bush would institute. Now, think about the riots. Think about the overwhelming military force Bush would use. Close enough to a war for me.
For Gore, I predict the Middle East. After all, with the current Israeli situation, and a Jewish VP, don't you expect there'll be a bit of a US hammer descending?
---
Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
wow, it keeps getting closer.......
Bush doesn't need to screw up in office - he has enough skeletons in his closet to keep the US in scandals for the next four years at least.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
what kind of an asshole votes for bush OR gore? they are both "revolting pieces of shit". to hell with both of them.
...on cnn, FLA just went down to 214 votes in favor of Bush, and Gore has the popular vote.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
"Claiming to have invented the Internet" before you respond to something, i reccomend that you don't listen to snickers commercials as your primary source of information. look at the conversations above in the slashdot message board for info on this.
"Tread softly because you tread on my dreams"
Merely a flesh wound. Thanks to Ken Sain's 4th Congressional campaign, we will now be an officially recognized party in Kentucky, and I'm sure similar steps towards equal footing are being taken across the country. Less than 5% doesn't mean we go away: it just means we go door to door rather than throw money at tv ads.
Personally, I would love to see 5 or 6 (or more) "major" political parties in america. Voting the lesser of two evils sucks donkey dick. Having our mailing lists spammed by the "Greens for Gore" campaign sucked even more.
As for the "commmunism" comment... I don't care what you call it. Obviously, you are a U.S. citizen who hasn't come to terms with the cold war being over. Universal healthcare? Yeah, that's a communist idea, but not necessarily a bad one. You've got to remember: most of these "communist" countries are actually thinly veiled dictatorships. Fuck it. I've been up for over 40 hours and don't feel like arguing all my points. Maybe later.
/*Insert boring sig here*/
Why?
Just because they decided for themselves whom they felt best to vote for, rather than voting for who YOU wanted them to vote for?
Interesting...
Hint - the USA is supposedly a DEMOCRACY, Mr Coward, which means that they can vote for who the hell they want, not who YOU tell them to. Neat, huh?
(Not being from the USA, I personally couldn't care which way the vote goes, mind you :) )
--
People should not be afraid of their governments - Governments should be afraid of their people.
Dubya is not just any Nazi.. He's a *cocksucking* Nazi.
We in the technology forefront may, during the next four years, find ourselves quickly thrown into a very important role in American politics.
At 517AM EST, it seems that Vice President Al Gore has won the national popular vote, while Texas Governor George W. Bush has won the electoral college.
It's difficult to guess exactly how many questions of constitutional law may be raised as a result of this election. Florida seems to have given a margin of victory of just over two hundred votes to Bush. There will, of course, be a recount. Florida's Governor is Bush's brother; Florida's Attorney General has worked closely for Gore's campaign. One could argue that there are conflicts of interest present. There is also some question as to the method of some balloting; apparently at least one district in Florida conducted their voting in such a way that led Gore voters to mistakenly vote for Buchanan. The Buchanan vote does indeed seem to be disproportionately large in those areas, and Gore may contest these votes.
An electoral election of a candidate who loses the popular vote will, obviously, be a great motivation for consideration of a Constitutional Amendment to reform, or abolish, the electoral college.
Also, the state of Washington has required only that ballots be postmarked by November 7. This makes projections in close-call cases such as this very difficult.
The result of all this hullabaloo will be that a great deal of attention will be focused on the processes of election. There will be an open discussion, and the technology community will be looked to for explanations of how a "cyber-vote" might work. Would the responsibility for such a process continue to reside with the states? If so, exactly how would the state databases interact with a federal tallying system? What types of security measures would be required? Whose proper responsibility would be such security measures -- the FBI? The Secret Service?
I think there's little doubt that the electoral process is going to be the center of many discussions in the immediate future. And in this technological age, the technological community will be looked to to provide serious input. We should be ready with some hard answers...because we could be responsible for influencing Constitutional law, and have a hand in building the system which elects future Presidents.
crib
Please don't read my journal
As of 2:30 am PST (what is that, 5:30 EST?), Bush leads in FL by only 224 votes. This is the vote with 100% of the presincts in the state reporting. There is going to be at least one mandatory recount.
A couple of things are going to influence the vote:
(1) There are still something like 2,000-3,000 absentee ballots that have yet to be counted -- perhaps they have not even made it to the US yet (i.e. they are from offshore military bases.
(2) In Palm Beach, there was a mix up with the ballots, and many people who thought they were voting for Gore were acctually voting for Buchanan. This may help Bush just as much as Gore, I don't know the state well enough.
I state all of this in order to point out how very much the above comment hit the nail on the head;
I just hope the 67,503 Nader voters feel smug about voting their concience while they're riding in this hand basket come January 20th"
If Bush wins this, it will come down to the "Nader Factor." If Nader had not run, many polls indicate that about 60% of Nader votes would have gone to Gore, 20% to Bush and the other 20% to other candidates. With only 224 votes on line, this makes an extremely great deal of difference.
Also, if Bush wins, it will be only in the electoral college. As of 2:30 am PST, Gore was ahead in the electoral vote by over 200,000 votes. This is a small margin compated to almost 100 million votes, but it is still 200,000 votes more than Bush.
Is there anyone else that thinks that this calls for a change in the electoral system in the US????
Okay, I am sorry to rant, esspeccially as I am sure that I am completely offtopic by now. Forgive me my sins; I am going to bed now. G'night.
P.S. Good morning to all of you that went to bed thinking Bush had won hands down. You'll be happy to know that you don't have to move to Canada yet.
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Rhapsody in Numbers
What's interesting here is just how far behind the Networks are in their reporting.
Florida's Elections Department has a website (Running IIS/MSSQL - Evidently being constantly rebooted by the number of SQL Server Unavailable Messages I'm getting) reporting up-to-date statistics. The Networks are at times 30-45 minutes behind these statistics. As I was watching CNN, and they were declaring George W. the winner, I was dumbfounded as I looked at the statistics showing George W. only 580 votes ahead. My girlfriend and I were screaming at the TV in vain as CNN reported George W. was preparing his concession speech. The Internet has finally surpassed the cable news networks in speed to deliver breaking news.
"We can't all, and some of us don't." -- Eeyore
Here is the actual Florida statues:_ mode=Display_Statute&URL=Ch0103/titl0103 .htm&StatuteYear=2000&Title=%2D%3E2000%2D%3EChapte r%20103
http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App
Link
Cite anything interesting under this thread.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Prop 34 really creates problems for third parties. With the $3000 donation limit per person, it prevents a few wealthy individuals from financing a third party and giving it a real shot. It is the relatively less known third parties that have the chicken/egg problem of publicizing themselves so they can generate more funds so they can publicize themselves. Also third parties are much more dependant on individual contributions vs. corporate sponsors (some will not accept corporate money at all). The Democrats and Republicans meanwhile have no problem getting funding from a broad base including corporations. Net result third parties get the shaft.
Whoops, my mistake. Bad number.
thank gawd, an intelligent reply...
I am not running for an elected office. If I am an angel or not isn't relative. What is relative is the behavior of GW. Ok, GW doesn't lie... oh wait, instead of lying he avoids addressing the issue. Has he addressed his (ex)coke problem? Nope, he refuses to answer any question pertaining to that. He said that he's been sober for more than 20 years (not exactly sure of ##) yet there's a video of him getting hammered at a friend's wedding.
You have to agree that the Republicans are rather hypocritical, example, the republicans blasted Bill Clinton because he smoked a little weed in college. They now endorse GW who did a LOT more than just smoke a little weed. If the republicans can blast Clinton what he did 20 years ago then why can't i apply the same standards on republicans?
My decision to vote for Gore is not only based on this, but also that GW is a dumbass. He is a comedians dream come true. The intelligence of a leader of a nation of 300 million people should be a priority on everyones list.
"Tread softly because you tread on my dreams"
Scary stuff, 3 extra conservative supreme court judges, this means that we can kiss abortion goodbye and say hello to higher punishments across the boards, I've never been quite so happy to live outside of the US> I watched an interview with voters on tv, one said that he would vote for Bush because he doesn't want to lose his right to bear arms, and added that losing his freedom of speech and right to vote would probably come after losing the right to bear arms. I don't quite see how ANYONE could link these things together, but it illustrates that bush's voters are at the same intellectual levels as him........
---- Stage 5 of drinking : Politics begin to appeal
NOTICE: The vote is florida is most likely going to have a recount, at one point the difference between Bush and Gore was at slightly more than *600* votes. Gore is not announcing his concession, and we are probably going to have to wait a day or so before the 'real' decision is made. Note, that at this point whoever wins florida wins the election, even though oregon and I believe wisconsin still have to turn their votes in. Gore is also slated to win the popular election now, according to the recent count, although the POPULAR vote is 48% Gore, 48% Bush, 3% Nader - this is almost exactly how it looks in florida as well.
I a posting this from the Bush/Cheney rally in Austin. The people here are pretty optimistic, and... whoah, Bo Derek just came onstage.... I really can't wait to see how it turns out.
It's neck-and-neck now, with Bush ahead by 16,000 votes, 37% of precincts reporting. Detroit tends to come in last, and they're a hopeless Democrat wasteland. Still, with Abraham thrashing Stabenow in the Senate race, there's hope for Bush?
;-).
I actually got an automated poll call from Rasmussen Polls (or some such thing) about 8pm tonight. I hung up on the machine, tho, after they asked me what race I am (pissed me off). Maybe I messed up their exit polls
Bush 2,905,723 Gore 2,904,932 The difference? 791 votes So Pre-recount Bush has Florida, but it's all up in the air. (PS over 94,000 for Nader)
I only post twice a year, who needs a sig?
They have already declared Cal for Gore, yet Bush leads by over 30,000 votes with only 16% precincts reported???????????????? Clearly the networks are confused.
I sorta like
Later in the evening:
Something to the effect of "Florida is has been like one of those pendelum things"
Funny, funny man.
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Rhapsody in Numbers
> All the networks just gave California to Gore 4 mins. after the polls closed, with 0% counted!
They use a more sophisticated model than you might think. The retraction of Florida was a pretty rare event.
> Is it just me, or have they seemed really eager to get Gore elected?
If they particularly wanted Gore to win, they could have beat Bush to death over the last year. Instead, they are still accusing AG of claiming to have invented the internet (though we know that's not what he actually said, and that he does have legitimate grounds for what he did say), and are virtually ignoring GB's lies and faux pas.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
well, here in toronto the morning papers have come out declaring Bush as the victor...i guess the journalists didn't care to stay up any later than they had to
Ok, they just changed it to "recount indicated." False alarm.
Congrats to John King and Candy Crowley from CNN, for not griping about staying up past their bedtimes, unlike certain anchors.
Fox news sucks so bad, they reported what they saw on CNN, on a 5-minute delay.
This is madcap. 100 million people cast their votes, and the whole election comes down to the votes of write-ins and dead people. The whole thing smells of large numbers of people casting reactionary votes. If we get one decent candidate for president, he/she will win by a landslide.
Now that most everyone can see what everyone else is doing, elections and campaigns are better sporting events than sports.
The best thing Hillary can do is give Bill a pink slip. If Hillary does that, she probably wouldn't have to worry about re-election.
I've seen a lot written about this proportional voting system on these boards, but, at least in the form it's usually described, it doesn't work. Here's a hypothetical example with four candidates from yesterday's election.
For simplicity, suppose each person fills out one of four different ballots in the following distribution:
4/9
1. Bush
3/9
1. Gore
2. Nader
1/9
1. Nader
2. Gore
1/9
1. Nader
2. Browne
3. Gore
Here's how the votes would get counted:
First pass:
Bush - 4/9
Gore - 3/9
Nader - 2/9
Second Pass:
Bush - 4/9
Gore - 4/9
Browne - 1/9
Third Pass:
Bush - 4/9
Gore - 5/9
So, Gore wins. But if you remove Gore before Nader, you get:
Second Pass:
Bush - 4/9
Nader - 5/9
You can imagine the Gore votes being 22 and 23 instead of 2 and 3 on the two ballots that place Nader first, and it's clear that a majority of the population would prefer to see Nader win, but because of the system, Gore would.
Considering that I read somewhere that this system is used in some places in Europe, this problem has probably been solved. If anyone knows how, do share.
Additionally, from what I've seen on the web sites, Nader's not going to get anything close to the 5% he needs to get the Green Party government funding next time around. If Gore loses because of Nader's campaign, and the Greens don't get the funding they were after, I'm betting for some recriminations amongst the American left :)
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Please, dude!
1. Many of these voters wouldn't be out voting at all if not for Nader- many voted for democrats for congress.
2. The 67,503, you may note, does not make up the difference.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Bush electoral 291 popular - 31,475,385
Nader popular 1,516,982.
GORE IS LEADING ELECTORAL, LOSING POPULAR!!!
This is known as "BAD"
tagline
... hi bingo
How on earth can you blithely state Bush is 'not even in the same ballpark when it comes to evil'? You think the Nazis were comic book monsters? They were human beings that conned themselves into believing in and supporting a political system that was _horribly_ wrong.
I get kind of upset when I see reactions like this. The horror of Nazi history is that these were for the most part JUST PEOPLE! There was no special 'evil gene' that made Hitler's Germans specially evil in ways no current people can compare to. That is a damned racist implication. If you think logically about it you can see that Bush is just as capable of moving in the direction of horrors- for instance, he could crack down on homosexuals without really surprising anyone. On the flip side, Gore is capable of pulling off a Big Brother-like informational police state with every communication centrally monitored by the government- this is the guy behind Clipper, and associated with the PMRC attempts to categorise 'harmful' music so it could be more easily suppressed and censored, removed entirely from the mainstream media to control public thought so that America would not have to confront ideas like 'drugs' or 'occult'.
THESE PEOPLE ARE NOT A DIFFERENT DAMN SPECIES THAN THE NAZIS! The potential is there. It is really disturbing to see this immediate assumption that 'nobody we're actually dealing with today could ever be that bad'. (/godwin)
I was wondering about that too when I heard it went to Gore. I've been keeping track on it all night (especially since I live in Florida) and Bush has always held the lead, and at the moment he is leading by 4% with 75% of votes reporting.
Never noticed that... heh. Is there something I should know about Long Island? :)
51% Bush
47% Gore
Done deal. Bush is prez.
Americans should take example on China. They know the results of elections before they even start!
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
i did not expect this thing to be so close...
Cybie! aka Ralph Bonnell
Don't forget that two Supreme Court justices will almost definitely step down this term. Both justices are liberal.
ANother two Supreme Court justices are nearing retirement age. One is liberal, one is conservative. I would bet that the liberal one will not step down this term, but the conservative one will.
So, we have a single man in one 4-year term of office selecting 1/3 of the Supreme Court justices, tipping the balance of the courts. In this case, if the election goes to Bush (with 100% of precincts reporting, we're looking at a 900 vote differential), Bush will not only gain the power of the US federal government, but will select 1/3 of another branch of government. It is likely that his choices will result in the reversal of a number of key precedents, including Roe v. Wade (different aspects of this have been upheld 5-4 and 6-3).
As a result, this four year term of the presidency is more important than other elections. And Bush will likely win the election while falling short of Gore in the popular vote by about 300,000 votes. Our political system, with its all-or-nothing approach, will end up giving the minority viewpoint "control" over 2 of the three branches of government. This, to me, reaks of a crisis at a very severe level. And all this was done within the confines of the Constitution.
Now, I do find it odd that Jeb, George's brother, is the governer of Florida. And George's dad used to be head of the CIA. The last time we had an election that was almost this close (1960), there were quiet accusations of voter fraud instigated by the (very powerful) Kennedy family. In the end, Nixon chose not to pursue it. Cronies close to Nixon say his choice came because he did not want to cause a constitutional crisis. I wonder if similar accusations will be made this election, and whether Gore, already the victim of one constitutional crisis (Clinton's impeachment process), will be reserved enough to make the same choice Nixon did.
--Be human.
Bush up 6-5; 2 outs: runner on third; 1 strike, 2 balls. Bush winds up and pitches. Gore swings and misses.
Folks, I haven't seen such a close game in all my years. Absolutly amazing!! We all thought it was over when the Dems scored that grand slam in the bottom of the 6th, but The Pubs rallied in the 8th and 9th, bringing this game to a dead heat. Then, in the top of the 11th, Bush scored an amazing run, and it looked as if the games was over, and it looked as though the Dems would be forced to concede, but they managed to score a single run and stay in the game--
Bush winds up... and the pitch -- low and outside, ball 3.
Then, nothing happened for several innings, until the top of the 16th when the Pubs managed to score off of a Dem error and once again take a one run lead--
Just a moment folks, the umpires are getting together... It looks as though the game has been delayed on acount of time...
Well, we hope you all tune in tommarrow for the conclusion of one of the most amazing games in the history of the sport.
This is the phantom, signing off. G'night.
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Rhapsody in Numbers
I think dade county is going to be The Key County in Florida main reason it is the biggest and has only 26% of vote in so look what is going on in Dade it is the key for victory.
they couldn't afford to delay their print window any later. I remember when I worked at a student newspaper we had to have all our work done with flats boxed by 7:00 a.m. Weds morning. It never happened to us but some other years had the shame of a "special friday edition".
a lot of people are interested in the elections. I love the slashdot forums, but is there any place like slashdot dedicated to discussing political issues? I'd be very interested in such a place.
I would love to know how many people vote multiple times by sending an absentee ballot to their summer homes. I would hope that there would be some national cross checking going on, because this could have a significant effect in a place like Florida.
Mike
Although florida still can't be called CNBC just said that right now Bush is up 4% over Gore in florida right now. Florida is the key to this election, whoever takes florida will win.
Perhaps by a freak of nature Harry Browne will take florida. Heh; there's always 04'
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
Gore electoral 231
Bush electoral 229
i got the correct popular votes, though...
tagline
... hi bingo
Just reminding you all that Florida is not the final arbiter of the Presidency. (Yeah, it is really important.) It's currently 230 to 217, and Florida carries 25. A candidate needs 270 to win. Simple math says that it's still in the air. I hope that Gore cleans up Florida and a couple of other states for the win. Go Gore!
Thanks to Nader, there's at least two or three states that Gore could have, but probably won't.
I would have voted for Nader, but seeing that it's highly unlikely that he'd win it would have been just the same as voting for Bush. In a perfect world, Politicians wouldn't be liars and the geeks would rule the world. Heh heh.
So that's my two cents. -Kat
It compliles! Ship it!
I just hope the 67,503 Nader voters feel smug about voting their concience while they're riding in this hand basket come January 20th.
Eh? It doesn't seem to make a difference from the numbers you posted. Bush would still be ahead of gore if ALL nader votes had gone to Gore.
It's hard enough getting people out to vote in the first place. Don't give people shit because they voted for the candidate they wanted to be president.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
After all, who is going to be looking at logs? ATT webmasters, who presumably have little to with ATT spamming, and even less to say about it.
For this to have an effect, ATT webmasters would have to notice high traffic to /STOPSPAMMING, discern the cause (which, I agree, will be fairly obvious), notify their superiors, who would then have to make a decision as to whether this traffic should cause them to change their policies. And then they'd probably need authorization from even higher up in the chain of command before making a change.
Perhaps a more direct way to end ATT spam would be mass, filter-evading protest email to ATT email addresses. Additionally, mass boycotting of ATT should have a fairly quick effect.
The first time they posted the results as 100%, Bush led by 1,210 votes and at the bottom it said "Runoff Election Indicated" (I saved the page, as of about 3AM).
Now I've reloaded the official results p age again at 6AM. It's still 100% reporting. Here Bush leads by 791 votes. But more interesting (to me) is that the "Runoff Election Indicated" sentence now says:
"Recount Indicated"
So this obviously means that they're gonna do a recount. But if the recount is unsatisfactory or still very close, is there a provision within national or state (Florida) statutes to have a runoff election?
Ah, someone just sent me this link from the National Archives with the following information:
So did the appearance of "Runoff Election Indicated" on the official Fl. Secretary of State website indicate a possible runoff? Is this allowable under Florida statutes (btw, I'm browsing through them now but can't find any pertinent information. But I don't think my brain can handle legislative jargon at 6:20am.
But if there's nothing that doesn't allow it, I think it's very possible that Florida might have a run-off election, possibly between just Gore and Bush.
Which means no Nader.
Interesting.......
First, one of the most nauseating questions of this elections has been resolved: "Is a vote for Nader really a vote for Bush." Clearly the answer is YES. Many have said that Nader actually attracted new voters to the polls that would not have voted had he not been on the ballot, therefore he only had a minor impact on the election results. While this may be true to some minor extent, it is also obvious that SOME people who would have voted Gore have voted Nader instead. Currently (5:46am EST) Bush is ahead of Gore in Florida by 987 votes! Nader has 96560 votes. Clearly then if only a little more than one tenth of the voters who voted for Nader were wooed from Gore, we must conclude that Nader took the Presidency from Gore.
Even more interesting though, one has to wonder, what effect did the media's early reporting of Florida as Democrat victory, push people out who were uncertain whether or not to vote Gore or Nader to in fact vote Nader. Many people who (preferring Nader to Gore, but Gore to Bush and knowing that Nader had no chance at the presidency this year) would have voted Gore, had they thought the state may have been taken by Bush, may have instead voted for Nader assuring a Republican victory.
The second interesting issue is the voting irregularities in Florida, as I'm sure you all know, there existed a situation where people who thought they were voting for Gore, actually cast their ballot to Buchanan (horror of horrors for a Democratic voter). Obviously seeing as how Florida is THE deciding state, and seeing as how this could change who could be the next president this is huge! It is not released how many voters it affected although I believe it was localized to Palm Beach. No news service I've monitored has described to me in a clear way how this could have occurred, and it seems that no remedy can be offered.
Third and most outrageously it seems (although I am loath to make predictions on this night/morning) that Gore is likely to win the popular vote while Bush wins the presidency! Just stupid. The leader of the greatest democracy *cough* in the world may be the one who is not wanted by the majority, how's that for irony.
Finally it seems that we may have to wait for overseas votes (military personel, etc) to come in to decide the Florida vote. A process which may take up to 10 days! You thought Wolf Blitzer looked tired now.
If I had my way, Nader would take a single state worth 3 electoral votes. The other candidates would come in at 269 and 268.
I'd be able to giggle for the next two months, every time I thought about my government.
-C
rather than assigning all the delegates to the candidate who gets the majority of the votes, split up the delegates proportionally to the fractions of the voters, probably with a slight bias towards the guy who got the majority (there are algorithms for this). It's a little bit like converting doubles into singles on a computer - you get roundoff errors. And by using a higher precision you can avoid that.
Visiting a friend of mine in England (having already casted my absentee ballot), I got to watch CBS/BBC coverage of the elections last night. I am wholly impressed with the BBC coverage (other than following CBS's lead in calling FLorida too early).
I did have to go to bed at 4am GMT, and get up at 8:30am GMT only to find there was no change.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
Okay - I just felt like sharing this with everyone here on slashdot, because as of now, I am going on about 4 hours of sleep in two days, and can't think straight. The election: how exciting! After returning home from karate class early last night (8:30 est) I am taunted by an even race between the Texas Govna' and the VP. This battle raged for hours, until 2:18 est, Bush was declared the president of the United States of America. How sweet! Tax cuts for me! The plot thickens: all the while I was sitting up watching the tube, I was chugging Jolt cola, and studying for Two, yes TWO social science tests that I must take today. One just happens to be on the Constitution. So, I actually UNDERSTOOD what was going on in the election! Fancy that! Anyhow, after Bush was declared the winner, some adrenaline in my system went away, and I sat down and took a few minute powernap. What happens when I wake up? I shower. Then, I run upstairs, and look at CNN, and I see what looks to be "Too Close" at the bottom of the screen. I scream. I then feel like a piece of lint, because I already emailed all my friends and teachers and bragged about Bush winning. :-)
At any rate, It is now almost 6:30, and I am off to school. Time to take my tests. Hopefully I hear that Bush beat out Gore by one point. That would make me smile.
Oh! And let's not forget the electoral college! Do I hear Congress discussing the revamping of the election system? I ceritnaly think so! This country is too divided to stand! United we stand, divided we fall! Now... where was my parachute?
Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.
Obviously one of the big headlines will be the role of the Nader vote in this squeeker. Nader has a pretty substantial following here in Gainesville and particularly at the University of Florida. He generated lots of enthusiasm (and cinched my vote) when he came to UF an October 12th rally (including Q & A).
Monday, October 30th (or 23rd, I can't remember which), the UF Speakers Bureau was talking with Gore's camp abous bringing Gore to an on-campus rally that Thursday. For a while it looked like it was going to happen, but in the end Gore chose not to come.
If Gore really does lose Florida by a couple of hundred votes, I wonder if he will think back on his decision to pass on UF. On a campus of over 40,000 students, he definitely could have swayed a couple hundred votes from our large undecided population.
I'm the hall director in a residence hall of about 500 students, mostly freshmen. The overwhelming feeling here is utter disgust that Bush and Gore both completely failed to address the concerns of the nation's college population (especially its large progressive faction). Now either Bush or Gore is going to pay for that negligence. Hopefully the major parties will jump on the clue bus before the next election cycle.
Maybe Gore and Bush should have spent more of their mis-spent youths listening to The Doors ("...they've got the guns, but, we've got the numbers...")
Perhaps a better analogy - or at least a closer one if you think both Bush and Gore are evil - would be:
1. You are to be shot
2. You are to be hanged
3. You are to protest loudly, then get either shot or hanged according to popular whim.
While I'm rambling: there have been some comments on better voting systems for electing presidents - transferable votes and so on. Folks, it won't make any difference unless you have at least three truly viable parties, for the simple reason that you cannot have 5% of a president. (5% of the seats in a chamber, on the other hand...) It's very possible to have a third party (for example, see the Liberal Democrats in the UK) and it doesn't hurt to anticipate that, but right now it doesn't seem to be there.
Cheers,
Mat.
But at the cost of disrupting pre-existing threads of discussion?
Well, things do get read, though I can only assume that the *what* getting read is likely just a small subset of posts already colored by moderator bias. As for "moderator fatigue", I think it begins to appear far in advance of 200 posts :)
If only we are all on our best behavior, but I think it also tends to encourage the reposting of topics and arguments previously beaten to death in the prior article: "Hey, no one is paying attention to me here, I'll just jigger the wording a bit and repost over here..."
I really think that sticking to the earlier (implicit) gameplan of an article on election eve and another following would have allowed greater continuity of discussion and breathing room for contributed analyses to settle.
I understand your point, but when members of the election night "thread" turn out be be *chunks* (in terms of cross-article relations), I don't think it wholly serves the purposes of a discussion forum. Although election results may ebb and flow in a manner than can be chunked, the larger discussions of those results don't.
Perhaps if each separate update were purposed or focused on a particular element or dimension of the ongoing elections (thereby giving moderators a little more assistance in determining what is and what isn't "off-topic"), I could buy it. Actually, that might have introduced a bit too much order to the Slashdot shuffle :)
Nah. It's probably just me.
Dade County is hold everything up check it out here most counties already reported expect Dade county.
Please, neither candidate is going to make any radical changes. We've had presidents who've been against abortion, and it's still legal....
They screwed up with Florida because they were basing their "results" on exit-polling. Which is just a bunch of doofuses standing outside the voting places begging people to tell them how they voted. Of course, there's nothing to say that what the person says in the exit poll is actually how they voted.
In other words. The popular media are idiots.
Any sufficiently advanced civilization is indistinguishable from Gods.
actually he's not so much of an idiot as an asshole, but still, we're better off. Can't you just see gore standing on national television telling us he just reduced national debt to 0 and world peace is at hand? Sure, thats a great one too, however the actual idea behind the first statement was the fact that either choice sucks.
Subject says it all. Why do we need to have two front page posts on the uncompleted US elections? Couldn't this have been an update to the first one?
Argh! I can see a front page snippet tomarrow morning declaring a winner of the US race, but why now? This is just added spam on the front page, and it makes the previous post obsolete only a few hours after it was posted!
Pragmatic. Nice.
I'd probably agree with you if I were back at home, but I haven't made it there yet.
The only thing good about work lately is the T-1.
Maybe they are predicting using demographics. Maybe they've received info for rural districts, but not urban ones.
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
The "returns" are pure speculation, but a little more on the dramatic side. They are interpreted from the exit polls with the express intent of keeping our dumb asses glued to the tube so we can watch more commercials. Even the news outlets won't know the real winner until the last electorial ballot is cast, and that won't happen until all the polls close and the popular vote is completely tallied.
:)
The idea is to generate as much drama as possible surrounding the election, and capitalize on the hype by targeting ads at the idiots who are sitting and biting their nails at the TV or foolishly refreshing some web page.
Sensationalism at its finest.
-- lk t lv ll th vwls t f wrds. T svs lts f tm t wrt bt ts pn n th ss t rd nd mks m lk lk cmplt dpsht.
"He must feel like a real jerk right now" OoOh he went from being a jerk to feeling like a jerk.
Politicians suck.
No but check out here it is a little closer than you lasted check
I don't understand your reasoning. If I lived in USA and in a swing state, I would definatly vote for a third party candidate.
A vote for a third party candidate is not a waste. It is the exactly opposite in a swing state. If your vote changes who wins you have just shown that your vote matters. Of course most americans don't seem to understand this because of decades of propaganda.
The following example is pretty extreme, but it does make a point.
If I told you to select one of the following three options:
1. You are to be executed with a gun
2. You are to be executed using hanging
3. You are allowed to live
I also told you that lots of other people had also voted and the third option would not do anything for you. Would you in that case not choose the third option?
> hat, like ouija boards? There were no votes counted!
Exit. Polls.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Define "too many" -- it was around 500 when the second article appeared, which is nowhere near where other threads peter out. Does that mean that Katz should get to repost once his articles hit ~500 responses?
Example carefully chosen to elicit catcalls :)
>They use a more sophisticated model than you might think. The retraction of Florida was a pretty rare event.
What, like ouija boards? There were no votes counted!
I said we shouldn't trivialize the atrocities of the Nazis by calling a modern day politician who has not endorsed mass slaughter of innocents a Nazi.
74% reporting in FL. Bush is ahead by 4 percentage points. That's it...
CNN is reporting that Arkansas is going to Bush putting him at 246. With Florida's 25 that would put him at 271 and into the white house.
The whole "Gore created the Internet" thing was taken *way* out of context. Gore has actually done a lot to promote the development of the Internet and his claim was to create the Internet as we know it today. I think that Gore's support of the advancement of technology is a *good thing*
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
In My Service In Congress I Took The Iniative in creating the Internet. It sure sounded like he was claiming to have invented it....
Don't forget the elections for congress and state and local office.
Of particular interest is many of the initiatives for things such as mundane funding bills to the more spectacular doctor-assisted suicide.
It looks like Colorado and Nevada are going to allow medical use of marijuana. I also noticed Arizona and Colorado wanted to place limits on growth (or as they call it, "urban sprawl") which the voters have rejected.
Any sufficiently advanced civilization is indistinguishable from Gods.
Hell yeah. We've got a multiple T3 hosting our site where I work. It's shared among less than 100 other workers. I've gotten spoiled lately and have been known to curse at my home PC.
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
You're a racist!
The black marbles shall overcome!
Lowmag.net
You assume that the sample that they use are representative of the population.
All these networks guessing with 30% of precincts reporting... its easy to start calling states just to make the race look close. Wonder why they would do something like that?
-gerbik
For all of you that are predicting a Bush win in Florida, check this out:
If you look closely at the county level results, you would see that populous counties in Florida like Broward, Orange, and Palm Beach, Gore is winning by a 2 to 1 margin (read:landslide), and only 20ish percent of those counties precincts are reporting.
For example:
De Soto County
73 % of Precincts reporting:
Gore 1,477 votes
Bush 1,653 votes
Broward County
22% of Precincts reporting:
Gore 67,866 votes
Bush 38,476 votes
So as you can see, Bush is marginally winning in the more rural areas (that have finished reporting, and don't have a whole lot of votes), but Gore is winning comfortably in the urban areas (which have a whole lot of votes, and it will take longer to count that many votes).
Hope that helps explain the Too close to call/undecided prediction for Florida. I imagine that the other states that are undecided may have the same thing happening for either candidate.
Hope this helps explain the confusion!
looking like a tight race...
Joseph W. Breu
Maybe they are predicting using demographics. Maybe they've received info for rural districts, but not urban ones.
that is what i figured, but why assume that someone won? it just doesn't make sense. he'll probably end up winning california nonetheless anyways, so it doesn't matter.
'Mullethead. A hairstyle that's a way of life'
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
Huh? Last time I checked, 270 electoral votes were needed to win. Florida doesn't guarantee a win to anyone at this point (8:50pm PST), though it does help more than any other single state.
there are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots
This is shows that anyone who lives in Nevada and hasn't voted is a lazy bastard. :)
I can't believe how close this is! They're talking about the slim possibility of a tie!
How cool would it be to say we've lived to see the "backup plan" of the electoral college set to work? not that i really think that'll happen, but still!
I'm glad the first presidential election i got to vote in is so intriguing! It definitly strenghtens my political efficacy for future elections.
Let's say there were 40% that were republicans because they understood and approved their programs. Let's say there were 40% democrats for the same reasons.
You know where their vote went, right?
Now, let us imagine the remaining 20% of people who just don't care, would vote for somebody because he's good-looking and other stupidities.
Now the question: who made the final result in the vote?...
Democracy sucks, afterall. Democracy gives the power to the remaining 20%.
Do we have a choice, anyway?...
-- JC
--JC
On the CNN page, if you select california in the little pull down menue, and go to the stat page it shows bush as having 49% of the vote in that state. Why is it then, that the networks, in their rush to get the "first post" of election results, say that Gore takes the state?
However, consider Bush wins because Nader split the democratic vote in a key state or so. This might lead to an interesting turn of events. Considering that recently the democrats won a presidental election because Perot split the republican vote, and if Bush wins this election because Nader split the democratic vote.. perhaps we will see a bi-partisan support of voting system reform?
They have California going to Gore...but the popular vote has Bush out in front by about 100K votes! What's up with that? Obviously, assumption plays a BIG part with the pundits observations. My prediction? Bush will win.
- real hackers don't have sigs -
Have you been in any rural areas in the south? hehe there's your answer :)
"please could you stop the noise im tryin a get some REST? from all the unbornchikkenVoicesin my head?"
by the way, you might be interested in the story of Canaan - in which the JEWS murdered an entire population of people and took their fucking homeland.
or maybe not. if you're interested in more info, see if you can pick up a copy of, uh, a bible, and look around for some guy named 'joshua,' or, as we call him 'the brown skinned butcher and thief of lands.'
so, what's the law that ends a thread when you call someone a jewish genocidal maniac?
He (Nader) does matter. Take a look at Oregon's exit polls. And with Florida, Nader almost makes up the difference between Gore and Bush. It looks like Nader might actually be the difference between waking up to President Gore tomorrow and hoping to die in my sleep... I'd rather elect a hamster than that moron. We need to amend the constitution to add a "you must be at least this smart to run for president" clause. Dubya can't even speak his native language, how can he run a nation? At least his father was smart. Involved in Iran-Contra, devious and weasel-y, but smart.
itachi, feeling bitter
Do you need TP?
Do you need Olio?
Better hide the sugar and caffeine from this guy!
---- Hey Grrl Geeks! Your very own geek news site has arrived!
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
This does mean that the president could be from one party, and the vice president from another. Gore-Cheney for 4 years?
If everyone in the US, while at the poll, flipped a coin, the vote would look a lot like ... exactally what it looks like now! SO, the decision of the American public seems to be that it's 6 of one, 1/2 dozen of the other. In a nutshell (to borrow from O'Riley) there isn't any candidate that inspired the majority of the American public to vote against him.
- real hackers don't have sigs -
REP George W. BUSH 1,175,673 48 0
DEM Al GORE 1,152,351 47 54 W
GRN Ralph NADER 85,195 4 0
Gore is down by 23k votes in California... thats a whole lot at this stage (25%) of the game...
I wonder how long they are going to keep calling it for gore?
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... hi bingo
IANAUSC - I would guess its the same reason that one can win the popular vote, but lose the electoral nation wide. Isnt a state broken up into electoral districts?
A vote for a third party candidate is not a waste. It is the exactly opposite in a swing state. If your vote changes who wins you have just shown that your vote matters.
This is faulty logic. You're assuming that the reason people vote for a third party is because they want to make their vote matter. Actually, people vote because they want to see their values approximated at government level.
If you're a liberal voter in a swinging state and you vote Nader, you're affecting the result alright, but you're moving it further from your ideal. This doesn't make sense. Your satisfaction at your vote "making a difference" doesn't mean anything at a representative level.
FWIW, I'm non-US and can't vote, but would have voted Nader in a safe Gore or Bush state, or Gore in a swinging state. The presidential elections are all about money, and the main reason to vote Nader is to try and push the Greens over the 5% threshold. Then they get funding next time and it's not a two horse race any more - that's real change!
However, the 5% is still a long shot, and you'd be playing the wrong odds if you were a liberal in a swinging seat trying to make it happen.
My $0.02
Danny
It looks like
California Bush is leading so far but they are still hold on to the fact that Gore will win it. Well will see.
Gotta get ready to move to Canada.
(And no, I don't think Fish Rap Live! is an "official" UCSC newspaper... and for that matter, the article goes on to say that this is just wishful thinking, but it still gave me the creeps when I noticed it in the mailroom a few hours ago...)
Now that it's down to a dead heat, I've been poking at the last few states. At the current time:
Only 25% or so of the precincts in CA have reported, Bush has more votes there, CNN says Gore won it.
0% reporting from Alaska and Hawaii, yet Bush and Gore have taken each, respectively.
The California thing could ruin Gore if it does go to Bush. Otherwise, Alaska and Hawaii could just barely tip the election either way. This is sickening. We need election by popular vote.
If you look at the history of the Natzi empire and world war 2 you will see that Hitler really didn't care about anyone or how much his country would fail if they lost. In Andreas Dorpalen's books Europe in the 20th century you see direct almost blunt statements something to the effect that when he tried to invade Poland that he threatened the world that he would create a war that would take 10-15 years and would expend all his soldiers (incidentally when his troops lost he basically abandoned them because they didn't follow his "vision"). I really do after a fashion get tired of the whole idea that the US really did something special destroying the National Socialist's military regime in Germany. Basically we just sent wave after wave of men across to Europe and had a lot of material to defeat the German war machine. I have to agree with you that their uniforms did look good might consider getting one myself. The next best thing is a East German one which has many of the same elements and looks quite good. Nice for Halloween parties and the like. And remember Von Braun (you know the same guy who actually conceptualized the idea of space stations and interplanetary flight) was originally a V2 scientist. Oh well enough talk about natzis (a word that slashdot uses with abandon), the whole concept of George Bush being a natzi is rather bad. If you really think that the whole system is corrupt and evil then perhaps many of those people who vowed that if Bush won would leave the country would just get it over with and do it already, use freenet more, or just not write their names on their code or web page content for starters. And remember bad law actions against people in real life are the slashdot equivelent of a troll moderation or the infamemous bitchslapping.
Respond to s
What I can't figure out here, while listening to people on CNN talk about Nader voters throwing their votes away, is why they keep talking about Nader voters like they're doing something wrong!
If Nader is causing the Dems to lose votes, then why the hell aren't the Dems thinking about taking on some Green platforms? Nader isn't getting votes just to piss Gore off; he's getting votes because he has issues that are really appealing to a segment of the population that feels neglected. Why aren't the pundits talking about how the Dems should react? Instead they are just complaining about him being a spoiler.
The problem here is that many Gore voters aren't voting for Gore; they're voting against Bush. "I'm not him" is a really weak platform, and I think it's amazing that Gore's doing as well as he is. If the Repub candidate wasn't as distasteful as he is, I bet at least a third of the today's voters would have stayed home. Nader probably would be stronger, though, since his supporters are really supporting him (and not trying to deny someone else).
In fact, I think Gore is more guilty of stealing Nader's supporters. I really like Nader's anti-corporate stance, but I'm not exited about Gore at all. If I didn't live in Michigan (key swing state, for those not paying attention), I would definitely have voted for Nader, but I voted for Gore. I waffled over that until I voted, and I'm still wondering if I wished I'd voted otherwise.
-JimTheta
---
My stupid web site
What was the newspaper headline years ago "DEWEY WINS!"
.... I Am Canadian.. Crack a cold one !
Go Clarkie!!
I am Joe
Technology is only a vehicle. People are the ones that drive it.
Here's a good Florida Link at MSNBC.com
Wow What a close election!
I think it is outdated for todays needs. After all everyone has access to everything needed to vote. You can be a well educated voter.
Of course the guy in front of me at the polls today had to let me go first. Why? Because he hadn't decided, because he hadn't managed to figure this out before a minute before he went to vote.
I felt like my vote was pretty pointless today. I voted Democrat and a completely Republician state, Virginia.
Anyway I think that we should have a popularly elected president and stop with the old fashioned methods. If we can popularly elect Senators then we can do it with presidents.
_________________________ Visit me at http://pornforcomputers.com
I can't believe that they're starting to analyze the political geography of Florida and others. It's insane. The vote could be decided by absentee vote.
Too insane.
Such is the infinite Grace of Popeye.
Gore lost his own home state, Tennessee. Poor guy. He must feel like a real jerk right now.
I guess CNN is betting that alaska will not be checked on... They haven't updated it since Bush had 2 states won....
Alaska at CNN
Hey guys can Alaska play too?
"If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten."
-- George Carlin
"It takes many nails to build a crib, but one screw to fill it."
Gosh darn it. give gore wisconsin and iowa already. or even better.... Florida!
Absentee voters do differ in demographics from non-absentee voters, in such a way that they are almost always likely to favor Republicans. Bush is still leading in the Florida vote count with most of the votes in, and the estimated number of absentee ballots there has been upped to ~1000000. So the way I see, Bush will almost certainly take Florida.
If the margins in the popular votes of the (currently) too-close-to call states hold, Bush will have a solid victory.
Even though the electoral vote count is tied right now, there will likely be a decent size margin by the end. That is, one electoral college member isn't likely to change the outcome.
Looks like Bush got Canada. That's 15 electoral votes right there. He wins. )c:
Everybody's saying "it all hinges on Florida". Um... Why? If Florida had counted really quickly it wouldn't all depend on Florida right? And that's all that's happening right now, counting. So "it all hangs on florida" because it's close and they're slow counting?
That's really all that's going on now, it's counting. The polls are closed. If the counting took a week instead of a night, would it really make a huge difference?
I understand watching a close football game (like that great one on Monday night) to see who will win. The winner isn't yet determined, it will depend on the plays that follow. But this is different. The events that will cause the win or loss are over. All that's left is to figure out who won. So... why do we care so much about counting? Yes, I include myself. I'm watching Peter Jennings right now (a fellow Canadian) as he presides over the reporting of the count, 242 each right now....
Yes, the farther you are away from this problem, the easier it looks. Voting for Nader is like Rambo shooting at a helicopter with .45 caliber pistol; a grand, useless gesture with possibly fatal consequences.
I grew up in Texas and Oklahoma where the Bush/Oil clique is empowered...
I doubt, my friend, if you really have a clue as to the danger they pose to both me and you...
"Moogs! Would YOU buy that for a quarter?" CMK
It's especially funny now because at the moment, Bush is winning by 8% with 24% of votes reporting.
California Votes
hey, if you all were so god damned worried about the supreme court justices why the fuck is scalia on the bench? oh thats right... its not like the democrats held the senate there... no... they just let them in, didnt they...
thanks... we've had enough of your "help"...
tagline
... hi bingo
A great number of news websites are reporting DoS attacks as though millions of people were trying to view the information on the websites! Cnn.com had this to say: "Well, we're just not sure where all these attacks are coming from, they seem to be hitting us from all sides." An Internet Expert from Washington was consulted and an advisory was issued warning people to stay in their homes and watch their TV's. Internet Security Expert Rudoplh Jenkins: "We're not sure who to attribute these attacks to, but we're hearing reports of the Republicans, the Democrats, and some other organizations claiming they are responsible." Be on the lookout for further DoS attacks and new sites around the world!
Well, the results are in, a tie in both electoral and popular vote. Now normally this would be sent to the senate. However, it has been decided by both Bush and Gore to combine and become Co-presidents. To show their support of each other they have decided to call themselves *drumroll*
The Bore presidency!
Reaching new levels of Boring speeches the Bore team will lead this country into a new realm of Boringness! Vote for Bore! Yay!
Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
The Nazis had style! Yes, I know they were evil and their actions despicable, I totaly agree that it is a good thing they didn't win WW2. Still, you have to admit, from their sharp uniforms and insignia, to the bold Swastika for an emblem, and of course the shiny black Jack-Boots they marched in, Nazi appearal was world class. Nazi uniforms are still the gold standard of military chick to this day. Oh, and how can you forget the trenchcoats popularized by the S.S. Nazis, made cool by The Matrix, and infamous at Columbine. I want to get a decent trenchcoat myself (for the style, not the image) In conclusion, I feel that the Nazis were bad, but you have to give credit where it is due.
"... Mike McCune allleges that "About 90% of the national elections use use a device called the 'Shouptronic' to count the votes. The Shouptronic is a closed system that isn't open for inspection. Several groups argue that it has been used to fix the vote in elections. This is a good argument to use an open system for election counting." He points to this wacky but intriguing book by the equally wacky but intriguing Collier family. I'm convinced."
Again, did anybody read this?
The two Colliers wrote a book about vote manipulation by proprietary computerized voting machines in Florida, and particularily in south Florida, and particularily Miami/Dade county, in the '70s and later.
Right as I'm typing this, NPR is interviewing someone in south Florida who's saying that "...the votes that are missing [his exact words] are in south Florida, and in Miami/Dade, which would be expected to be heavily Democratic..."
This is too f*cking weird.
Check out the link to the book -- you can read the first four chapters online...
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Sorry. Thought of that like 2 minutes after I posted. Still, it's a matter of principle.
---
---
Slashdot: News For Zealots. Stuff That's Hypocritical.
I don't meen to sound like a crab, but do any of you really think that all of this matters? First: Gore is a dick (in my opinion) Second: GW Bush is Mr."Read my lips, no new taxes" man's son... Do you all really think that either way at this point a year or two from now that Gore is just going to suddenly stop being a prick, or that GW's good old family values aren't going to kick in? All voting does is increase TV rating, make a bunch of people take time out of their bussy day to vote, ande let you reserve the right to bitch and complain over the next four years! I would also like to point out that even if your electee makes the popular demand our existing government still has presidence over us lemmings. It's late, I am sick of all of this "Decision 2000" crap and I am going to to what every american should do on election night.... Get shit faced, smoke a bowl, pass out, wake up in the morning with a killer headache and earn that hard earned american dollar so I can pay all the taxes that will probably be raised soon!!! Peace
"If God can do it for 10% why can't the US Government?"
2 reasons why they're not waiting:
1- You look better when you can predict the winner earlier.
2- They base themselves on the exit polls to say who will win.
If you look at the California polls, Gore wins in all categories (almost). So they declared him winner as soon as the polls closed. Of course, right now Bush has 54% of the vote with around 20% of the precinct opened.
That's the whole point of the initial post... For the masses to go out and reap the karma when they post about results.
Imagine if someone made a post about the # of M$ bugs?
http://siokaos.org/
Check out California By County
In many of the counties that they assumed Al Gore would win and list him as the winner are now reporting in ~20% of their results and for quite a few of them GW is up ~60% to ~30%. I think when everything is tallied up California is going to be an upset going to GW. Or perhaps they know california is going to GW and declare it Gore to sell more advertisements. *shrug*
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
This is fsckn SCARY!!!
TP for my bunghole indeed. Tonight has got to be one of the most surreal nights I have ever lived through.
---- Hey Grrl Geeks! Your very own geek news site has arrived!
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Bush could influence it significantly though with the supreme court.
when i turned off the election, it was 242 to 242 with Florida still undecided. The problem was that somehow, Floridian Deputies had "misplaced" ballot boxes. Also, Florida is governed by W's brother. Can someone say "foul play"???
[echelon]
The new Prez and VP
-- lk t lv ll th vwls t f wrds. T svs lts f tm t wrt bt ts pn n th ss t rd nd mks m lk lk cmplt dpsht.
It looks like whoever wins Florida will take the election. Watch that page very closely. Right now, Bush is ahead, but Gore is gaining on him at about the right rate to make it a tie.
------
Just so the MS-is-a-fair-employer brigade knows: This am, in Redmond, WA, Microsoft sent out an e-mail to everyone in the company. It was prefaced with a "of course we don't want to influence your vote", but went on to mention what it *claimed* to be statements "representing the views of each candidate" about....Guess what? Not the future of welfare or taxes or health care or education but...MICROSOFT!!!!!!
Control freaks? Interfering bosses? Obsessives bent on world domination? If you have a non-Bush, non-slade Gorton pal at MS, get 'em to send you their copy.
The only other question is...do they *track* how emnployees actually vote???
Odd thing. All the networks are saying different results at the same times (when you compare the posted times of the updates they make). Not only just that, but I'm sitting here with two computers refreshing on different pages (get the up-to-the-minute stats) and they're all over the place.
CNN has Gore in lead, ABC has Bush, NBC Gore, MSNBC Bush...oh wait! Update! Bush now in the-oh fuck, no, Gore in the lead.
This is silly. In fact, I'm looking at two copies of ABCnews refreshing synchronously, and they're both giving completely different results!! Up-to-the-minute! ha!
Anyone else see a problem with this? Anyone else getting the feeling that the media machine is spinning the electoral college and votes so they can maximize their ratings?
The fishrap is mainly satirical. pretty funny stuff. check out their website.
One of the distribution points for the fishrap was at my polling place (Porter College). I believe they had to put the issues face down because of the headline and close proximity to the polls.
Too many is when it takes my 56k modem 5 mins to load the thread.
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
As of 12:01 its
Bush 237
Gore 231
There are two tie scenarios:
1. Bush carries Florida and either Washington or Wisconsin, Gore carries all other states (Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Oregon, Washington|Wisconsin)
Bush carries Washington, Wisconsin, Alaska, and either Iowa or Oregon. Gore carries Arkansas, Iowa|Oregon, and Florida
have i gone insane? or is 44 still less than 52? they must be holding off the announcement that algore won california, because if they announced it, bush would win immediately.
'Mullethead. A hairstyle that's a way of life'
No, you won't see projections like that here. Mostly because there are no exit polls (are they illegal? I have no idea). That's what they use to predict the winners.
I'll point out that in all the Canadian elections I've seen (based on the CBC coverage in French), I have rarely seen them make wrong calls. Of course they wait to make sure before they do, unlike here it would seem.
Fuzzy math seems to be what the whole USian voting system relies on...
Generally, I consider the US parties to align like this, with some overlap. Ordered from left to right...
Socialist
Reform(Hagelin)
Green
Democrat
Libertarian
Republican
Prohibition
Reform(Buchanan)
I put Libertarians in the middle, but really, they tend to vary.
Especially if it's half around the world, where a majority of people votes for a stupid christian fanatic.
Watching all this last night leaves me very happy about being a continental european with all the liberty and openess the american citizens will miss the years to come. Good-bye americans, and never forget a little prayer for those who you wrest the gun from off his dead cold hands!
"Wer einen tanzenden Stern gebären will..." F.N.
Heh, that's pretty funny actually. Allow me to walk you through this sickness that is the current oligarchy that governs our country:
1. You see, most of us semi-intelligent Americans are already aware of this method of voting and many of us even endorse it.
2. The Republicans and Democrats are well aware of it as well, but oppose it as it would reduce their current control of the American political scene.
3. To get this change to the electoral process would require a Constitutional amendment.
4. To even qualify for being voted in as an amendment, it would first have to pass through the Congress.
5. The Congress is made up of almost entirely Republicans and Democrats.
6. Goto 2.
This would be how most laws that would return power to the people rather than the two big political parties get shot down. To be honest, I voted for Browne, I live in Florida and I am happy with my decision. People told me I was wasting my vote, yet when the day comes for Clinton to check out, his replacement won't be "the guy I voted against" or "the lesser of two evils I settled for," it'll just not be the guy I voted for. My vote will still be officially counted as one more that agrees with Browne's ideas and my life will move on as it has been.
On one more odd point before I get back to work, doesn't it seem kind of pointless to base the House and Senate candidates on location when they don't represent an area, but a political party instead? And doesn't it seem even stranger that the chief executive of the US government can hold partisan loyalties which exclude over half of the nation's citizens? And as a final strangeness, aside from what appears to be a split between the electoral vote and the popular vote results, isn't it somewhat disturbing that the next President of the US will have the support of less than half of the nation's people?
Deo
I've been apathetic towards politics my whole life. I think we really need a massive change, not just 2 or 3 parties to choose from (it was nice seeing the independents on the ballot w/ "NO PARTY"...aww, they have no party, it sounds sad). I think something radical (as dumb as that sounds) needs to happen.
BUT, I really dislike Bush. I haven't heard an intelligent person vouch for him. I mean, despite all his blatant lies (both candidates), wouldn't you at least pick the one who would make a fool of himself (& your country, as he is a figurehead) less? (Don't get me wrong, I like to laugh too, excellent fodder for Dave, Conan, etc...) WBush's whole life, it seems he's just been handed stuff, & gotten away w/ it when he didn't earn it.
I doubt the DemocRATS would have gotten this many votes if they had 3 DUI's between them (1 for Bush, 2 for Cheney).
Its too bad. Bush is babylon.
The mathematics behind the US election system (and what's wrong with it) where presented in Discover Magazine, now online at http://www.d isc over.com/nov_00/gthere.html?article=featbestman.ht ml
They also present several other voting schemes' pros and cons, but point out the difficulty in getting all of America to understand and switch to a new system.
with 60 % of the vote in the race is within 13K votes...that is closer than the florida race...and if MI was taken away from gore and given to bush...that would give him the pres
The famous headline was: "Dewey defeats Truman!" Made famous mostly because of the photograph of Truman holding up the newspaper while smiling. :-)
Yes it's broken up, but even in the counties they are handing to Gore the votes are showing Bush up by around ~60% to ~30%..
See my other post
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
I am non-US myself so I can't do any voting.
It isn't affecting the result in this election that is the important thing. I could care less about who of Gore or Bush are elected. Neither of them represent my views very well and they aren't very different politically.
What is the important thing is that if you vote for a third party candidate and it cause a swing in who wins, the major parties will look at that third party candidates view and try too win those votes for the next election.
If I had voted for one of the major candidates they would just try to adept to each other and as I said above, I don't agree with neither of their politics.
Hope I expressed myself a little better this time.
/wildclaw
Gore just got California, so it is now 230(Gore) - 217(Bush)
:wq
The thing is, I think Nader's got a good point in saying that a significant part of those voting for him would have sat out if he hadn't run. So how much did he really take from Gore? It's not as simple as "if he hadn't run those votes would have gone to Gore".
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
...so I visited http://www.hipsocket.com and laughed my ass off.
Now they have Gore winning.
Why don't we all wait a bit before trying to call this one?
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I doubt, my friend, if you really have a clue as to the danger they pose to both me and you... .45 caliber pistol.
Well, I live in a country where earlier this year the girlfriend of the son of a Federal Senator, while drunk, drove (unapproved) her "in-law's" government car into oncoming traffic (she had to cross 20metres of median strip to do it) and killed a father of 2.
result was $120 (AUD) fine. The wife of the deceased wan't vn informed of the trial date. She found out the result when someone told her.
The reason I wanted to know about the greens was because if they get their increase in funding, they will be in a position where they aren't shooting at helicopters with
"The reason I was speeding is.....
You might be a Democrat if you: have a 13 yr old mexican sex slave hire people to hold your penis while you pee think that Monica Lewinski doesn't have a penis hired Monica Lewinski to hold your penis eat alot of bagles, are in the show bussines or an accountant think that social security is hanging out with friends that make you feel safe swear up and down that Clinton never had seual relations with that lady are watching a rally for your favorite candidate and there is 80's rock music playing in the background
"If God can do it for 10% why can't the US Government?"
Only a dynamic list of the current state of the electoral college would be news. And that is already provided by most major news sites .
Slashdot is superb in the space that it has: it's faster than daily newspapers, but it's more in-depth than TV or radio news. However, it still doesn't compete with the immediacy of TV or radio. Immediate news reporting is still far better served by TV and radio.
Just as I wouldn't expect Slashdot to give me traffic information, I feel that this article was a weak choice for Slashdot.
Never play leapfrog with a unicorn. Or a juggernaut.
I'll offer my Canadian perspective on why voting Green isn't a good idea.
Up north here, we've historically had two big parties, the Liberals and the Conservatives. A few years ago, a new party to the right of the Conservatives started up, the Reform party. Since then, the Reform and the Conservative parties keep splitting the right-wing vote, letting the Liberals run away with majority governments despite receiving only 35-40% of the popular vote.
The only reason this stopped in Canada is because of a succession of completely inept leaders of the Conservatives (Mulroney, Campbell, and Clark -- though Charest wasn't bad). So the Conservatives collapsed, and now we're back to having two big parties.
My point is this: If you vote Green, and they DO get more popular, or even their 5%, you're contributing to a split among left-wing voters. Not just a split this election, but a split that will last in all the other elections until either the Greens or Dems collapse. Since neither is likely to happen, you'll be handing maybe up to 10 consecutive terms to the Republicans. So that's why I voted Gore even in safe Massachusetts (well, besides the fact that I don't like anything about the Green party beyond Nader himself).
Am I rambling? Or does this make a bit of sense?
vasi
"Hey, who took the cork off my lunch?" -- W. C. Fields
Hey, why don't we Aussie's ever get this much attention when our election is on? :-)
-- No, no gems to be found in this sig.
Bush is leading in both Florida and California, yet they call Florida undecided and California they have given to Gore!
If you notice, if they give CA to Bush, he will have about 280 electoral votes while Gore will have only 180. Consider the fact that Bush might/will win Florida, and Bush runs away with the title.
However, then everyone would turn off the TV and go to bed instead of sitting there hyping the fact that its a 'close race'.
Your tax dollars at work, people. Gotta love that.
- Jonathan
Watching NBC briefly, I noticed something very interesting. In the five states that are not known right now, wherever Gore is trailing, the difference between his count and W's is fairly equal to Nader's pcount.
Hmmm.
It cannot be denied that Nader takes votes from Gore. Seeing these numbers makes me wonder just how differently this would turn out if Nader weren't around.
-J
Karma: T-rexcellent.
I love it. Old "Dubya" is ahead by 200,000 votes in Florida right now. Almost every damn channel is eating crow right now! This is great! I got to watch Larry King AND Tom Brokaw eat crow!!
- -------
Life is good.
-----------------------------------------------
"The code I write borders on black magic. Modify it at your own peril."
Florida has over half a million absentee ballots not counted. Many are the seniors that transplant to Florida... seniors = social security. I have my money on Gore for Fla.
pronoblem
Sanchi
"They said we couldn't do it [Athlon]... but we built it, we shipped it... and we didn't have to recall it." Rich Heye
They chocked up Michigan for Gore hours ago, but right now it's 49% to 49% with a slight Bush lead. only 45% precicents reporting.
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
Would you believe?????
My Fucking TV just took a shit!! It just turned itself off, and won't turn back on!
ARGH!!!!!
Come on Windoze!!!.... Don't fail me now!
SHeeeeeesh! It's friggin' MIDNIGHT. What is wrong with those people?
Yeah, I should have been more clear on that point. I have a lot of respect for Gore's legitimate interest in the IT sector, not just BS'ing it.
I just mentioned it because it seemed that the statement "Gore created the Internet" was used as the biggest fodder for trashing Gore. While it was an exageration, it wasn't that bad.
I agree.
The real results (actual votes, not exit polls, or guessing), have been within 500K thw whole night. I'm thinking this is like a great movie, or a quadruple-overtime game.... Whoever comes out on top, it's been a great ride.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
Take a look at this picture: http://www.student.kuleuven.ac.be/~m9321793/Bush-K KK.jpg
See anything unusual? I remember a scene from the movie "Mississippi Burning" where Gene Hackman asks William Dafoe if he didn't noticed anything special on a wedding photograph. The fresh new husband and some of his friends are standing there with 2 fingers in and the 3 middle fingers out of their pockets. According to the Gene Hackman caracter this is a KKK sign (Ku Klux Clan).
When I saw this photograph I didn't feel that comfortable anymore.
Am I seeing ghosts or does this 'W' means something else.
(I thought it was 'V' for victory and not 'W')
Wouter ;)
I heard a quote (I think on CBS) along the lines of "as tight as a too small bikini on a too long ride home from the beach"
Correct, I was wrong, I shall promptly beat myself with a 2x4 for pennance... That'll learn me to spout off without checking my facts first.
The only country I know which uses this preferential system is Australia. Most European countries use some variant of the D'Hont proportional representation system which is party based and doesn't have preferences.
The preferential system is not actually proportional - in order to have PR you need to be electing more than one position. There are proportional systems which have preferences, one of the most popular is called Hare-Clark.
You are correct in identifying a problem in preferential voting. In fact, by Arrow's Theorem, there is no perfect voting system (Arrow's theorem is more technical but this is close enough.
The problem, if I might make it clearer, is that if you have (say) a big left party, a big right party and a small centre-left party with (say) 35%, 45% and 20% of the vote then roughly speeking the little party gets knocked out and the big left party wins. The problem is that the centre left party is probably most representative of the views of the electorate. Of course this is still better than first past-the-post as practiced in, for example, the US and Britain. In this case the right party would win even though they were the people that 55% of the population least wanted.
The level of democracy delivered by a voting system is relative, but the preferential system wins out over first past-the-post any day.
For more information on preferential voting see the Australian Electoral Commission.
If you were watching the CNN coverage, you might have surmised that this has _nothing_ to do with the KKK. I believe it is refering to the three branches of our federal government, which the Republicans would dominate if Bush gets in.
Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.
"With the results split between the EC and the people..."
Can someone please explain what the fsck this is suppose to mean?
nothing excels in every environment
Bush 2,671,708 votes 49 %
Gore 2,651,038 votes 49 %
94% reporting.........
Can you say a week of recounting before the winner is declared???
Wow this one is sooooooo close
no sig.
Huh? So you're saying that Nader, with his way far leftist Green Party, at least as far left as Socalists, and maybe as far left as Communists, will be the third party of choice for disgruntled Republicans? If that's the case, we (as in the whole country) might as well give up.
You know what's been bugging me this election? It's how Nader gets all this press as though the Green party were the Official Third Party, just because of Mister Corvair, when the Libertarians have been sticking in there for years. And nobody, at least not the media, has bothered to look deeply at his party platform. A lot of people are just voting for him as a "None Of The Above" checkbox.
Those who say they would have voted for Bush if Nader hadn't been running are the worst of the lot. No matter what else you can say about Nader and the Green Party, they certainly are farther left than Gore.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
> Are you an idiot?
Well, clearly I am if I think that the actual guy in the oval office won't make a difference to issues such as Napster being shut down, DeCSS being hunted down, carnivore tapping my email and lack of humourous option involving CowboyNeal in the slashdot poll.
The guy at the top isn't going to make a difference to all that; congress could but they're only going to do what they've been doing all along and taking advice from lawyers / the largest corporations / lawyers from the largest corporations.
The President is turning into more of a "face" for America (hints of Zaphod Beeblebrox for HHGTTG fans?) and while it might be slightly embarrassing for US citizens if their top man accidentally mispronounces a foreign diplomat's name wrong or claims he's responsible for something he isn't, it's not going to change the stuff that matters.
END!!! Why won't this end already?!?!!? I just wanna goto sleep, but noooo.. Florida has to be slow!! DAMN YOU FLORIDA!!!
It must be hard for the print media - they have to start printing tommorrow's paper soon. What will they say for the headline?
My candidate:
Nation Flips a Coin - Lands on Edge
I just watched CNN go through the Wisconson results, stepping through the third parties.
Why is it they are consistantly reporting the 'natural law' party results (Hagelin) and not Libertarian (Browne) when the LP has eight times the votes of Natural Law?
By all their counts, Browne is doing nearly as well as Buchanan. At the state and local level I would suspect LP is beating all the other parties.. Yet no mention on the networks.. Why is the LP shunned by the media? Lame.
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
How many Democrats does it take to screw in a light bulb?
"If God can do it for 10% why can't the US Government?"
Whatever the outcome of this election, it's time to get rid of Alexander Hamilton's hat-doff to his paranoia of "the great beast"; the American Public.
"Moogs! Would YOU buy that for a quarter?" CMK
It says: "Bush now has 217 electoral votes and Gore has \. "
OK, that's a backslashdot, not slashdot, but hey!
Screencap is here in case they fix it before you look at it.
No, I'm not making this up.
[no -'s in email]
There's been an amazing amount of controversial instances of voter fraud this election. From broken machines in New York, to poll closing in Missouri, to absentee ballot stuffing all over the country. I'd say this probably has a lot to do with the fact that we no longer have several competing organizations working on election results- we now only have one. But Geez America- this election has looked more like a Third World/South American election than a First World one.
Am I too suspicious?
Absentee votes take awhile to be counted and several of the states' races are very close, number wise. What happens if the same forces that would make a citizen cast an absentee vote (a strong political commitment but an inability to vote on election day due to some reason, etc) make that citizen also tend to vote for one candidate over another? Perhaps the absentee voter demographic might favor Gore, while the regular voter demographic will favor Bush, or vice versa. I'm specifically thinking of Florida with its 25 electoral votes that looks like it will decide the US elections this year. We might not know the true count for a few weeks.
Also, what happens if a member of the electoral college decides to vote contrary to his/her state? It has happened 9 times before, according to CNN. In that case, we wouldn't know the result until January.
I admit defeat. Nader did indeed cost Gore the election
Actual excerpt from tonight's television news:
"Now, we were sure that Gore had won Florida, but now it seems not so certain. Wait! This just in! We have just received word that an unexpected third party write-in candidate by the name of... (off-microphone)...Shawn Fanning, I repeat Shawn Fanning has carried Florida. We at the broadcast station are not sure what..."
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
"One more post"
Well, this is the one more post, which means you're not allowed to post who actualy wins - and dont edit - thats cheating!
230 for Gore 217 for Bush GO GORE!!!!
Oh Well, Whatever, Nevermind...
According to CNN and ABCNews The vote count in Michigan is more solidly Bush..but they are still projecting Gore.
not the new House, the existing House of Reps would decide, IIRC.
tell us something usefull man this is nothing we haven't heard for the past hour or so
"If God can do it for 10% why can't the US Government?"
This bothers me.
;push(@in, @ARGV); ;die("ERROR: Shill is not homeless\n")
if (!defined $vote || $vote eq 'gore') {
if ($voter_homeless) {
 
&am p;nbsp;$action = "give_free_cigarettes";
} else {
 
}
}
Don't expect free cigarettes for your Democratic vote. Unless you happen to be a homeless Milwaukee resident.
--------
Oscarfish.com: tropical fish with attitude. Way t
Okay, so I'm checking out the popular vote situation: as of 12:27 am, Bush received 1,132,596 popular votes, and Gore received...1,104,930 popular votes (24% of precincts reporting). And CA is still listed as Gore's state. Anyone know what CNN bases their projections on???
You know, looking at this election, I think I finally understand why the Constitution set up the Electoral College, and I must say, I'm in favor of it.
Before I start the explanation, please understand that I don't like any of the candidates, and chose to remain neutral this election.
Now, head over to CNN.com, ABCNews.com, or any other place with a map of how the electoral votes came out, and take a look. Gore has the popular vote, but look at the states he won. You'll notice they're concentrated in three major regions: the noetheast, the southwest (particualrly California), and the upper midwest.
Contrast this with the states Bush won: many smaller states, but generally spread out to cover the nation as a whole.
This, I think, is what the Framers were tryting to get at with the College: a system which takes not only sheer number of votes into account, but also the distribution of those votes. By winning more states, you prove that you not only represent many people, but people from many different regions of the nation. In the end, that truly is a fairer system. Not perfect by any means, but consider this: more people in the US live in urban areas than rural. Is it fair, then, that the urban votes could, at least in theory, control elections while rural voters, outnumbered by their urban counterparts, are never heard?
----------
There is a report out there that Palm Beach County may have made a mistake and had people vote for Buchanan instead of Gore. I think there was about 3000 votes for Buchanan which would put gore over the top in Florida. This is so fun
Well, if you put any stock in Tecumseh's curse, I would rather see a republican elected in a year that ends with zero. ;)
WHAT YOUR VOTE MEANS
YES
A YES vote on this measure means: New contribution and voluntary spending limits will be established for state elective offices. Limits pre-viously adopted by the voters for state and local offices, which have not been im-plemented because of a pending lawsuit, would be repealed. The new limits are higher than those that would be repealed.
NO
A NO vote on this measure means: Existing contribution and voluntary spending limits for state and local elective offices enacted by a voter-approved initiative would not be repealed.
--
The shareholder is always right.
Silver lining department: Now we finally get to find out if there is such a thing as being TOO STUPID TO BE PRESIDENT.
U.S. Democracy: born 7/4/1776, died 12/12/2000 R.I.P.
...only the 3% makes the difference for Bush. Not for anti-WTO, US workers and the environment. Thanks for nothing, Ralph. Hope yr inflating ego feels it, big time.
Even without the re-vote this will take probably at least another day for the recount and getting all the absentee ballots. With a re-vote this could take many days or possibly even weeks!
Even then there's always the off-chance that an elector or two will "buck the system" and throw the election to the other candidate (if, for example, Gore wins Oregon and Bush takes Florida, the result would be 271 (Bush) to 267 (Gore), it would take only 2 electors switching from Bush to Gore to force a tie and throw the whole thing to the house and senate, highly unlikely, but perhaps more likely if Gore wins the popular vote).
It's trite, but turnabout is fair play.
And the brethren went away edified.
That's my new rallying cry. I've never much liked that state anyway, and now it's making all of us have to sit around worrying until all hours...
right on!
"If God can do it for 10% why can't the US Government?"
Well this is confusing ... CNN.com has Bush winning Rohde Island on the main page, but has gore winning it on the detailed page ...
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
Maybe we won't have to live under a theocracy after all...
End of lesson. You may press the button.
Hehe, you are right. Protest voting sucks and is the most pointless thing to do.
What I meant to say in my post above is that voting for the candidate you like is even more important in a swing state because your vote will more likely be noticed and cause politicians to react and adept.
If you like Gore vote Gore, if you like Bush vote Bush and if you like Nader vote Nader....and so on with the rest of the candidates.
Voting for the person that you think is the best for the post is a reasonable thing to do. The problem is convincing everyone to do it.
And if you don't like any of the candidates, lobby for a vote for 'None of the Above' as an option.
The only alternative to voting for the best candidate is do as the major candidates want you to do and vote against the other major candidate, but I don't see a point in doing this since they have pretty much the same politic views. (Of course it differs some, but the difference is minimal if you compare to many of the other candidates)
Looks like 4 years of gridlock await us, folks. And you know what? That ain't bad. It is not likely that there will be many sweeping changes, wild programs, or boondoggles in the next few years. Either way it is unlikely that either one will be able to get judicial nominees approved.
In short: we're in for more of the same. Status quo. No matter who gets in.
---- Hey Grrl Geeks! Your very own geek news site has arrived!
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
... that Cubans traditionaly vote Republican whether Puerto-Ricans whose amount is growing side with Democrats.
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
oh yeh - what about nader's 45k votes as a statement? A statement like "al gore sucks, too"
tagline
... hi bingo
Not to mention they keep fudging the numbers to make the races seem a lot closer than they really are... Bush is going to win Florida, but saying that would hurt ratings....
Right now, Florida is the important state. 25 electoral votes up for grabs, with Bush ahead 51% to 46% in the popular vote and 500K+ absentee ballots to count.
I believe that most of the states that haven't been called yet will go to Bush, but the deciding factor will be Florida.
You can't help but wonder... with Flordia shifting around, at last check Bush was actually leading CA even though they gave it to Gore... Do you think they call them even though it's too early just to keep it close? I was checking (and rechecking) the state by state votes and a lot of them that are really close have already been called with a very small percentage in... What's the deal with that? How can they make a call like that (and risk pulling another FL)?
CNN has some good state by state numbers:
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2000/resul ts/
Need ecommerce that doesn't suck? FoxyCart is for you.
Well it appears that UC Santa Cruz has insider information on who will win the presidential election. Guess there really is a conspiracy. Check out a scan of their news paper here
I posted something like this on the earlier subject. All the networks just gave California to Gore 4 mins. after the polls closed, with 0% counted! Is it just me, or have they seemed really eager to get Gore elected?
Getting late.....Brokaws voice...Digging into brain...Need to change channel...Must find remote...TV too far for average american to walk to change channel manually...must...I can't...Brokaw... so mezmerizing...help I've tuned on NBC and I can't get up AHHHHHHHHHHH!
"If God can do it for 10% why can't the US Government?"
Tom Brokaw just "mentioned" that "a few hundred" people in Fla thought they were voting for Gore but..."due to the structure of the ballots" they voted for..Pat Buchanan.
Plus he note,s they have "located the mising ballot boxes" (!) in Fla. What the hell is going on there?????
Hey - at least I'm not the only one who voted Bush because I don't trust Gore one bit :).
Plus the fact that he'd like to raise the price of gas....
Great Windows SFTP Server!
No. The Rep's won the House and hung on by the skin of their teeth in the Senate. How the next President will be able to govern rests soley with who wins.
If it's Gore then we still have the same situation of one side effectivly controling Congrass and one side the Executive office.
If Bush wins then we'll have all one party in control. While that sounds ominous, it's actually a good thing in that the Leaguslative and Executive branches will not be fighting over crap enough to possibly get some real work done.
And for those who are araid that a Bush win would be Bad Thing<tm> , take a look at the US from 1980 till today. You'll see no effective difference in anything that trully maters. We are all better off than we were before Regan and, after 12 years of Rep's and 8 years of Dem's, we're still doing better than we were before 1980.
Bottom line: Neither party is effectivly different than the other. They shout and rant about "Liberal" and "Conservative" but keep the basic status quo. It's in their coninued self interest to do so.
Discalimer: I don't know shit. I'm just posting my take on this after just two and a half hours of sleep. No, I wasn't up following the elections, though I did check in occationally. I have been trying to get TruboLinux Workstation 6.1 installed under VMware. And for the record, I voted for Bush because he scares me less than Gore does. Kinda like you're less afraid of a knife wealding madman than a gun toting madman.
---
--
If I actually could spell I'd have spelled it right in the first place.
Just wondering if anyone snagged a copy of the CNN or ABC homepages while they still said 'Bush Wins'.. -Wade
That's already been suggested, and I think it's a bad idea.
Constitutionally Correct
Dammit!
Well, I can't blame you if you're not in this country, but to think that the two candidates' progams have "very little difference" is just wrong. Here's a good place to see just how much they differ:
n dex.html
:)
http://ww w.c nn.com/ELECTION/2000/resources/where.they.stand/i
Though I still agree with Nader that the two candidates are too similar, particularly in terms of the degree to which corporate interests have their hands in the candidates' pockets. But that doesn't mean I can't distinguish between the two.
The enemies of Democracy are
BUSH WON!
Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.
Lots of other first world countries use proportional representation - look at this cool map. In fact, South Australia's upper house is proprotionally elected - which is how the Democrats got a strong presence there in the first place.
Fixing copyright
No wonder why your voter turnout is so low then.
How are they fudging the numbers??? As of 1:48 Bush has a 30,000 person lead in Florida which is less then 1 percent. How can you call the race?
CBS and CNN are reporting that Bush has won using their best estimates on the uncounted votes in Florida.
- Don't complain about lack of options - You've got to pick a few when you do multiple choice. Those are the breaks.
- Feel free to suggest poll ideas if you're feeling creative. I'd strongly suggest reading the past polls first.
- This whole thing is wildly inaccurate. Rounding errors, ballot stuffers, dynamic IPs, firewalls. If you're using these numbers to do anything important - you're insane.
And, after all, every [democratic] country has the government it deserves. Sigh.Those who refused to vote are co-responsible for the result. Never forget that when you start complaining about the government...
Now there are countries where people fight and demonstrate for a right to vote, and there are others (mine [CH] too) where you literally have to force people to make use of a right they have. Strange world, indeed.
Use The Source, Luke!
Wow, what a nail-biter. Better than the Super Bowl (well, maybe not this past year, but most years.)
Oh, and big thank you to all you Nader voters. I'll buy any one of a you a beer sometime.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
(Canadians, please bear with me through the background)
In Canada, we have a Parlimentary system, which means we have one body like Congress but which has all legislative power (in theory, we also have a Senate, but it doesn't really do anything). Each seat is given to the candidate with the largest number of votes in a given riding (riding == congressional district).
The Prime Minister is just the guy who leads the party with the largest number of Parliament seats; he isn't seperately elected and has no special veto power (although he has some other special roles). The funny thing is that lately the P.M. has had a majority in the Parliament, so he pretty much rules like a king and the whole discussion process in Parliament has been a pathetic joke.
Now, in the last election, Reform was the official opposition (that's the party with the second largest number of Parliament seats). The Liberals had a majority. However, they did not have a majority of the popular vote (as pointed out above). Also, the Conservatives had a significant portion of the popular vote (I believe somewhere between 10% and 25%; I should look it up, but I'm feeling lazy and Gundam Wing is on) but an insignificant number of parliament seats.
The change we need to make is to adopt the South American system: a Parliament corrected to reflect popular-vote. Half of the seats are elected regionally, and the other half are given out to the parties which recieved a greater proportion of popular vote than regional parliament seats. So in the last election, the Liberals wouldn't have a majority, there would be a three-way standoff between the Conservatives, the Liberals, and Reform, requiring an alliance between any two to win (I think; it may have been more complicated with the involvement of the Bloc). So we'd have a real Parliament, not a king who could expensively cancel needed military contracts and bring in a system of gun registration on a whim.
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Check out cnn.com and check out Nevada and the total.
Now Go To msnbc.com and do the same.
This is has been like this for about an hour now.
This also is relevant when speaking about Grammar Nazis.
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
I heard that the networks got wrong information about the vote in Florida ... this really makes me wonder if we can really watch the networks and trust them.
--------- The 'gui' in 'penguin' is pronounced K-D-E .
What the hay?
There is already one discussion underway about the election(actively, I might add), and Taco posts another article about the same election?
I can imagine doing this sort of thing if the candidates had been swapped out mid-election for bench replacements, but what does splitting one topic into a series of articles accomplish? More first posts to go around? An open signal for moderators to give up on the earlier article and migrate over to this one? What?
"When the election is final, we'll post one more story [...]" sounds reasonable until one realizes it might mean we'll periodically receive a new "national election" article every three hours or so until things are "done".
Can someone explain why it was necessary to open a new article when everything mentioned here could have been appended as a correction or update to the original?
If he hits 5%, the Greens get more funding for 2004, and maybe you'll get some intelligent policies (and politics).
PS I get the impression that the rest of the world can discuss the US presidential race with more rigour (and good humour) than the supposed intellectuals on /.
"The reason I was speeding is.....
Sanders (KFC) 106348 3%
GO Colonel GO!!!
I'm all for third parties, but we need a new voting system where people can vote for Nader without effectively voting for Bush. Perhaps a system similar to Kuro5hin's comment moderation system?
------
Stop! Stop this independent thinking! Signed Col. Sarnoff (deceased)
"Moogs! Would YOU buy that for a quarter?" CMK
Well, I voted bush, but really I don't believe that anything will really change, or that bush is going to be a great/good president, I simply voted bush to keep a pathological liar out of the office, I believe that the embarrassment to the country would be simply abhorrent.
I agree, what the hell is going on here? 22% of the precincts are reporting and Bush has 51% of the vote compared to 46% for Gore... yet CNN gave it to Gore. WTF!? How on earth did they come up with that?
Actually, I thought the same thing. According to abcnews.com, though, Gore has pulled ahead in Cali...
How you see the world is how the world sees you.
Basically the electoral college system works like this today. Every ten years the census figures adjusts how many representatives each state has. This number plus two, representing the two senators, equals how many electors each state has. Also DC has 3 electors. Then each state has the right to decide how to select these electors. Forty eight states use the general ticket system, two, Maine and Nebraska, use the district system. The general ticket system is suppose to operate as follows. There is a direct vote election held in each state and the winner of the vote is suppose to get all of that states electoral votes. In 24 states the electors are required to vote as pledged. In Maine and Nebraska there is an election held in each congressional district. The winner of every district gets one electoral vote, and the candidate with the most electoral votes gets the remaining two electoral votes. Then all of the votes are counted, and if a candidate gets more than half the votes, he/she becomes the new president. If there is no majority then the election gets thrown into the House of Representatives. There each state is given one vote and they vote on the top three candidates. If a candidate gets a majority vote, then he/she becomes president. If not they continue voting until a majority is reached and the speaker of the house become a temporary president until a majority is reached.
(I found this online awhile ago...)
El Karma: excelente(principalmente la suma de moderación hecha a los comentarios de los usuarios)
Cnn and other news agency may have shut the casket lid down on Gore by calling the Florida election too soon. Using their premature knowledge from the absentee votes and exit polls they decided to call Gore the winner when the Florida Panhandle was still 30 minutes away from closing its voting stations. This caused an increase in last minute Bush votes and a severe decrease in the vital Gore votes needed for Gore.
All we can do now is wait and see...
WinnieTheShit
Ok, can anyone make sense of the crap that is going on ? CNN, MSN, ABC, CBS.... All different! Make up your feakin minds!!! Tom Brokaw is a moron, or at least his staff is! God, I just want to kill em all!! You would think that if we could map out every human gene in a strand of DNA, and creat things like the wheel that we could at least Vote online, and supply those less fortunate with PCs so we could have this shit over with by now. The quicker we know the winner the quicker Clintons ass is back on the street!
"If God can do it for 10% why can't the US Government?"
Your reasoning is a little shaky, too. Your vote would count the same whether you voted third-party or not. If you're in a swing state, any way you vote makes a difference. It changes the outcome regardless of whether you go third-party or mainstream--because, effectively, your third-party vote effects the mainstream run-off the same as if you had voted for one of the Big 2 candidates.
I'm all for people voting for who they want, but voting for Nader just because he's not Bush or Gore is the same thing as voting for Gore because he's not Bush. A protest vote for a third-party candidate doesn't show anything except that you're disaffected and incapable of exercising responsible choices (this is in no way a knock at people who actually truly support Nader or Browne and their platforms--just the ones that think voting for them is a way to teach the system a lesson).
No relation to Happy Monkey
Wow. Nice job. You have definitely find your way to elect 3 conservative supreme court justices, the "liberal" way.
The conservatives got at least 7 of 9 seats in the supreme court in the 90's. You guys just wanna help out new conservative blood to get in the supreme court. This influence the national policy for the next couple of decades. Sure, you got your fucking 2% voice heard. Be proud of your self.
Dumb ass. In a close race like this, the only wining strategy is the middle. This is proven mathematically.
This is not to say that AG is not gona elect some conservative into the supreme court just like Clinton did. But I can guarantee you that Bush will never nominate a liberal supreme court justice. period.
Congrats. and Good night.
If you're just interested in the numbers for PA he referred to:
Good link though. Info for all the other states as well.
Constitutionally Correct
Florida allows 10 days for overseas absentee ballots to come in. With a margin now in the hundreds, the overseas ballots (mostly from military personnel) could make the difference. Which I think is incredibly cool. Talk about a civics lesson!
I have to say that voting for Nader is absolutely not voting against my ideals. I consider myself to be very much to the left - as far left as possible without being socialist - and Gore and the rest of the Democratic party do not represent me, my interests, or IMHO the good of the United States. Thier "left" and "liberal" labels just do not apply anymore. Someone needs to tell them.
who needs liars and whores in the WhiteHouse?
Come on on you democrat's let hear it; "We Do! We believe that Gore invented the economy! There would not be any damn economy without Clinton! And Gore! (These damn hackers and nerds may think they had some thing to do with the booming high tech economy but let me tell you right here; Gore invented the economy!"
CNN declared Bush the winner in Florida, and therefore, the winner of the election.
great... instead they will be taught creationism instead evolutionism in school ;-)
Well, as long as Mr Bush stays of the button I'm happy...
Good luck America
if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
And it's all over... The 43rd president of the United States of America is George W. Bush.
Ph34r 31337 Pr351d3nt Bush..
oh shit, there goes the planet...
-BF
-BF
Well, looks like Florida made the difference after all. This should be interesting.
11:44 PM MST: Bush 246, Gore 242. Florida is still way too close to call, and Gore has to win Florida to win. He's been coming up fast though. (And there are 2300 absentee ballots that were sent overseas from Florida, I just heard...it may not be over even when it's over...)
Here in Colorado, there wasn't much doubt; this state went for Bush. But we had a number of entertaining statewide issues, such as a medical marijuana initiative (looks to be passing...I voted for the California measure, and I voted for this one, too), the well-publicized "gun show loophole" measure (passing, much to my chagrin...the way that measure defines a "gun show," it could apply to garage sales and estate sales), an anti-growth measure (going down--it was way too broadly worded and extreme), a measure mandating a 24-hour waiting period for abortions (also going down...someone said it best on the radio this morning, "A man has no business getting in between a woman's legs unless he's invited!"), and a measure that would let Colorado join Powerball or another multi-state lottery (seemed to be hanging in there, last I saw).
To all you Gore supporters out there, let me just say..."You gotta believe."
Eric
--
Be who you are...and be it in style!
Linux Loses!
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
Dude, nice sig! I agree totally. Film rules, especially 70mm. BTW, did you hear about recently when the SMPTE committees on digital cinema were giving a Q&A session in L.A., and someone asked who was going to pay to convert theaters to digital projectors? Their response was, and I quote, "That's not our problem." Ha, ha! Those fucking glorified HDTV projectors cost 10 times as much as film projectors, and they wonder why nobody wants to pay for it? Brilliant.
Free Hans!
Proposition 34 limits the amount that an individual can spend on campaigning. If you're not allowed to spend money on it, you're not free to do it.
If you live in the west, there is a blackout for the results in the east, since the eastern provinces pretty much determine the outcome.. not sure what that does.. but thats the law.. some guy is planning on posting results on the net..however..
Nader might still play a part here. Florida, though, will probably make the ultimate difference.
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Oscarfish.com: tropical fish with attitude. Way t
Hmmm. That's strange. I thought that a tie was decided through hand-to-hand mortal combat on PPV...
How you see the world is how the world sees you.
if(fSanitygone)
{
SorryStateOfPolitics == Bush + Nader;
}
Your example is flawed. The situation you propose does not take into account two pieces of information:
1) The person who is making the choice believes that option 3 will not happen even if he/she chooses it. Is that in fact true? Probably. Slashdot contains the only discussions that I have observed this election season where Nader was considered anything more than a crackpot.
2) The person who is making the choice does not regard options 1 and 2 as being as close to equivalent as you do. It's closer to the choice between being executed and knowing that there is a chance that your family might live, and being executed and knowing that your family is also doomed. Personally, I prefer the chance that my family might live - especially because I don't believe that the radical in Green will really rescue me before the execution.
And this is "News for Nerds, Stuff that matters"(tm)?
;-)
Maybe by voting for Nader, those 70,000 or so voters will send a message to Gore et all not to sell them out. Otherwise, supporting or voting for a 3rd party candidate becomes a meaningless act.
Apparently, in Nevada you can vote for "None of these Candidates." It's doing better than Harry Browne too.
Any sufficiently advanced civilization is indistinguishable from Gods.
As a Canadian watching the procedings I find the electronic projections (trending) quite interesting.
I wonder if the same will occur for the Canadian Federal Election on November 27th. Probably not, because CNN doesn't care....
Technology is only a vehicle. People are the ones that drive it.
I personally hope Gore did win California as I have no desire to live in a christian theocracy, but it's just too damn early to tell.
.technomancer
.technomancer
vote Socialist, vote America
You'll be up in awhile. This is a first time in a long time, that every state will probably count. As it stands of this write, Gore has 230 while Bush has 225. Even if Gore gets Florida, it will be up to the other western states (don't forget Alaska too!) to decide the future of the presidency, because the winner has to reach the 270 electoral votes requirement to be voted in. (Also remember, these are only exit polls!)
Notice that NBC is saying that it's equal at 242. But CNN is saying it's 246 to 242 for Bush. It's obvious that NBC is doing on purpose to leave it equal for the ratings. Smart move.
Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.
Must be some of that "fuzzy math" I've been hearing about.
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
It's this kind of short-term thinking that has created the current big-money duopoly party system.
Unless you're totally happy with the current two-party system and are comfortable with the entire package of policies provided by the party of your choice, it would be in your (and America's) long term interest to have a third party with some influence. It doesn't look like Nader will win enough to qualify for matching funds in the next election, but he almost had a shot at it, and might have been able to do it, if it weren't for the fact that both major parties managed to hoodwink people like you into thinking that this election was more important than all future elections.
The truth is, if we end up with a President Bush, one of two things will happen: either his administration won't do much worse than the previous administration, in which case you have little to worry about; or he'll create a backlash for the next time around which will be to your benefit (as a Democratic voter).
In closing: I hope all those non-strategically-minded Nader supporters who voted for Gore can sleep easily in their beds in four years time, when America still won't have an alternative to the two corrupt parties we have now. Of course, they will sleep easily, since they're clueless about strategy at this level. Oh well. The vote will continue to go to those best at manipulating the "common people": and you, GeorgeH, have just been manipulated.
When you make that kind of statement, you trivialize the evil of the Nazis. The Nazis committed great atrocities, and these atrocities should be remembered so they never have to be repeated.
By calling Bush, a man who is clearly not a Nazi, nor even in the same ballpark as the Nazis when it comes to evil, a Nazi, you disrespect the memory of all those who died at the hands of Nazi butchers.
Perhaps you would profit by perusing the Nizkor Project.
Can someone please wake me up when this whole mess is over? This is worse than a tie game in the 25th inning in the seventh game of the world series. ELECT SOMEONE ALREADY!
Good reason to keep the electoral college. Imagine having to recount everything instead of just Florida.
Brilliant, you mean that if people didn't actually have a choice, they'd vote for Gore.
Or how about, 'Gore is a surefire win, if no one else is running against him.'
Right now more people are driven to vote because they HATE on of the choices. Not because they love one of them and want to vote for him.
Sheesh,
Erik Z
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
Oh wait, wrong election. Sorry.
This is extremely relevant to the discussions about alternative voting systems
The only certainty is entropy.
What country do you come from then? In America we believe in capitalism. The same system that built this nation should also reward its participants. Why on earth should I rollover and accept having nearly half of my income stolen from me by a bloated government? I have over 40 years until I will be able to retire yet I pay much of my taxes into social security.. a program which directly subsidizes the current generation of retirees as a wealth transfer from the current generation of workers. In the future this pyramid scheme will collapse as the baby boomers retire and I know for absolute certain that if we stay the course now with Al Gore and do not do something to radically change the entitlement (privatize, etc) I will NOT ever by able to enjoy the benefits of the program. It just won't exist anymore. You don't think I have a stake in how my taxes are used? How dare you assume that anyone that actually gives a shit about how THEIR hard earned income is spent by the federal government is a greedy asshole. If anyone, the greedy asshole is Uncle Sam.
Jesus that's close.
Do you have a source on this 200 vote difference?
A couple questions...
1) All of those military votes that supposedly still haven't come in...historically, haven't they been pro-republican?
2) Aren't there other states where the vote was incredibly close? (Wisconsin and Iowa, IIRC??) Why aren't recounts being demanded in those states as well, instead of waiting to see how things go in Florida?
I'm glad I live in Canada :)
Frankly, I wouldn't be happy to see either candidate win (though I do think Bush-as-president would probably be easier to survive with our rights intact than Gore-as-president).
But hey, there's room for humor. Any trolls here want to start a campaign for the goatse.cx guy next time around?
I can see it now: "Vote Goatse! At least we can say our candidate has nothing to hide!" Hey, I'd take him over Bush or Gore. Now, what platform should he run...
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Meanwhile, far away, Satan and his infernal minions were becoming concerned about the distinct record low temperatures in their domain. They eventually traced the cause to a single event: Millennium actually agreeing with the Slashdot trolls.
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Heh. With a 200-odd vote margin this morning, only a few Nader votes would have made the difference.
--
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There is no premature anti-fascism. -Ernest Hemingway
Sure I did. Did you get a load of the "cross-sectional" data in the exit polls in Florida?
1819 Respondents of over 5.5 million voters is hardly a good sampling. Especially considering the attention span it takes to fill out an exit poll versus the attention span of the average voter.
Remember: Jerry Springer is still one of the most popular shows on TV.
-- lk t lv ll th vwls t f wrds. T svs lts f tm t wrt bt ts pn n th ss t rd nd mks m lk lk cmplt dpsht.
Well, unfortunately who would you have suggested we vote for? Bush was the republican nominee (don't blame me, I voted for McCain in the primaries). I'm sure as hell not going to vote for ol' baby-killing tax-and-spend Al Gore and his band of merry liberal pot-head cronies. Geez. I say deal with it America. We (Republicans) had to live through years of torture when democrats controlled the congress and the executive branch so I hope you guys get to have a taste of what that's like.
American People Lose in Landslide!
Republicans, Democrats blamed for humiliating loss
Film at 11.
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
NT is for no text! not windoze
1. You are to be executed with a gun
2. You are to be executed using hanging
3. You are allowed to live
I also told you that lots of other people had also voted and the third option would not do anything for you. Would you in that case not choose the third option?
If you truly believe that the choise btw Bush/Gore is equivalent to choose method of execution, your analogy is correct
Others might rather see it as a choise between:
1. I break your right leg.
2. I smack your face.
3. I let you go.
Knowing that most people want to kick your butt and that it is a close call between 1. and 2., you might want to vote for no 2.
i.e. the Nader/Gore choise depends on wether the Gore/Bush choise matters to you or if they are equally unacceptable.
All opinions are my own - until criticized
Brother Jeb is gonna deliver Florida for Gee-Dub-Ya...
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
Go tease the Gore boys: I sincerely _despise_ both your stinking candidates, did just what I set out to do, and you're an even greater fool if you think I'm going to stop there.
My only regret is that I am _not_ a terrorist or assassin. But at least I'll stay out of jail better if I refrain from committing crimes.
_Your_ beloved new President commits crimes.
"Three TV networks have projected that Bush will win Florida, but they have not called the race."
Florida vote status 12:15am CST:
Bush 2,598,890 49.539% (They say 49%)
Gore 2,546,906 48.548% (They say 49%)
Nader 85,281 1.626% (They say 2%)
Buchanan 15,043 0.287% (They say 0%)
Total 5,246,120
They round down for Bush and up for Gore. Must be the new math.
CNN and ABC call it 98% of florida precincts reporting
Read my plan to save the Bengals
Sorry, forgot to mention that.
A beowulf cluster of electoral votes.
The current results as of 11:14 EST shows the following from Florida:
Bush 2,111,170 51%
Gore 1,964,211 47%
Nader 67,503 2%
IIRC, Florida carries 25 electoral college votes, enough to give the winner the presidancy at this point. I just hope the 67,503 Nader voters feel smug about voting their concience while they're riding in this hand basket come January 20th.
For the record, I like Nader better than Gore, but I voted for Gore. I live in Michigan, a swing state, and couldn't vote for Nader.
--
Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
Still, I think there are some real serious issues involved with CNN potentially tempering with the election by releasing Florida results early. If this kind of thing was happening in Peru or some other third world country, the United States itself would probably appeal the results of the election and ask for a re-vote.
Time to go to bed, since Jenni has. I'll dream of a cut-and-dry election, where the ballot-counting devices work instantly.
Looks like the republicans will retain control of the house of representatives! Good. At this point, GW has to carry either Florida or all three of the other states, which is not likely, considering that Bush will have a hard time carrying Florida and Iowa. Now that the republicans have the house, and they will most likely have the senate, this will make sure that we have another four years of getting absolutely nothing done. Democratic White House, Republican congress. More legislative gridlock. Go figure.
-
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.
with all this political talk, I was almost forgetting that I was reading slashdot. Can someone please tie this election in with legos?
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
Does anyone else think Madonna could totally win the election if she ran? I mean, all kinds of people would vote for Madonna, just because people like celebreties more than politicians.
-aaron
...that "some voters meant to vote for Gore but somehow, due to the structure of the ballot" ended up voting for....Pat Buchanan.
Are they getting those votes back?
No! "It seems it was just a few hundred voters", said Tom Brokaw. Then he wnet on to talk about the "missing Boxes" ("they seem to have located most of them and are cheking the seals to se that no tampering has occured")
And WHO governs Florida??????
un-fucking-believable
The article's supposed to be a semi-real-time coverage of the election, so I think it makes sense to have periodical updates. Moreover, as a Slashdot regular, you probably know already that once articles fill up at around 200 posts, pretty much nothing gets read or moderated up. I think this was done to encourage more reading and posting of opinions, as well as to capture the spur of the moment feel. Or maybe that's just me.
Nader won't win. This has been clear for some time. The majority isn't interested in anyone but the Democrats and Republicans.
Under these circumstances (taking either a Gore or Bush victory as given, knowing that voting for any other party is effectively equivalent to not voting), a vote for Nader, from a person who would prefer Gore over Bush, really is equivalent to a half-vote for Bush. You can make the statement that you are willing to vote for a third party in other ways (especially in those pre-election polls; always say who you'd like to vote for when they ask for who you intend to vote for).
The election system is severely screwed up, creating this situation. If there was a simple candidate-ranking scheme (rate each from 0-10, highest average wins; unmarked counts as 5), you wouldn't have this problem. You could vote Bush=0, Nader=10, Gore=5, and actively oppose Bush without promoting Gore over Nader.
OTOH, true democracy can't work. However, the defacto system of influence auction seems to work fairly well. Don't get too worked up over who wins. They're pretty much the same, and either will keep the old system grinding along.
"Democracy can't work... Wisdom is not additive; its maximum is that of the wisest man in a given group. But a democratic form of government is okay, as long as it doesn't work."
-Robert A. Heinlein
Glory Road
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Who modded me troll? It's a fucking joke!
HINT: This one should be flamebait. I should teach a class called Moderation for Dummies. Sheesh.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Being an admitted, dyed in the wool, bedwetting, treehugging liberal Al Gore is too conservative for me. Hence, the intrigue with Nader. ... OR SO I THOUGHT.
Truth be told, I wouldn't have voted for Nader because of the projected closeness of this race - and I live in a swing state (WA). BUT - I would have loved to give Nader my vote
Nader is a hypocritical, lying, evasive, authoritative freak WHO DOES NOT LIVE UP TO THE IDEALS HE IS RUNNING ON!! Sure, he sounds great, but do some checking into his history and you will find that how he lives is in direct opposition to what he says.
http://www.realchange.org
Check him out for yourself!
Before everyone gets in a huff about Bush possibly winning the Presidency without winning the popular vote, remember that this is exactly what the Framers of the Constitution intended and what helped to allow these states to become united.
The Electoral College and the Senate were two concessions made to the smaller states such that they had a larger say in the Federal government than their population alone would merit. Each state gets a set number of votes based upon the number of seats that state has in the House of Representatives plus two for their two senators. It is that +2 that gives the smaller states a larger say in who the President should be.
Say Bush wins Florida after the recount and loses Oregon. If you take away those two EC votes from each state to account for that compromise, you get a Gore win (229 Gore/213 Bush), because he won the big states.
So ask yourself: Do you really want to get rid of the Electoral College? If so, are you willing to have candidates pandering to large poplulation centers at the expense of everyone else? Do you also want to rid the country of the Senate, which is also a concession to small states?
States' Rights is an important facet of our Constitution, and the states are speaking now.
It's like the difference between getting poked in your left eye 9 times, or your right eye 10. Either way it's unpleasant, and in the long run it doesn't make much difference *which* eye gets poked out.
Regardless of what their "platform" is, Democrats and Republicans are effectively the same once they get in office. They both make stupid laws they have no right in making, there's only a slight difference in what they make them about.
Relax, you're screwed either way.
1st Law Of Networking: Loose ends are bad, termination is good.
WWJD? JWRTFM!!!
Victory!
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
Having exclusively used the public transit system during my first years as a programmer (quite happily, mind you), I'll kindly ask you to go suck an egg for posting such narrow-minded stereotypical crap. I actually agree with just about everything else you said, but that kind of garbage only serves to undermine your message.
No, it only serves to undermine the overall usefulness of Nader.
Let's say that Nader had gotten the Presidency. Let's further suggest that he managed to have private cars banned from New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. This is within his party's platform.
Generally, those who can afford to avoid public transit do avoid public transit.
Why?
Well, public transit tends to be crowded. It tends to be slow. And it tends to be chock full of people that you'd rather not be forced to get intimate with.
I'd rather not have to sit beside an individual who cannot afford to drive a car because he cannot comprehend such basic concepts as daily bathing, let alone daily work.
I'd rather avoid sitting with a teenaged mother adjacent, her lack of parenting responsibility eclipsed only by her lack of basic birth control comprehension, as her child runs all through the bus, screaming and spilling grape juice on my new suit.
And, call me anti-social, but I'd rather not have to sit beside someone who feels a terrific need to engage me in a fascinating conversation about how lottery tickets are a viable means to ensure a financially comfortable retirement or how if you want to score some really good heroin you can just head down to the docks.
While I was perhaps a little extreme in my condemnation of public transit riders, you imply yourself that you no longer take it. Why is that?
If you're a Los Angeles resident who drives to work every day, assuming a 1-hour drive each way, and assuming that public transit has been greatly improved so that your commute time by bus/subway is still one hour each way, which are you going to take?
I can afford to drive, and therefore, I will. I do sincerely consider myself to have worked hard enough to have elevated myself to the point where I don't need to take public transit every day. I am therefore better than those people with whom I would be forced to fight for a seat on a bus.
Now, if a political party with an ill-conceived platform managed to ban outright or artificially increase the cost of driving to the point where it negated one of the benefits of my skills and hard work, what are my options?
I could continue to live and work in that community with a reduction of my ability to enjoy being a part of that community. Or, I could walk away from that community, taking with me the benefits of my skills and disposable income.
I assure you, I'm interested in improving my standard of living at all levels. I can therefore guarantee the option I would exercise would be the latter.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
The twelfth amendment exists for a reason. Could you imagine the president getting much done with a VP from an opposing party?
-- U.S. History, 1800 Election
I am the Raxis.
Liberty in your lifetime
... Can't anyone read? Pat Buchanan won the election! Silly slashdotters... *cynical laughter* Hoo boy, I need to get some sleep.
Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.
Though the electorial college system of electing the president may have some very small flaws in it (It being possible to lose the election while winning the popular vote), it is an ingenious solution to some of the problems of going strictly with a popular vote. Actually, the good part about our election today is that it is winner take all. If it wasn't winner take all (as in electorial votes), then the electorial college wouldn't be much different than a popular vote. I understand that the reason the electorial college was created was because our founding fathers felt we were not compitent to vote. Though this is largely different today (with the advent of mass media, etc.), the winner take all system does a great job of getting more ideas represented by an elected official. In majoritarian politics (popular vote), the minorities get no say. This is because of the fact that whatever is wanted by most of the people is what the politicians will do. It is probably possible to win the country by totally ignoring the midwest section of the US, because they don't have a great populations. Because of this, the candidates never have to visit any of the midwest states, or even talk about issues that concern the midwest. The people that live there will still probably pick one of the two. That is why going with a strict popular vote is bad. The electorial college without the winner take all system is equally as bad for sone of the same reasons. But adding the winner take all system seems to clear up most of the problems. Take the following situation: There is a small state, like Iowa that only has 7 electorial votes. One politician has 55% of the votes, while the other has 45%. Without the winner take all system, the candidate that is losing the state will probably not visit the state, because the visit isn't worth 1 or 2 votes. On the other hand, if we have the winner take all system, the candidate will probably give more attention to the state, because there is 7 votes at stake, not 2. When the candidates try to win the state, they will "come to the middle" and try to support as many issues that the statesmen support. When a state doesn't get visited, hardly any of its views gets into office, which defeats the entire democracy (republic?). A democracy should be a system in which candidates compete for a vote. Just like in business, competition always makes things better for the buyer, or in this case, the voter. The winner take all system will usually (not always, as in this year) reflect the entire country's ideas, but always help minorities and small states out. Even though with majoritarian politics, one vote may seem like more, for minorities and small states, it is essentially a wasted vote. You are voting for someone that probably isn't going to support your region anyway. By the way, when I say wasted vote, I don't really mean it in a bad way. The only possible way to waste a vote is to vote on somebody just because everyone else is voting for him. If you like a small party candidate, go for it.
Today is the closing of a parenthesis opened before this sig, before this story, before this existence that is me (as if
Actually I saw a National Post on the way to work this morning with Bush Wins proclaimed on the cover. Looks like they changed their front page between editions.
Laugh while you can, monkey boy!
Hopefully when I wake up the world will realize it made a msitake.
The counting kind, not the voting kind...
Kevin Fox
Kevin Fox
say goodbye to our rights =*( we now have right wing congress, president and presumably supreme court. a sad, sad day indeed. this could be a lot worse than the reagon years. time to move to canada.
At 215EST CNN and NBC called it for Bush. Fox beat them by about 5 minutes at 210EST (for me it was 2315PST and 2310PST)...
Although there were noises that Gore might demand a FLA recount...
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Yeah, but four years is a long time to get bent over.
At about 2:30am Eastern Time Cnn and about every other TV station has declared Bush the winner after very narrowly winning in his brother's state of Florida.
Supreme court: Wields extreme power, but is not directly elected. They are appointed by a president, who is elected by an electoral college, and approved by the senate, who is elected in a popular vote.
The founding fathers structured it this way for other reasons than what you've heard....
Actually, the supreme court's power isn't derived from the founding father's structure. Find in the Constitution where the Supreme Court is given the power to decide what is and is not constitutional.
CNN has given florida to BUSH making him the president elect.
Is this, then, a hallmark event signalling a challenge to the two-party system? Will the Democrats respond to this by working together with the Greens henceforth, or simply drowning them out by moving their agenda back to the left? Gee, let me guess...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Joe Lieberman won his seat, he's still got a job, but come January, Al Gore will be without a job, if the Electoral College votes as projected.
However, it is rumoured that he could take up the presidency at his alma mater, Harvard. Anyone feel this would be a much better move for him to accept an academic role for future leaders, rather than attempt to run again in 2004 where he may lose even more footage for not holding a political office?
Dragon Magic
Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
Ever take statistics? If you count the votes for a completely random subset of the population, even if the subset is a very small subset, you can still be 99% certain that the winner in that subset will win the election. That's how they calculate these things. The only reason why the had to take back Florida is because the first few votes that they counted didn't represent a completely random subset of the Florida population.
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I like that guy.
Soon: remaining branch populated by same party.
Life is GOOD!
Now hiring experienced client- & server-side developers
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
And they JUST reported as I wrote this that Carnahan has in fact WON. So an incumbent has been beaten by a dead contender - THAT'S gotta be a first!
At 10:59 PST
NY Times: Bush 229 Gore 199
Washington Post: Bush 246 Gore 236
And check out the close race in Michigan.
According to CNN Bush has won!!
"Free at last, Free at last, thank GOD Almighty we are free at last!!!"
The final tally:
Bush wins the presidency by half a Nader.
vasi (suddenly feeling good about living in the True North)
"Hey, who took the cork off my lunch?" -- W. C. Fields
its late...
oh yeh - click here for more information...
tagline
... hi bingo
No one will say it in so many words, but it's obvious the talking heads think Nader is costing the election for Gore (it's not over til it's over, but damn it's looking like Bush is ahead). Enough about what Nader's done, let's look at what CNN's done.
The polls close at 7:00 in Florida, right? Ok, CNN decided to call the election for Gore in at 7:00 based on their exit polls. This of course ignores the fact that the polls in the western panhandle closed an hour later at 7:00 Central Time. The effect is this: having seen their state called for Gore, Gore supporters in the panhandle get complacent and Bush supporters get busy. Now the race in Florida is tight, but Bush is ahead. I wager that if CNN had held off on the call, Gore would have it for sure. Now that they have called it and then withdrawn, it's too close to call 5 hours after the last polls closed.
That's the shittiest thing I've ever seen.
I like to play children's songs in minor keys.
"We're all sons of bitches now." --J. Robert Oppenheimer
Carla Howell's "possible second-place finish" in MA didn't happen, but she did achieve double-digit results, a remarkable thing.
Other than that, it looks like the numbers are generally down from past years. The official excuses can now be released from National. Be sure to swallow them hard. Not taking the LP News seriously is grounds for party dismissal.
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Wow... /me can't wait! ooooh.... Florida is the key here.
--------- The 'gui' in 'penguin' is pronounced K-D-E .
The political system here in Finland is a bit different.
We basically have 3 big parties: the national coalition (right wing, prolly like your democrats), center, and the social democrats (supposedly left wing, but quite right wing actually). The scandinavian concept of right and left wing is a bit more on the left, so Republicans would probably be considered to be on the far end of the political right.
Then we also have quite a few of smaller parties: there's a party for the swedish speaking minority (right wing), the green party (environmentalists, quite left wing), the leftist party, the reform group and also independent people can apply for political offices.
Since the larger parties need to have majority to make decisions, they must team up with the smaller parties. Usually one of the three big parties is left in opposition, and the result is that no one party can dictate policy and the smaller parties also have their voices heard.
The presidential elections are 2 round direct majority votes. The first vote selects the 2 candidates that are the final competitors and the second vote selects the president from these 2. This way people have can vote for their favorite on the first round and their vote still counts on the second round, where they get to pick their favorite of the two remaining canditates.
ACYour viewpoint is obviously greatly slanted against the United States. I won't argue that you raise legitimate issues, but you make it out as if America was an evil empire that has never made a wise foriegn policy decision or a positive contribution to the world. Also, it is a gross generalization to assume that I or every American doesn't recognize the sacrifices made by the Europeans in World War Two. I'll stick by my guns and say that although late and not the whole war effort by any means, Americas intervention in World War Two was pivotal. I won't argue with you because we can both put whatever spin we like on the issues we have discussed. Can you at least agree with my original post that although evil, the Nazi regime had stylish uniforms?
Also, because the Democratic constituency is more working-class, they tend to do more of their voting after work. This overloads the stations late in the afternoon (witness Detroit and St. Louis this year) and forces them to delay their count.
The Democratic Party has to shape up or will be replaced. Change is good.
People who are not afraid of adversity (Bush, persecution, death) are those who are truly free.
I believe it is time to trade in some of our security for our freedom.
Example: If striking workers would be afraid of loosing their job, they would not strike and not get back their freedom/right.
This space intentionally left blank.
All I can say is I'm more embarrassed than usual to be living in this state now. Talk about a broken, schizophrenic state. Once this is over I think there's a case here to set a precedent for the Federal government smacking a State government for not having it's own house in order for something as critical as nationla elections. Never mind embarrassing, this is criminal negligence and irresponsibility. Everyone who is part of the election process needs to be fined, fired and barred from ever holding public office again. On a final note, although it was completely amusing to see Arkansaw (sic), Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia swing Republican, the fiasco in Florida, especially with Jeb Bush being governer (and not having campaigned very hard for his brother) more than balances that out. When all is said and done though, it was nice to see a mass attack of morals - we couldn't decide which criminal to put into office.
be0wulfe
From William F Daley, Gore Campaign Chairman
Nashville, TN, 4AM EST
While explaining the retraction of Gore's concession
"...We are willing to support [Bush] if and when he wins the election..."
if and when????
sounds pretty defeatist there....
I think they know what is coming
Q: What are you going to do now, George?
A: I'm gwan to Clumbia!!!
Okay, when I said you were half right, it looks like I was only half right. :)
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Hmm doesn't this look like a North vs. South deal?
:o)
Heck if they cant decide who to have as President lets let Nader subsititute for a year. Or lets just cut up and have two Presidents, one for fuzzy issues and another for egocentric technology creation.
This is better than any professional sport. You've got a game that never ends like the eternal struggle of good vs. evil. Plus it has the illusion of mattering a whole hell of a lot. We can only wish that this ends up in the courts with scenario that no one ever banked on; that there is no winner by Jan. 20 and there is provision to have a provisional President until the two parties can stop squabbling in court. Wouldn't it be great sport if each of the 50 State Supreme courts gets to decide the election. Not because of a tie that ostensibly gets broken in the Senate but because neither party even wants the vote to get there and send every state's election into the courts?
This would be great fun, even more entertaining that saying "Lewinsky" 1E9548 times in a row. Think of the great fun we'll have: either Bush wins and we tear up the Constitution, bring back slavey and outlaw not being fat white male middle class bible thumping gun nut, or, Bush loses and we have CW2 (Civil War 2- the Sequel) complete with threats of secession, state referendums to bring back criminal trials for Witchcraft.
OOOOps there's a firealarm going off here in the office. It looks like the fun is only beginning!
For all those hollywood lusers like Rosie O'donell Barbara Streisand and the Baldwins for plane trips to canada?
"Thanks for coming, don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out."
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
I would like to point out that, as a non-american, I and other people who are not aware of the specifics of each state are not necessarily not paying attention. I live thousands of km's away from the US and am interested in the elections for their worldwide impact. However, I am not as familiar with these elections as americans probably are. But than, isn't /. an INTERNATIONAL community for us geeks?
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
Bush won Florida. Bush won the white house
After having an arguement with my roommate, and a lengthy discussiion online with a few non-US-residents, I did the research on the electoral college.
First off, I don't completly agree with the electoral college. It has flaws. However, the pervcieved flaws aren't the major problem.
Percieved Flaw 1:
The electoral voters can vote any way they want, even if the state's popular vote differs.
Factual Truth 1:
In 24 states, the electoral college is required to vote for whichever candidate wins that state's popular vote.
Only 1% of electoral votes, ever, TOTAL, in the history of the United States have gone against the state's popular vote.
Percieved Flaw 2:
The electoral college was designed to take the elections away from the people.
Factual Truth 2:
The electoral college was voted in place for two reasons. The first being that when the Founding Fathers started the country, there were many people living in extremly rural areas with extremly limited mail services, if any at all. The Electoral college allowed for timely votes from those areas. (Which is why the electoral vote is held in Janurary). The second reason is because in the last 1700's, we did not have a better plan. (Most of the people supporting the electoral system were only supporting it because they did NOT support a system where Congress and The House of Represatives votes the President into office). Politics at work, even in the early days of the country.
Percieved Flaw 3:
The entirety of a state's electoral votes go to one candidate, even if the margin of popular vote is very small.
Factual Truth 3:
Okay, you guys have this one plugged. Only two states, Maine and Nebraska allow for a split electoral vote. The other 48 states, and the District of Columbia (Washington D.C.) require that all the votes go to the candidate that took the popular vote, regardless of the margin of the win.
Emailed responses, proposals and bank account numbers can be sent to Frito_KAL@yahoo.com
Flames, however, can go straight to dev/null. Or Washington DC. Whichever pit of nothingness you guys prefer.
http://quiz.ravenblack.net/blood.pl?3357354385
CNN estimates deceased Democratic governor Mel Carnahan wins Senate race in Missouri .
It is now the morning after the election for the next President of the United States of America. Like so many mornings after, many of the participants are having regrets. It is clear from the popular vote count that many people did not get what they wanted. The press is showing George W. Bush with 48% percent of the popular vote, and roughly 200,000 votes less than Al Gore. It is clear that the people of the United States do not want the government they have.
Governing without a clear mandate is not such a bad thing, however. If the voters of this country pay attention to the real meaning of the results, there is no surer check against abuses of power. Large majorities can hide abuses against minorities. With such a narrow split in the popular vote for the President, and no strong majority in either house of Congress, we have no "Ruling Party". Perhaps we will get a government that does very little for the next few years. Would it be so bad for the rest of us to get on with our lives?
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
So the election has come down to the state of Florida. For those of you who don't know, voter fraud is epidemic in Florida. Generally, it's for small-time stuff, primarily influencing the outcomes of local elections, but the state of Florida is sufficiently corrupt and lax enough in voter registration that there's an excellent chance of some fairly large-scale voter fraud taking place there.
There's an interesting little paper on voter fraud in Florida that discusses some of the weaknesses of the Florida system, including:
- Lax "Motor Voter" registration and absentee voting which allows for easy manipulation of absentee voting;
- The ability to register to vote with very minimal credentials, which hasa generated a problem with non US Citizens registering and voting in Florida;
- Vote buying
- Absentee voter assistance fraud, where a third party submits an individual's ballot for them, often without the individual knowing who was voted for (especially bad in Florida because of the high number of senior citizens).
Add to this the fact that Florida politics are about as rotten as they come, and you've got a potential political minefield to tiptoe through. It'll be interesting to see if anything comes of this, seeing as the state is now the deciding factor in who wins the presidency. I, for one, wouldn't mind seeing some heavy federal investigation of Florida's political beast.Obliteracy: Words with explosions
It's good to see people finally realizing that oil exploration is more important than a couple silly trees.
So once again, congrats and thanks for your support on plundering the environment.
Congrats Bush!
Go ahead and waste three democratic moderator points getting this down to -1, troll!!!!
Since we're choosing between two evils (neither of which is really lesser than the other), we have to find something good about this election, and electoral reform is it. We need complete reform, not just of the electoral college system but of the process as a whole. A multi-stage election system would probably work best. For example, you let all the people with nominations get votes. Then, you take the top 75% of the candidates, by vote. For example, if Bush got 49%, Gore got 49%, and Nader got the majority of the remaining 2%, we'd have an election between Bush and Gore. If Bush got 30%, Gore got 30%, Nader got 10%, and the remaining 30% were split among at least 7 candidates, then we'd have an election between Bush, Gore, and Nader. It would allow people to vote for whomever they want to be in office without any fear of wasting their vote. Maybe even have another level of the competition between exactly two candidates, so no votes get 'wasted'.
voter.com projected 230-232 without the 'battleground sates'... with Gore taking Fla, PA and MI it is ALL OVER.
pronoblem
Well, watching the election carefully, they don't. While they depend on the same data, they have drawn their own conclusions, because they have all differed slightly through the night (I was watching.)
So much for conspiracy theories.
--
-- Slashdot sucks.
And, interestingly, the operation of vast quantities of voters and vote collectors represents a distributed "computing cluster."
(On the other hand, "Think of a Beowulf cluster of Politicians." Costs a lot and doesn't compute very well ;-[).
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Which is exactly why Bush appointed Cheney. He will fill the gap in foreign policy experience, along with Colin Powell as Sec of State.
And I hear Bush is somewhat close to Vicente Fox of Mexico. That's worth something.
I just talked with a friend of mine, who opted to go to sleep confidant of a Gore victory when CNN projected that Gore had Florida.
Right now, I'd bet cash that Bush has it in the bag.
I imagine my friend, and a lot of people across the country, are in for a rude awakening.
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
WOHOO!!!!!!!!!! YEEEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAW!!!! lol! IN YOUR FACE YOU FUCKING COMMI BASTARDS!
Your viewpoint is obviously greatly slanted against the United States. I won't argue that you raise legitimate issues, but you make it out as if America was an evil empire that has never made a wise foriegn policy decision or a positive contribution to the world.
Nope. US' "positive" impact on world politics is dwarfed by its negative, harmful actions that couldn't be explained by anything but extreme selfishness at the expense of everyone else. The closest analogy is to compare USSR with a dangerous predator that still doesn't attack unless he is hungry, his life is threatened, or at least he is seriously scared -- no one likes to deal with such a thing, yet it's more or less understandable what and why he is doing, and he has its own role in the ecology. US however behaves like a poacher that has no restraint on his killing whatsoever -- whatever he wants or finds profitable to kill, he kills, and if he fails to kill, he still makes life miserable for everyone around. He understands how harmful his actions are, but without someone with a bigger gun in sight he doesn't care.
Also, it is a gross generalization to assume that I or every American doesn't recognize the sacrifices made by the Europeans in World War Two.
Not in a slightest degree. Americans may "recognize" European nations as victims of war, but they don't acknowledge the role of Russians at all. They don't teach it in their history courses, and you are a good evidence of that.
I'll stick by my guns and say that although late and not the whole war effort by any means, Americas intervention in World War Two was pivotal. I won't argue with you because we can both put whatever spin we like on the issues we have discussed.
Nothing "pivotal" happened in Europe in 1944 because the course of war was turned around in 1942-43 already, when the only forces fighting were Germans and Russians. Americans' "help" in Europe by then was limited to trade, what hardly qualifies for part of the "glory", or whatever you call it. And Africa, despite an impressive amount of sand, was at most non-essential sideshow compared to what was going on in Europe. Americans helped, and indeed their involvement saved some number of lives, but it was too little, too late, and with too much fanfare compared to actions.
Can you at least agree with my original post that although evil, the Nazi regime had stylish uniforms?
I don't know and really don't care. Nazi killed 25% of population in the area where I lived, and that makes their fashion sense quite irrelevant for me.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
I voted Nader. Nader did not win, nor does it look like he got 5%. But ya know what? I have never been more proud of myself.
For the first time in my life I voted for what I believe in and not "the lesser of two evils" or "party lines". I voted exactly what I think.
I've said it before, there is a difference between Gore and Bush, and anyone who voted for Nader over Gore didn't help Nader become president, they helped Bush(it's inconceivable to me that Bush was the second choice of many Nader voters). Nader's candidacy was irresponsible, he couldn't win, he could only help Bush win. In so doing, he helped his issues lose.
James Watt != Bruce Babbit,
Clarence Thomas != Thurgood Marshall.
Look here to see what a Nader vote may get you.
My other sig is extremely clever...
Bush wins the election, and Nader gets only 3%, which isn't enough to get federal aid for the next term. How depressing. It's the double Arschkarte.
FWIW, don't confuse me with a Nader voter who would have supported Gore in any event.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
Divorcing to appeal the electorate isn't quite as sad as staying married (and quiet) to appeal to the electorate.
And yes, it is my business. It's everyone's business, because it's politics.
That being said, my earlier comment was more prediction than advocation.
That's a big "if".
In fact, if more people had turned up to the polls, Gore may have won, too. Again, that's a big "if".
In fact, if you look at the breakdown of Nader voters, those who would have voted for Gore if not for Nader are usually around 30%-40%, not 52%. Florida, being a swing state, i would guess would be lower, but i have no proof of that.
CNN has a slanted poll that makes it look like 60% of Nader voters would vote Gore, but the question specifically excludes other thrid parties which have been shown to be a very large chunk of Nader voters. Not to mention, many Greens would otherwise vote for Bush-- usually around 13%.
Don't try to blame Gore's failures on Green's hopes.
-benc
Apparently that means he wins. I tried to read up on how your US system works, but just got a headache.
:)
I hate politics.
Alas gallinaceas de urbe bovis volo
Congrats Bush! And here's to MS not being broke up.
They just said it will take two days for the recount in florida. So we have wait
My feeling is that if Nader really does prevent Gore from getting elected -- and from the looks of Florida that may actually happen -- maybe the Dems will be humiliated enough to put up someone worth voting for next time.
Does anyone else think that one major way we could reform out party heavy system would be to repeal the twelth amendment? Back, before it was passed, voters would vote for their favorite candidate, and the one who got the most votes got the presidency, and the one who got the second most got the vice presidency.
It'd be at least something of a reform. Unfortunately, our law makers on this issue are the same ones who have the greatest stake in it. Ugh. Time to move to a deserted island somewhere...
(To quote Bender.) Looks like I'd better start teaching my kids about Christianity, so they don't get picked on at school. And we'd better start funding the underground abortion clinics. And I guess I'd better begin warming up to M$. And... And... Now begins the Social Slide.
All the vote reports come in from an outfit called VNS - At first they reported bad data to the networks, leading to a Gore Call in Florida. It was pulled back (ABC First). The question then came down to - did the data that VNS was reporting include the absentee ballots or not (we were not sure). Before we got an answer, Fox made the call. We had (Internally) been saying "If it includes the absentee ballots, it's over"
Good night all, from the election desk
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
Bush has won in Florida, and as some of you have said, by margins split by Nader. Doesn't look like Nader even got the 5% he wanted, but that's the fault of people who were scared of Bush...and that didn't help did it? Well if Bush screws things up you can be sure Nader will be back in 4 years and take far more than that 5%. That's my prediction.
Also, is it just me or did I hear something on CBS about 78% of pro-Bush voters voting just based on morals alone?
If so...I'm believing the Federalists such as Alexander Hamilton who wrote the Constitution that the common, uneducated man is incapable of electing a President. After all that's why the electoral college was set up in the first place.
---
"I do know I'm ready for the job. And, if not, that's just the way it goes." G.W. Bush 8/21/2000
Canada doesn't sound that bad now.
97% of the votes in:
Bush: 2,759,232
Gore: 2,707,798
...please stand up. Please stand up. Please stand up.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Well, that's it then. Bush won.
It's a good thing (for Bush), the dutch didn't get the right to vote for the new "world" leader. A poll showed Gore would have wone with 82% of the votes.
Mark
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
- if you love something, set it free; if it doesn't come back, hunt it down and kill it
Elian Gonzalez.
Judging from the Florida senate race, handily won by a Dem despite many independent candidates, Dade county Floridians were voting against Gore, rather than for Bush. I suspect inhabitants of the "home of the Miami relatives" couldn't hold their noses long enough....
If Bush has won the electoral college, grass roots organizing against the corporate agenda will have to speed up a bit. I don't believe it's possible for that spoiled little rich kid to win the election again (in 4 years), however, so I am not that worried about the Supreme Court. I am looking forward to a Dem. party forced to reevaluate its move to the center, though. (-8
Does this mean that all the actors/actress are going to leave Hollywood?
This was on a abc news page:
Continuously reload this page for the latest vote returns
Hmmmmm...
And to think I stayed up for this.
--
The only reason why I pay attention to this election IS because of Ralph Nader. He is the only politician I know that talks about the influence of corporate power on our lives.
I would hate for Bush to win, but I think that Gore would break many of his promises. The name Al Gore does not bring into my mind terms like: Populist Leaning, Progressive Liberal. Al Gore seems liberal on social issues, but fiscally conservative and Bush is socially and fiscally conservative.
If Gore looses, I hope it is because of Ralph Nader. I hope it sends a messages to the Democratic party that they need to become more fiscally liberal. I hope it makes them look at the issues that Ralph Nader has addressed:
Poverty
Against Corporate Welfare
For Universal Health Care
For Social Justice
Against WTO, NAFTA, World Bank
For Gay Rights
For, Drug problem = Health Problem
Against Death Penalty (unlike Gore or Bush)
For Family Farm Not Big Agribusinesses
Against Your Tax Money going into Billions in Military Spending
For Minimum Wage Increase, Living Wage
For Environmental issues
For Individual Privacy
This space intentionally left blank.
I'm gonna drink me a BUSCH because BUSH WON!! Decided in florida, the state that looks like, uhh, nevermind.
Eh...
I think the networks have found a new way for gaining revenue: adjusting the polls (keeps people watching the tube). Just when you think one candidate is winning (and you can go to bed), the networks do a 180.
Go Bush!
I am John Hurt.
Fox News Channel is reporting that bush has just won Florida and has 25 electoral votes, which means that they have 271 in all, making Gee Dubya the president.
And if it did, that would mean the initial poster lost when he posted.
I'm not sure why they say it's still a toss-up on tv, but here are the numbers for Florida at 2:07am ET:
2,743,162 for Gore
2,799,648 for Bush
97% precincts reporting
3% left means that there are 171,000 votes left. Since the difference is 33% of that, the remaining votes would have to be 66% for Gore and 33% for Bush in order for Gore to tie - Gore would need even more to win.
Since Gore has to get Florida to win, and since there's pretty much no way he'll have such a win in the last 3%, he loses.
Microsoft loses!
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
Some quotes from tonights(Todays ?!?) coverage...
This much tension you can't cut with a saw, you need a blowtorch.
So close you can't put cigarette paper between 'em.
Heart pumpin' twist like a roller coaster ride.
The good book says the race is not always to the quick, nor the battle to the strong.
Counted those absentee ballots till the cows went to sleep.
The bandwangon is hmmmmmm... resting.
It's spandex tight.
Round and round it goes who gets the electoral vote win, and from where nobody knows.
The presindential race still hotter than a loreto parking lot.
This thing is as tight as the rusted lug nuts on a 55 ford.
He hasn't gone to bed, you can bet the rent money on that.
When it comes to reporting a race like this I'm a long distance runner and an all day hunter.
I bet they called florida too early caus' all those old people were to busy eating dinner at 2pm catching the early bird special, then when they all came tramplin in at once with their walkers and cains, cnn said...aint that some shit, and the fixed it all up. just my 2 cents
"Think, It aint illegal.....yet" - George Clinton
This is driving me absolutely crazy! I can't believe it's this close! I've been watching the coverage since it started and I don't even know if I'm going to sleep tonight. This election is really seriously tough for me because for the first time I've been able to vote that the election has been close.
The best map I have found would be this one:
n dex.html
http://cbsnews.com/campaign2000results/election/i
If you update it regularly, it seems to be faster than CNN! (Vote count wise too!)
So, who's gonna join me in moving to Japan for the next four years?
Osaka, Tokyo? Any of those sound good?
-- Your IP is showing
All Americans did in Europe was kicking a dead horse while pretending that it's still alive. At the time when Americans apppeared in Europe Germany was pretty much doomed, as Russians already got all their territory back, and were successfully pushing Germans back all by themselves. Americans found absolutely no reasistance from Germans to speak of simply because everything usable for a battle was on Eastern Front fighting with Russians.
The rise of US "industrial might" was the result of war because all countries actually involved had all available resources either destroyed or thrown at war, and US was both undamaged (no, resources spent on war in Africa and Pacific were nothing compared to the economy as a whole), and trade with countries at war, despite all losses involved, still helped US in the end. Now, half century later, this effect seems to start wearing off.
Thanks for nothing, and accept our belated congratulations with nice shooting/bombing vacation in France and Germany in 1944. Sorry for some fatal accidents, but we can't weep with you because we have lost more than 20 millions of our people while your government was delaying involvement in Europe for three years.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
I noticed. And CNN consistently reported Haeglin? Huh? And Browned whipped Buchannan here by about 3 times the vote.
Does this mean that /. will now run my long "Ask Slashdot" about killing the Electoral College?
--
-- Geof F. Morris
right, actually national post and the Sun(of all papers) got it right The Star, and The Globe declared Bush as the winner (probably a lot of US papers too) hehehe
Fucking fucking FUCK!!!! God damn shit cocksucking religious bastards! AHhHhhhHhhrhhRhrhrrrrrrrrr wahhhh-h-h-h-h....
Two problems with Borda. First, it would be exceedingly painful to explain preference ranking to everyone in the country, and it would drastically increase the time needed to cast each vote. Second, most current voting machines would need to be heavily rewired or completely scrapped.
A much easier method that is arguably equal to Borda is Approval Voting . It's trivial -- each candidate has a yes/no checkbox that says "would you approve if this guy won?" You check yes for the ones you like, and the most yesses wins. Easy to explain, avoids "spoiler vote" problems, and most current voting machines can handle the counting.
Gore does not have any kind of God-given right to non-Republican votes. Perhaps the Democratic party should have listened to its left-leaning dissenters instead of moving further right?
I never could tell them apart anyway.
Am I the only person who noted that some of the news outlets (cnn.com, msnbc.com) don't even put Browne on the list? CNN at least covers him in the state-by-state list, where he beat Buchannan in all the states that interested me, but they don't put his national total anywhere. MSNBC doesn't even put Browne in the state-by-state results for the states where he did beat Buchanan, but they do list Buchannan's results. WTF?
"The simplest solution is to ignore your dead children."
That's silliness. It's nobody but -Gore's- fault for losing to that chump with the shit-eating grin. If Gore was half the politician, nay, person that he claims to be, he would have mopped the bloody floor with him. hmph.
I hope that this situation will bring a HUGE discussion about how much online voting and last minute automated e-mail and telephone "spam" to influence the vote in the western states could do the fairness of the voting system, when the press is allowed to broadcast their estimates and declare a winner when the statistical sampling rules which lead to their estimates can can only be valid if there is a large enough margin of difference in the votes for or against one side.
And I hope that the US population will finally have the courage to think about the appropriateness of their electorial college and popular vote system and the fact that each state can decide on their own procedures (like when to open, close polls, if each state can follow different rules about to adhere to the winner take all rule or not).
I am not American, but I think that this situation shows clearly that the U.S. must face their constitutional laws concerning their electorial procedures in combination with what and when they allow the press to broadcast on election night and with what that means for online voting and the fact that you can influence voters over the web big time to the last minute, if voting online would replace the voting procedure on a larger margin.
May be one day the absentee vote (which is casted a lot in the military will be replaced with online votes ?).
Just imagine that the press announces someone a winner and a huge percentage of voters could cast votes in the last hours after the press has already influenced the public about who is the winner. Isn't that an IMPOSSIBLE situation ?) Imagine the U.S. would be involved in a war and had a situation like this one and the candidates had completely different opinions about the U.S.'s military involvement in the war.
And isn't it bizarre, that this was a campaign where both sides had only very little differences in their programs (at least publicly) and now the results make it as if it actually would matter much who wins and as if the differences would matter.
I haven't followed the status of online voting ? Is it already done somewhere ? What does this situation tell us about the possible dangers of online voting, if the the current electorial system would not be changed ?
Uhm, speaking as a Midwesterner, why do you assume that we treat women, blacks, non-Christians, gays, (fill in the blank) as 2nd class citizens?
Last time I checked, I have several gay/black/non-Christian friends and happen to work for a woman and work with many female coworkers and have not seen any form of discrimination in the 6-7 years I've worked here. If I didn't know better I'd say you're just using the Midwest "or anyplace other than the 'liberal east'" as a scapegoat for the ills of our society.
Last I heard from your 'liberal east', Vermont is repealing it's same-sex marriage laws at the same time we in the Midwest are ensuring that they receive equal treatment under the law.
Sure you may point out that we're just now getting to this, but on the otherhand we don't do something unless we mean it - don't expect us to backpedal like Vermont.
And while Virginia is embracing UTICA (thankfully they put in the one year evaluation clause), Iowa passed 'Bomb-shelter' legislation that makes Iowan residents immune to (UTICA)prosecution even though the company they may have purchased from is in an UTICA-enabled state.
From where I'm standing, it's not the Midwest you need to be worrying about - it's the folks in your own backyard dismantling your freedom - not us.
The Doctor is Out...([sarcasm]Trying hard not to beat a gay/minority/woman/non-Christian on the way to work today[/sarcasm])
Yes, it's official. Americans are retards.
Well, certainly the Bush outcome demonstrates that the experiment called Democracy - longer-lived than Communism - is equally flawed.
Apparently, the masses are not intelligent enough to determine their own fate.
Republicans are one thing, fine. I can respect an ideological difference. But *Bush*? Bush?
It was bad enough that he won the Republican nomination from a distinguished gentleman lile McCain. But the public vote, too?
I'll bet large sums of money that the first Bush scandal happens or comes to light within the first 30 days that this illiterate and incompetant goofball is in office.
As a protest, "president" and "presidency" shall no longer be capitalized in the context of Bush.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
http://www.cnn.com/images/0011/top.gore.wins.3.jpg
It's hardly embarassing, but I couldn't resist checking.
Joel
http://www.geektv.net/
No, we do not want the Borda count. The Borda system expects the electorate to be intelligent enough to understand the system, and informed enough to rank all the candidates. Most Americans would put GW first and Gore last (or vice versa) and sprinkle everyone else in between because they don't know better. We'd wake up to a random president-elect based on those 2nd-choice votes.
What we do need is Instant Runoff Voting. There's no need to be informed about (or rank) all the candidates, just the ones that interest you, because, things will likely be decided in the first couple runoffs. More people can be counted on to rank a handful of candidates in preferential order than to be knowledgable about them all. Informed voters could actually vote their conscience on a third party yet still not tip the election the other way. Uninformed voters who only know the Duopoly could rank those two in order...though I expect the Duopoly would fade if IRV got a foothold. There are enough people wanting change that 3rd parties would rise in prominence, which would just make them that much more "electable" to the uninformed next time.
Constitutionally Correct
at least that's what they're saying as the official projection..enough for both candidates to make speeches. he got florida. i can't believe i watched that much tv just to find out that he won..at least it was close. we're now stuck with a Republican controlled Senate, House, and Presidency.
You were half right.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Ah well...
How can any of you be so seriously shocked at Bush's (apparent) narrow victory? Albert Gore has portrayed himself as the ultimate self-righteous pusher of the "new version of the same govenment." To be blunt, Gore has acted the part of the boastful ass during this campaign.
Bush has been attacked many times for his lack of eloquence when speaking. His knowledge of foreign policy has been questioned, but he has maintained an undeniable composure comperable to that of the common man.
This really reminds me of the election of Andrew Jackson, when the power of the common man overpowers the merit of those who have been molded to be politicians.
Bush has addmittedly done cocaine, he has been arrested for a DUI, he has owned his own business, and most importantly... he is a someone with which many people can identify with!
Bush has his pitfalls and shortcomings, but there is an undeniable reason for his election, and that is obvious.
-Rezell
This is the first time since 1954 that the Republicans have controlled both Congress and the White House, and (here's my own statistic that I haven't heard anybody else say) the first time since Nixon in 1960 that a sitting vice president ran for and lost a subsequent Presidential race.
Now get some sleep :)
Then the people reading Slashdot these days are not nerds - there have been an immense number of responses to this single article. So the
~Cederic
CNN Declares Bush Winner
Only a 200 vote difference or so.... Excuse me, I'm off to kill Nader.
Bullshit. Gore cost Nader the election. How many millions of more people would have voted for Nader if they didn't feel like Gore was their "only real choice"
Janet Reno cost Gore the election
The Cuban-american population in Broward and Dade countines (in florida) gave the Democrats the big F-U for the Elian raid. Perhaps we should talk about gun control for federal agencies.
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
NBC and then CNN have just said that Bush will win FL and be the next president. I'm not sure I'm going to believe it until I see all the votes in...
glad its over.
Too bad Nader didn't get 5%.
Bush took Florida.
.
According to ABCNews, Bush wins Florida, giving him 271 electoral college votes, for a win in the presidential election. Looking at the voter breakdown for Florida, we see that if all those Nader voters had voted Gore instead, Gore would have won Florida.
Nader cost Gore the election
Say what you will about Bush and Gore, but Nader is a fool. Guess this is karma for Perot losing the GOP that election....
@ 2:18 Eastern CNN Declares that Bush won Florida's 25 electoral votes, and now has the 270 needed. Governor G. W. Bush is your next president. That is the final word. Thank you and goodnight.
-
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.
BUSH!
Don't blame me - I voted for Kodos.
Flordia:
5593 k votes in.
Approx 233 k votes outstanding.
Bush is currently ahead by 27077 votes.
So, Gore needs to beat Bush by 13 percent in the outstanding stations.
Or,
3 % Other
42% Bush
55% Gore
will carry the race for Gore.
Looking at the regional numbers, depending on where the returns are, Gore could pull it off...
Wait - the poll pages have just _reduced_ the number of Gore votes on them? Huh? Now, Bush is ahead by 51434. WTF?
That means Gore has to get 37 - 59 - 4 in the remaining polls in order to win.
But how in the hell did the number of votes for Gore go _down_?
Wooooo!!! Republican President, Republican Senate, Republican House, and soon to be Republican nominated Supreme Court justices. It is a GREAT day for the Republican party. Oh my god.. this is AWESOME. I have renewed faith in the democratic process in this country.
we're doomed... vote nader next election...
Clinton only had 43% of the vote. He didn't have anywhere near a majority. Does that mean we should have had a runoff? No. It hinges on the electoral college which is used to give the smaller states a little extra "voting power" with their ratio of Senators to congressmen being much higher... (every state has two).
We need more liberals who walk with a swagger, carry a knife and aren't afraid to look a dumb redneck facist in the eye and spit.
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get jiggy w/ ayn rand!
thanx mike!
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get jiggy w/ ayn rand!
My comment is not about politics, or about the issues, or anything else (I'm not saying they arent important, but thats not what this comment is about).
When I listen to dubya talk, he seems like an idiot. Plain and simple. Come January, we'll have a moron representing our nation to other nations, other leaders, other meetings, etc. He does not even have a mastery of the english language.
I think Martin Sheen said it best (and I'm paraphrasing): "he doesn't have the intellectual curiosity to be a president."
--
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
Hehehe, funny shit.
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get jiggy w/ ayn rand!
Okay, I wouldn't call it uninteresting. Even now I'm watching the CNN popular vote totals. When Florida went to Bush, the national popular vote spread was 600k. As I write this, it's 300k with 10% of the national vote still to be counted. It's entirely possible that Gore could take the popular vote.
What I mean by 'more interesting', is that each state could be represented more accurately. For example, voters would feel more free to vote for a third party because it wouldn't directly hurt their favorite of the lesser of two evils. That is, people could vote for Nader without their vote essentially going to Bush. I think that distinction would've shifted more votes to the third party, but I'm probably just being too optimistic.
I'm tired of banging my head agains't your endless bitterness towards America. It's well worth it to me to let you have the last word because I don't give a shit what you think about myself or America. I live 6 miles down the road from a state college where I can find people willing to engage in a rational, friendly, and openminded discourse regarding America and it's history of interaction with the world. Besides, I have better things to do, like write silly posts complementing the Nazi's on their mode of dress and style. Thank you.
Congratulations. Announced at 2:18 a.m. Eastern Time, George W. Bush will be the 43rd President of the United States.
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Oscarfish.com: tropical fish with attitude. Way t