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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.?
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/
"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"
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.
Statistically, coming from cnn, one community is republican slanted and one is democrat slanted, and then we have estimated something like 2300 absentee votes which were statistically slanted republican in 1996, with 53%.
Very close indeed.
> 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
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!
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
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
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.
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?
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
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
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My stupid web site
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
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.
Now they have Gore winning.
Why don't we all wait a bit before trying to call this one?
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Why do we have the electoral college system?
I think it is outdated for todays needs
It has nothing to do with the idea of "protecting" voters from themselves (despite what the conspiracy theorists would have you believe). We are a union of many individual states, not a country that happens to have subsections.
Our congress and our presidents are all elected by the states, and it's up to each state how to vote. If your state wants to hold a raffle for electoral college positions, there is nothing the federal government can legally do to stop it -- it's up to each state to execute the will of their own populations. This is to balance the power of the states against each other.
As it stands under a popular vote, the 5 largest states could single-handedly dictate to the rest of the states, which is unacceptable for obvious reasons. By using the electoral system (which grants 3 votes to even the smallest states) you ensure that the president has to have at least a three times that many, because it was considered unacceptable by the founding fathers that a president be elected without a significant minority of states voting for them...
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Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
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
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!
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.
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?
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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'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?
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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.
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.
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Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
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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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
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.
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.