And The Winner Is... Nobody!

Allright, while Gore has 260 electoral votes, and Bush has 246, it all comes down to florida. Its amazingly close: Gore actually has won the popular vote. He appears to actually have about a 200,000 vote lead over Bush across the US, but as anyone who's taken any civics class knows, the people don't elect the president in the US. One thing is for sure: this election isn't over. Florida is split even, with bush ahead by about 2,000 votes (Out of nearly 6 million voters!), but Florida law requires a recount when the election is this close.

Some interesting side notes in florida:

• Apparently font and layout issues on ballots caused about 2000 seniors in Palm Beach with less then 20/20 vision to vote for Buchanen instead of Gore. They showed the ballots, and it is definitely confusing.
• Absentee ballots are going to be counted. There were 2700 in 96 although I don't know how many there are this year. Absentee votes are largely military, which tend to be republican.
• The recount could be done by the end of the day.

If you're looking to laugh (and I know I am) I suggest reading the Onion's election story, which is even funnier considering just how close the election is.

Comments

Same thing in Wisconsin, only Gore still won.

[geekguy]

The same types of ballets were used in Wisconsin and they noticed the votes for Buchanan were too high and figured out there were people getting confused when they were voting. The difference is Gore still Won in that state but Bush could call for a recount if he choses.

I myself think Gore should win because there is no doubt he has the popular vote. I don't think we will be getting rid of the electoral college any time soon but hopefully we will do like some states have and have proportional votes given where if bush gets 50%-1 and Gore gets 50%+1 they would split the electoral votes between them.

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[Yunzil]

Therefore, even the smallest of states get 4 EC votes.

I think the minimum is 3 EC votes.

My own opinion is that the EC system stinks the way it is. Let's say for argument that there are 18 states that have the minimum 3 votes. Now let's say that Candidate A wins California by 1000 votes and that Candidate B wins each of the small states by 10,000 votes. They both get equal numbers of electoral votes. Why should 1000 people in California have as much influence as 180,000 people in the other states?

The best compromise solution (IMO) is probably to split each state's votes. If a candidate gets 40% of the popular vote in a state, they get 40% of the state's electoral votes.

FRAUD: Why Florida Was Called Wrong

[Nightspore]

The networks had it right about Florida -- exit polls indicated that people _THOUGHT_ they had voted for Gore. In fact, many had been tricked into voting for Buchanan. This is fraud.

THIS ELECTION IS FRAUDULENT. THE BUSH FAMILY AND REPUBLICANS ARE TRYING TO STEAL AN AMERICAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION ON BEHALF OF OIL, TOBACCO, AEROSPACE, HMO, PHARMACEUTICAL AND MILITARY INTERESTS.

Re:FRAUD: Why Florida Was Called Wrong

[Nightspore]

I may be a stupid liberal, but at least I wasn't smoking any "cigerettes" when I cast my "ballet".

Re:FRAUD: Why Florida Was Called Wrong

[drsoran]

I agree. If you don't understand the ballot you have every right to ask an official to help you interpret it. I know our ballots were VERY confusing as far as the local judges races went. I was going down the left side of the book without noticing there was a right side to the ticket. Fortunately they chose to put the presidential candidates on the first page only on the left side so there was no confusion. That doesn't make the election results any less valid though. Voters shouldn't go racing through the ballot.. I took well over 7-10 minutes checking my choices to ensure I was voting for who I felt were correct. You only need to do this at most once a year.. you should at least take the time to check your answers!

Re:FRAUD: Why Florida Was Called Wrong

[Rombuu]

If are aren't fucking smart enough to be able to read a fucking ballot, you deserve what you get.

I bet they will be a hell of a lot more careful next time.

Re:FRAUD: Why Florida Was Called Wrong

[Steve B]

The ballot isn't the best UI I've seen, but the picture shows that it's unambiguous. The only way to mismark it is if you're legally blind (in which case you should have an election official assist you) or aren't paying attention (in which case you quite frankly have no business at the polls).
/.

Re:FRAUD: Why Florida Was Called Wrong

[riot158]

THIS ELECTION IS FRAUDULENT. THE BUSH FAMILY AND REPUBLICANS ARE TRYING TO STEAL AN AMERICAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION ON BEHALF OF

OIL,

*cough* Occidental *cough* U'wa *cough*

TOBACCO,

Gore: "Throughout most of my life, I raised tobacco. I want you to know that with my own hands, all of my life, I put it in the plant beds and transferred it. I've hoed it. I've dug in it. I've sprayed it, I've chopped it, I've shredded it, spiked it, put it in the barn and stripped it and sold it. "

blah blah blah blather blather blah

Re:FRAUD: Why Florida Was Called Wrong

[GameGuy]

Oh I see - A ballet that was sent to all voters BEFORE it was used - not one complaint - that's fraud.

Just out of curiousity, you stupid liberal, what do you call bribing homeless peple with cigerettes to vote? The American way? Nope, the Gore way - that dipshit will do anything to win. And thinks he can do anything he wants.

Catch a clue and wake up. Bush ain't all the great. But he's a damn site better than gore.

Re:FRAUD: Why Florida Was Called Wrong

[GameGuy]

Good come back. Silly me, I was expecting at least some retort to my charges.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[DanTilkin]

They could, but the elector candidates each part nominated were nominated based on the sole qualification of being faithful to the party, so that they would vote for the appropriate person. They've been party stalwarts for years, active in the party at the state and local level. There's about as much of a chance of an elector voting for a different candidate when it matters, as there is of Bush being elected and implementing Gore's complete agenda.

Florida's a fix...

[talks_to_birds]

...brother Jeb's gonna deliver, mark my words.

t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®

ARRG

[powerlord]

First bit SHOULD have read

Funny, it looks idiotic and something that the media should be refrained from doing (notice, I said they should be refrained, I don't believe the
media has in its capacity the ability to sit on its own hands) from this side of the Atlantic too.

Re:If Gore loses, don't blame Nader

[david614]

Ridiculous. Add it up.

Nader's support in Florida is a little over 90,000 votes. The margin of Bush's (apparent victory) is likely to be much less than that, probably less than 5000.

As a result, Nader denied Gore victory, and the democrats who warned of this outcome were right.

Now we get to see Nader explain how more Clarence Thomas clones and the loss of reproductive rights for women (overturning of Roe v. Wade) were inevitable "whichever candidate (Bush or Gore) won.

Nader is a self indulgent, self-aggrandizing idiot, who apparently cares nothing for female reproductive rights, gender and racial equity, or the long-term health of a progressive democratic alternative in the United States.

I for one will never again believe a word he says.

He has let everyone who cares for issues he championed down.

Now hopefully he will reap the whirlwind he so richly deserves.

Ralph Nader -- the Republicans best friend.

Re:Nader

[ScuzzMonkey]

I agree that the system is broke, but I don't think you can completely absolve Nader, either, unless you happen to think he's an idiot. I don't: I think he is bright enough to realize that in the current system, broken or not, his candidacy pulled voters away from Gore. That he still chose to run means he bears some responsibility for the result. Maybe he doesn't care, and that's fine, but there are far larger differences between Gore and Bush than he's been telling you.

This is a recurring problem that the left has which the right successfully avoids--no one on the left knows how to compromise. Everyone is so stuck on their principles that they don't seem to realize that politics is the art of the compromise and that you can't always have everything your own way. In my view, it's the right's ability to compromise on marginal candidates that gives them a power far out of proportion to their actual numbers. They can organize themselves and get out the vote for a candidate who is close to what they want, even if he/she is not their ideal. The left gets splintered and fractionalized over relatively minor issues and has difficulty building mass behind a single candidate. They have to rely on masses of swing voters rather than solid blocks like the right can--this is why large turnouts tend to favor the Dems. People are generally more left than right in the US, but you wouldn't know it by looking at most elections.

Re:I wish it came down to 1 vote

[Vinster]

I think a situation like this is where a person's vote really CAN matter, especially if you consider yourself an independent. Gore certainly doesn't need your vote, Bush can't use your vote. But a vote for a 3rd party candidate always helps because the popular vote IS important for them. If all the voters who don't feel strongly towards the Democrats or Republicans voted Green or Libertarian or anything else, it would truly help establish a viable 3rd party.

Question:

[Pentagram]

Why?
---

Why the Electoral College is PROVABLY BETTER:

[malraux]

Please read this before spouting off about how mob rule is better: Math Against Tyranny


Regards,

Re:Why the Electoral College is PROVABLY BETTER:

[seanb]

Natapoff's theory seems to be severely flawed.

As I read it, his argument boils down to the statement that "individual voting power is higher when funneled through districts" (defining "individual voting power as the probability that a given vote will turn an election). By definition, the sum of these chances - of the voting power - across all the voters will be 1. Therefore, the average voting power for each voter will be 1/N (where N is the number of voters), regardless of the byzantine districting system the votes are funneled through. Districting can change the power some voters, but only by diminishing the power of others. The average remains the same.

Personally, I see this system of artificially diminishing the voting power of some individuals in favor of others as a major flaw with the current system.

Re:Why the Electoral College is PROVABLY BETTER:

[NetWurkGuy]

Like another responder, I read the article and came away unimpressed. In the first place, the whole purpose of having an election is to install in government office the candidate that is most agreeable to those that will be governed. It is NOT to "maximize the voting power" of any individual. So Natapoff's entire analysis is based on a premise that is vaporous. The other responder pointed out that the analysis is flawed even granting this premise. (Some voter's power will be arbitrarily increased in some circumstances but only at the expense of some other voter's power).

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[Wonko the Sane]

Isn't odd that the public feels that the Military vote will suport the one canidate who is a deserter?

Not really. Most will vote for who ever seems more likely to favor giving us a raise, which is usually republician.

Re:Nader

[SlippyToad]

Idiot! I hate this. If I hadn't had a choice besides Gore vs. Bush I would have just stayed home. And I sleep very well knowing that whichever loser gets into office, I voted my conscience.

Re:With an election this close ..

[Tideflats]

Something like a dual presidency was the original American intent: the vice-president was the candidate who came in second, on the sound principal that he had been proven the next most popular choice for the job. One might indeed have hoped for shared responsibility, discussion of issues, and mutual aid, but in practice, both men hated one another's guts, and the practice was soon dropped.

Re:There is no frontier left

[the_doctor]

And I think it's depressing that 23 year-olds who obviously haven't spent much time in the real world can be so self-righteous about their selfishness.

OK, now that you've taken a stand on the issue how about backing up your opinion with some sort of argument. I refer you to my previous repsonse regarding the role of federal government and charity. Or are you in this for the cheap shots?

"Make no mistake, you're getting monosyllabic responses because anybody capable of responding more logically and reasonably to your points can see very clearly that it won't change your mind."

What gives you that impression? I would be willing to bet that you couldn't guess my political affilliation and thereby could gauge neither the firmness of those positions nor their origins.

As for the "flamebait" crack is concerned, I'd say you've got your signs reversed. IMHO, I seem to be attracting flamebait rather than producing it.

I think YOU're right

[Sharkeys-Day]

The only thing which can keep really big businesses in check is a big government(*), so which of the two evils do we want?

I have yet to find anyone who is against BOTH big business and big government. At times it's hard to decide whether to support the Greens or the Libertarians.

(*) On the other hand, I was reading about the East India Company recently, which had a navy as large as most major nations' in the 1800's.

Re:I think YOU're right

[NightHwk1]

The only thing which can keep really big businesses in check is a big government(*), so which of the two evils do we want?
I have yet to find anyone who is against BOTH big business and big government. At times it's hard to decide whether to support the Greens or the Libertarians.
---
The Libertarian party isnt exactly for big business, it just wants to keep the government from interfering with everyone. Businesses are no exception. However, with libertarians in power, big businesses won't be able to 'buy laws' like the MPAA with the first amendment, and things like the DMCA would cease to exist.

Re:I think YOU're right

[cpt kangarooski]

I'm assuming that you meant you have yet to find a candidate for public office that's against big business and big government.

As a voter, I'm against both. I trust the government a very small bit more b/c they're bound by the Constitution, but they have so much power that I'm still wary.

Personally, I don't think that a big government is needed to keep business in check - a few good laws and court decisions, and a stronger corporate division of the federal and state DOJs is probably enough. I'm not against all business, just those that are so large that they threaten the people.

I agree that it's frequently hard to decide between the Greens (and the Socialists) and the Libertarians (and the 92-96 Reformers)

Re:I think you're right

[cduffy]

And oversight somehow magically works at a federal level but doesn't at the state? Think about what you're saying -- that doesn't make sense.

If there's no state oversight, that needs to be fixed. It needs to be fixed now -- state government's aren't exactly powerless at the moment -- it'll need to be fixed if more power is given to the states.

And think about it -- if the states are where the decisions are made, that's where local media attention will be given. And since the offices will be physically closer to the area being governed, more local media will have access.

I come from a small town. Trust me, we knew when the city council was up to no good -- and since we knew these people, worked with 'em, we were able to actually get access and complain; much better than when the official you need to deal with can hide behind 1000 miles of distance.

Re:I think you're right

[mattdm]

That seems like a good step. However, I'm not sure that more litigation is necessarily a good thing for society.

--

Re:I think you're right

[thales]

Most Libertarians favor stripping Corparation's legal protection of it's officers and shareholders in at least some cases. For example if your property were damaged by smoke from a steel mill you would have the option of suing the company (as you do now) or the CEO or one of the shareholders. A class action lawsuit against the CEO that threatened him with personal bankruptcy would get his attention a lot faster than the EPA threat of fines his company would pay. All the stockholders would sit up and take notice if one of the shareholders got hit with a lawsuit against him personally for damages caused by a company he was part owner of. Holding the officers and the owners (shareholders) of the company PERSONALLY liable for damages caused by thier company would be far more effective at stopping irresponsible behavior than a goverment agency that can be bought off.

Re:I think you're right

[1010011010]

The problem is, by reducing the power of our democratically elected federal government, we'd be ceding more power to multinational corporations

Er... bullshit. The Federal Government would simply no longer be usurping powers not delegated and therefore left to the states and people. It's in the Constitution. This isn't a

if (!BIGASSFEDGOV) {CORP_POWER++};

situation. There's nothing preventing the state governments from passing legislation, except for their constitutions.

A small and limited federal government is what a republic composed of sovereign states (i.e., the USA) is all about -- it leaves the states with a common defense and currency, and the power closer to the people it effects. There's no legitimate reason for a big, bloated federal government, and no costututional authority for it. It's mainly that people don't want to work to get their state to do the things they think are good and right when they can jsut go the the federal level and impose their will on everyone at one whack.


________________________________________

Re:I think you're right

[alprazolam]

large companies can force states to give them tax credits, lower environmental/health standards, yada. they can give employees holidays and tell them who to vote for. especially with no oversight on campaigning, the top 100 richest people in each state will control who wins the elections by who gets the most tv coverages (most of the time). still though, as long as there is at least one state where abortion is legal, i think it's a better choice. that way i don't have to pay taxes to support old people's health care/retirement.

Re:I think you're right

[cduffy]

Well, presuming that corporations ARE the primary cause of bad laws... if I'm under a government messed up by only the corporations in California, rather than one interefered with by everyone who's got money in the Union, that means less bad laws affect me, no? More local government == less corruption, if you look at it that way.

And anyhow... I can make an appointment, drive for two hours and BE AT THE OFFICE of my state reps. One of them lives less than an hour away. When you live in the state you're representing and meet with the people who your laws affect on a daily basis, you're less likely to do something calloused and stupid than you are if you're up in Washington.

And, as you point out, there's likely to be a state somewhere which has laws favorable to your business -- whereas if the Feds pass something which puts you in the hole, tough luck unless you want to leave the Union.

I voted Browne. Local control is a Good Thing.

Re:I think you're right

[alprazolam]

with no oversight local office holders have nobody to account to when they are corrupt. obviously the people aren't going to step back and see what's wrong locally compared to other places. and therefore they won't ever know when some corrupt state appointee is screwing them over

Re:I think you're right

[MrNixon]

Did you know that corporations are, under the law, people? More any civic liberties delegated to people are delegated to corporations (at least that's my understanding of it from my MacroECON class).

Re:I think you're right

[mattdm]

The problem is, by reducing the power of our democratically elected federal government, we'd be ceding more power to multinational corporations -- who don't have to answer to anybody but their own shareholders. Big government in any form is dangerous -- but big government run on the concept of one dollar, one vote would be even worse than what we have now.

--

While we demand a recount...

[Anonymous Coward]

corporations are demanding a refund.

Re:It has to be said but...

[RickHunter]

Ah. So the election of the leader of what is probably the most powerful country in the world is irrelevant? I'm a Canadian, and this is a very big deal to me, as it should be to anyone with net access. The US pretty much dicates policy to a lot of countries by various means, so whoever's in charge there will make a big impact over a lot of the planet.

-RickHunter

Re:Very strange results

[Malc]

Err, I actually know quite a few people who give wrong answers. Perhaps you just don't think enough for yourself and do as others *appear* to do.

Your voting rights (at least where I come from) are private. Hence, the secret ballot. I'm sure you know people who keep their politcal ideals and voting pursuasions (sp?) close to their heart. Finally, I give a wrong answer because I don't like and disagree with a lot of these polls, especially exit polls. Giving a wrong answer is my way of protesting against the polls by trying to dilute their accuracy. Look at the media coverage last night based on incorrect exit polls, or incorrect analysis of them. Hopefully they didn't significantly influence anywhere where the polls were still open.

Why would I lie about such a thing? That's a strong accusation, but easily made when anonymous.

I don't give wrong answers because I'm trying to be cool or rebellious. I'm not some child suffering from teenage angst anymore.

BTW, there's no way that I'm a "bald-faced liar" - I have full head of hair.

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[Yunzil]

It would require a 2/3 majority in US Congress and ratification by 3/4 of the States to amend the US Constitution to 'do away with' the Electoral College.

Er, you don't have to do away with it. You could do things like split a state's electoral votes based on percentage of popular vote won. You don't need a Constitutional amendment to do that.

Re:Supreme Court / reproductive rights

[Xerithane]

Is this a joke? And I don't get it..

Electoral College FAQ

[Johann]

http://www.nara.gov/fedreg/elctcoll/faq.html

"Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life."

Re:There is no frontier left

[Scrubby]

I'm right there with you Doc!

The thing I can't figure out is that most /. readers are probably in the same boat. According the the liberals they are rich. Why do they then support this socialist crap? I don't know.

I say we pack up the guns and carve us a piece out of Africa. Run in some broadband, and we can work from there. Woo Hoo!

Re:It's the Electoral Vote, Stupid!

[Sodium Attack]

Electoral votes have been cast against the popular vote of that electoral vote's region nine times in the past -- in a race this tight, it would seem more likely to occur than ever before.

It seems to me less likely than ever before. In most cases where it's happened before, the elector(s) who defected didn't affect the outcome, knew they wouldn't affect the outcome, and did it just to make a statement or somesuch. The one instance I know of where this wasn't the case is 1876, where there was some very shady dealing going on.

Of course, I won't rule out the possibility of shady dealing going on here too.

If Gore takes Florida, expect more recounts

[dpotter]

If Gore takes Florida after the automatic recount, we can all expect Bush to demand recounts in Iowa and Wisconsin.

Both of these states were also taken by Gore, but by less than .5% margins. Both of these states have laws which allow a candidate to demand a recount with such a narrow victory.

If the recount of these states move them to Bush, then Bush will have enough electoral votes even without Florida. We may be here for a while.

Re:If Gore takes Florida, expect more recounts

[CaseStudy]

This isn't quite true. If Bush takes Iowa and Wisconsin without taking Florida, he has 264 electoral votes. If he also took Oregon (likely, but it hasn't been called yet), he'd be back at 271, which would put him over the top. At that point, the Gore campaign would ask for a recount in New Hampshire, where the margin was about 7,000 votes.

Re:Don't blame me...

[jafac]

are they selling that bumper sticker yet?

Re:CNN Reported on the 1,2,3,5 and 6th place parti

[Fat Rat Bastard]

Agreed. I'd be a republican in a new york minute if it wasn't for the Religious "we're gonna tell you how to live your life" element. The Demo's are just as bad (but in different ways... well maybe not if you look at Gore's #2). That's why I "waste" my vote on Libertarian. The Demo's are going to be pissed as all hell with the Greens, but they'll do whatever they can to win them back. I figure one of these days the same may just happen with the Repubs and the Libertarians (yeah yeah yeah... wishful thinking I know...)

Re:Nader

[Xerithane]

Major point that people haven't been addressing is how many people voted for Nadar that wouldn't have voted otherwise. I didn't vote myself, I excercise the right not to vote while having the right to vote available. If I lived in Florida voting I would have definitely voted.. otherwise i wouldn't have and it still would have turned out mostly the same.

FLorida by Thursday

[jbischof]

This whole florida thing has to be finished by Thursday according to an article on CNN. I wonder what this means because Im sure all the politicians will count and recount till then.

Any word on what happened in Missouri? Supposedly the democrats went in and got a judge to allow voting till 10pm then the republicans went in and got a judge to overrule that and allow voting till 8pm. But they still counted votes till 9:30!!! IF florida goes to Bush and Missouri (which is undecided based on this) goes to Gore then GORE wins! This is insane, you would think the great country of US would have a better system, and be more honest about it. your thoughts...

Re:Nader

[hybridpi]

I would have probably voted for Bush, but instead I voted for Nader...why? Mostly because of the Democratic cutback in the space program, which I think is necessary for the advancement of the human race. But the bottom line is neither of those two idiots *deserved* my vote. I may not have agreed with Nader, hell I agreed with roughly 50% of his platform, but the fact of the matter is that I can trust Nader. Nader has built a career out of doing what was best for the country...unlike the main parties (which are so corrupt now that it sickens me) Nader would not do something out of greed or political ambition, but simply because he would feel it'd be the right thing to do. Listen to Michael Moore's speech on why he was voting Nader and maybe you might get an inkling of this type of reasoning. My state (Minnesota) voted for Gore anyway, and do I care? Not really...neither of the two main parties are going to make any real changes. Why would they? They have the country right where they want it, why would they want to shake it up and allow some real progress to happen if it might cost them control in the form of third party support? Nothing will change regardless of the victor. Gore is an obvious liar and Bush is basically an incompentant. Supreme court nominations do worry me a bit, I'm republican in a lot of the issues but on civil liberties I'm progressive. However, more goes into putting someone on the Supreme Court than nominations (hence *nominations*), and even though the GOP has a slight majority in the House and Senate, the country will likely be ruled by moderates in that particular branch. Nader deserved my vote...and he deserved yours too, he has simply done too much for this country to be thrown away as some sort of spoiler...like Nader said "You can't spoil a system thats already spoiled to the core." I'm proud of the way I voted, and I wish people wouldn't make judgement calls on something that I felt was the correct choice...weren't liberals supposed to be tolerant of other people's beliefs...to quote Eddie Vedder "The donkies are looking a lot like elephants this year." -- It's not going to stop, till you wise up.

Votes For Gore Wasted

[@Man]

Voting one's conscience for Nader rather than switching to Gore out of fear could have put the Nader vote at 5%+ of the popular vote, resulting in matching funds for the Green party next election.

Ironically, since Bush appears to have won the election, all those who voted for Gore instead of Nader wasted their vote.

Re:Nader, the Spice Boy of the election

[ackthpt]

Nader appears to have cost Gore Oregano

That's it! next thyme Nader cummin to California I'll pepper him with insalts. That kind of behavior doesn't curry well with me.

--

Statistics

[BadBlood]

Just as an FYI on how the state of Florida can wildly swing between candidates. When the population of votes is so close to 50/50 (or 49/49), it maximizes the standard deviation of that population. Assume there are only 2 choices. In this type of distribution (binary), stdev = N*(p*(1-p))^2. So what was happening is basically some Type I errors caused by either the size or confidence interval of the sample to be too small.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[ToLu the Happy Furby]

Florida's Electoral could vote for whomever they damn well please.

As I understand, and i'm not an expert, but I heard this on the radio this morning, this can only occur in states that have "faithless electors". I'm not sure if florida is one of them...if it is there is a chance on december 18 that they cast thier vote in favor of who won the popular election.

It's more complicated than that.

Many states have provisions forbidding so-called "faithless electors"--i.e. electors who vote different from the popular vote in the state. However, these provisions are all on the state level, not the federal level, and thus are (arguably) Constitutionally irrelevent to the actual Electoral College vote on Dec. 18.

I believe it is generally accepted that if an elector were to change his or her vote in a state with a provision against faithless electors, then the changed vote would stand but the elector would have some shit to pay with their home state. On the other hand, this would certainly go to the Supreme Court if it occured, and given the current anti-Federalist leanings of conservative judges, that result may be too close to call as well.

Don't forget the military vote.

[Chacham]

Even if Gore picked up a few thousand in a recount, the military vote still has to come in, and that is generally Republican. I highly doubt Gore will win.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[lheal]

Our republic is strong in part because the power is separated among not just the branches of government, but between the Federal Government, State Government, and the People.

The Electoral College gives power to the States, quadrennially checking the power of the President and thus the Federal Government. A strict popular vote would remove that check.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[Fraize]

I am right. I direct you to this graphic for the proof.

Don't challenge a guy who got a 99% on his Civic final! ;-)

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[J Story]

> As a matter of interest, can the queen overule the Canadian governor general, or not?

The Governor General represents the Queen of Canada (i.e. Betty II). In a painfully hypothetical sense, it's conceivable.

However, imagining that the Governor General would veto a bill duly passed by parliament and the senate is on the order of a person winning three consecutive multi-million dollar lottaries. The Queen stepping into Canadian politics has about the same probability as all the air molecules in your room spontaneously moving into your coffee cup. (It isn't going to happen.)

One of the few situations where the Governor General (or the Lieutenant Governor for the provinces) has some disgression to act is when the prime minister (or premier of a province) asks him/her to dissolve parliament and call for an election. In a few cases, the GG (or LG) has refused.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[SimonK]

How very British. Government controlled by the acceptabilitly of its actions, rather than by the written constitution. Actually, I suppose the same thing really happens everywhere. Its just the UK government makes no pretence.

As a matter of interest, can the queen overule the Canadian governor general, or not ?

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[stew777]

the notwithstanding clause hasn't been political suicide in Quebec, Buchard used it for all that language crap (circumventing the freedom of language and expression and all that), and a while ago I heard that they wanted to use it to make biker gangs (ie: hells angels v. rock machine thing) illegal (probably more as an attempt to try and legitimize the clause than to stop the gangs).

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[lemox]

A "faithless" elector isn't really a title, it's more of a name calling thing ; ). A faithless elector is one who votes against the popular vote of their party vote.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[Scratch-O-Matic]

And maybe you should have mentioned that you were referring to the PRESIDENTIAL election.
Scratch-o-Matic

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[Shiva Lingham]

I don't know if this made national news, but the counts slowed down towards the end in Florida because they could not find various ballot boxes; the person delivering them to the counting place got lost, etc.

There is a local Sheriff's Office deputy at each polling place whose responsibility it is to make sure the boxes get to the counting places. If all it takes is paying off some fat dumb cop, the fraud is simple. Stop the boxes on the way to the counters, get an expert to open them, eyeball the ballots, remove or add as necessary, and seal the boxes like nothing happened. Any security measure can be broken.

Also, the mail in ballots can be fixed by having a confederate in some key USPS hubs, nabbing anything that looks like a ballot from the mail sorters. Again, an expert opens, changes as necessary, and seals it. In a race like this, just a few could make the difference.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[Black Parrot]

> there was basically an "Oh, Shit" moment for Republicans, when they realized that Reagan would have made a far better nominee. Ford, of course, went on to lose in 76, and Reagan won in 80 and 84.

Basically, it didn't matter who they nominated in '76, because after Watergate there wasn't a snowball's chance in Hell of a Republican getting elected. RR should be grateful that he wasn't nominated that year.

Watergate offended the general public's sensibilities much more than Blowjobgate did. Indeed, it appears that much of our anti-government sentiment and black-helicopters paranoia stems back to Watergate.

FWIW, Ford is one of the few presidents of my lifetime that I respect(ed) both as a person and as a politician.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[CaptainCarrot]

If it were a "pure" Democracy, where all that mattered was the percentage of popular vote the election would be over.

If the US were a "pure Democracy" we wouldn't have elected representatives at all. All legislation would be passed by the direct vote of the franchised population.

Now wouldn't that be nice? All our laws would be passed by the civic equivalent of first-posters: assholes with no jobs and far too much spare time on their hands.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[Anonymous Coward]

Gore had a 6 month vacation in vietnam with his camera and a body guard. What a trooper he is!!

yeah, and bush had an 18 month vacation when he was AWOL with the Texas National Air Guard. And he doesn't remember these 18 years of his life. hmmm.

also got caught trying to doctor his military record, to match his autobiography better. gee whiz.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[Scratch-O-Matic]

That's a gross oversimplification of a dubious fact. The fact is that most folks in the military are completely disgusted with anyone having anything to do with the current administration, including Al Gore. And they have been for the last 8 years.


Scratch-o-Matic

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[CaptainCarrot]

This asinine remark is "Insightful"? "-1: Paranoid" is more like it. Here's a civics lesson:

• The electors are chosen by the victorious party as people who can reliably vote as that party directs. If Bush wins in the recount, then all the electors in Florida will be Republicans who the party leadership is certain will vote for Bush.
• The "current government" has no control over the electors, who meet in their own states, not Washington DC. The are generally not people currently in public office and are not beholden to any governmental authority.

Now go out there and get a life.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[zooey_glass]

According to A PROCEDURAL GUIDE TO THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE prepared by The Office of the Federal Register, "No Constitutional provision or Federal law requires electors to vote in accordance with the popular vote in their State."

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[porges]

every vote for nader *ought* to tell the dems to move their asses back to the left

This assumes that they can get the Nader voters without losing any of their most centrist voters, which is wishful thinking (in the sense of being totally false).

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[porges]

What I found amusing was that Bush had 55-60% of the vote in Florida for the longest time, with 2% reporting, but yet the liberal media was still reporting Gore as the winner. How strange.

This would make sense if the 2% were known to be from more conservative areas, so you extrapolate how much stronger you expect Gore to be in the more liberal areas.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[zooey_glass]

From the same guide: "But some state laws require electors to cast their votes according to the popular vote and provide that so-called "faithless electors" may be subject to fines or may be disqualified for casting an invalid vote and be replaced by a substitute elector."

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[NMerriam]

Wow -- Gore was in Vietnam, carrying a full pack and a rifle. Bush was back home flying on the weekends and snorting coke. I can definitely see why the military guys prefer Bush...

---------------------------------------------

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[bigchief]

Actually, it has happened twice, once in 1876, and again in 1888. Sorry.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[beowulfshaeffer]

But one of the cardinal rules of gun safety is: Treat every gun as if it was loaded!!!

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[CaptainCarrot]

Also, I find it amusing that you refer to my comment as paranoid, since you're the one saying that they would vote for Bush because they are chosen by the victorious party. If you're against Bush, then that is a paranoid statemtent, if you are for him, then it is an arrogant one.

I see you can't read, either. I had said:

If Bush wins in the recount, then all the electors in Florida will be Republicans who the party leadership is certain will vote for Bush.

What part of "if" do you not understand? Or, like Clinton, do you require definitions for even short words?

And yes, this is paranoia: Electorals can vote against public opinion in the case we plebes vote in someone that the current government thinks is a threat to the status-quo. How's that for democracy?

You evidently think there is some vast, secret government conspiracy controlling the votes of the electors. That's pure nonsense. The political parties supporting the candidates control the electors. This all above-board and not a secret to anyone who hasn't got his head stuck up where the sun don't shine. Go back to your X-Files fan club and stay out of serious political discussions, you're underqualified for them.

Oh yeah, and it's "electors", not "electorals." And the U.S.A. is not now, nor has it ever been, a democracy. It's a democratic republic. Try reading books without pictures and word balloons in them sometime, you might learn something.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[lemox]

Ok, insult me if that makes you feel better about yourself, you obviously have some issues about self worth, since you feel the need to display your superiority so strongly. My point wasn't conspiracy, it is the uselessness of the system in the first place. It is based on a time of no mass communication where people may not even have been aware of any candidates other than those within their own state. It's useless now, other than to (sometimes) misrepresent the popular vote.

Also, electors are controlled by their parties. If their party does not win, whats to stop them from voting against the popular will. I wasn't suggesting some vast government conspiracy, but class division in society suggests that your average elector is not your average american citizen, and therefore may have patrician views that don't reflect the popular will. In a race as close as this one, just a few faithless electors could change things.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[Goonie]

The Queen stepping into Canadian politics has about the same probability as all the air molecules in your room spontaneously moving into your coffee cup. (It isn't going to happen.)

In fact, the Queen said something to this effect when she was asked to override the Australian Governor-General's dismissal of the Prime Minister back in 1975. She wrote back and said that it was entirely a matter for the Governor-General.

In practical terms, if the monarch were *ever* to interfere directly in Australian politics ties with the monarchy would be severed as soon as the referendum could be organised to do so. In addition, it would be an immense diplomatic embarrassment to the British government to the point where the serving monarch would be virtually forced to step down. It would probably go close to spelling the end of the monarchy, in fact, as Britons would be concerned about the monarch acting in similar ways in their own domestic politics.

While I don't know for sure, I'd imagine that similar sentiments exist in Canada, and New Zealanders would almost certainly feel the same way.

BTW, has there ever been a supply crisis in either the Canadian federal or any of the provincial governments? What happened?

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[CaptainCarrot]

I wasn't suggesting some vast government conspiracy, but class division in society suggests that your average elector is not your average american citizen, and therefore may have patrician views that don't reflect the popular will.

Did someone give you a history book to read recently? "Patrician," "plebe..." This ain't Rome, dude.

But in any event, you're wrong. The local paper out here profiled a few of the state's electors after the last presidential election. They're mostly ordinary folks, party rank-and-file, campaign workers or longstanding party faithful. They're about as patrician as you are.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[lemox]

The structure of the Electoral College can be traced to the Centurial Assembly system of the Roman Republic. Under that system, the adult male citizens of Rome were divided, according to their wealth, into groups of 100 (called Centuries). Each group of 100 was entitled to cast only one vote either in favor or against proposals submitted to them by the Roman Senate. In the Electoral College system, the States serve as the Centurial groups (though they are not, of course, based on wealth), and the number of votes per State is determined by the size of each State's Congressional delegation. Still, the two systems are similar in design and share many of the same advantages and disadvantages.

We are the New Rome. That's what our forefathers intended, although I doubt we'll last as long.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[a42]

It wouldn't surprise me if it were a common dirty trick of this and every incumbent administration to intercept these and other absentee ballots and hold them as an "ace in the hole" in case of a close election.

That's the most ridiulous thing I've heard yet today. Everybody knows that what they actually do is to use the orbital mind control lasers to activate the Bermuda Triangle. The aliens then abduct all the absentee voters and force them to eat pop rocks and drink Coke until they explode. Their ballots are then filed in a special section of Warehouse 23. Or not.

--john

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[Spruitje]

If it were a "pure" Democracy, where all that mattered was the percentage of popular vote the election would be over.


Well, i'm glad that I live in the Netherlands.
It is almost impossilbe that one party leads the country.
They always have to form a coalition with other party's to rule.
But then again, we have not a two party state.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[Syberghost]

I understand that when you Yankees vote, you actually vote for an electoral college, people who have promised to vote for candidate foo should they be elected. It seems pretty unlikely that one of these people would turn tail and vote for the wrong person.

It has happened several times, including in 1960 and 1972.

However, it hasn't decided an election ever, to the best of my knowledge.

-

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[ChadN]

There's about as much of a chance of an elector voting for a different candidate when it matters, as there is of Bush being elected and implementing Gore's complete agenda.

So about 50/50 then.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[revscat]

I think YOU need to run for office. I'd sure as shit vote for you. - Rev.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[ackthpt]

And those ballots are coming in via ship or plane from overseas. Does it not seem plausible that those ballots might end up "lost", invalidated due to tampering during shipping, or somehow turn into an improbable upset in favor of Gore?

No, it doesn't seem remotely plausible. Only the most insane conspiracy theorists could take this seriously. If it something like that did happen, the political firestorm would boggle the mind and dull the senses. Nope, not gonna happen. Go back to your video games or X-Files or wherever you get your perspective from, or better yet, turn off the tube and go outside.

It wouldn't surprise me if it were a common dirty trick of this and every incumbent administration to intercept these and other absentee ballots and hold them as an "ace in the hole" in case of a close election.

They really don't know how these people voted. It would make fodder for a really shallow fictional plot, but it's just not that convienient. These ballots are in mail bags on ships and planes and assuming the officers in charge of these craft would be party to such a conspiracy is just too going way too far.

--

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[ksmeltzer]

This is in reply to Mr. Scratch-o-Matic comment "And maybe you should have mentioned that you were referring to the PRESIDENTIAL election". No sir I think you are missing the merits of this debate. I did not need to specify that it was in reference to the presidential election due to the fact that everyone knows that the presidency is the topic of this article. If you would look closer at the post my previous post was in response to, you will note that he states "As has everyone on every network for the past 12 hours..." which I did not know. The original post did not contain any reference to the fact that it was the Florida military ballots in question. The author of the post just assumed that all of us have been watching the networks. In Florida there are much more interesting things happening on the local stations e.g. updates on those missing boxes. Therefore I was not aware that this was such a big discussion on the national networks. Therefore due to the fact that it was not explicitly stated that the post was in reference to the ballots of the military individuals registered in Florida I was left to make an assumption. In which I assumed that he was talking about the entire military and the absentee ballot's effect on the popular vote.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[Fraize]

It also happened in 1976, when one elector, I believe from the state of Washington, voted for Ronald Reagan.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[dogbowl]

Gore had a 6 month vacation in vietnam with his camera and a body guard. What a trooper he is!!

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[JLCrew_CrazyJ]

THe military vote may be mostly Republican, but like the rest of the election it's going to be a close split, 60/40 at best. If Gore picks up the 2000 votes from the confused voters in the recount, or if the recount gives him enough additional votes to go up more than 1000 on Gore, then this is a whole new election. The military vote is just an additional factor...the chances that it's going to be more than +1000 for Bush is pretty unlikely (there are approx 2000 overseas votes...at most 1500 voted Bush). The key is those 2000 "accidental" votes, if they're allowed to be recounted.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[Kailden]

Florida's Electoral could vote for whomever they damn well please

As I understand, and i'm not an expert, but I heard this on the radio this morning, this can only occur in states that have "faithless electors". I'm not sure if florida is one of them...if it is there is a chance on december 18 that they cast thier vote in favor of who won the popular election.

Also, I heard that the republicans are having the vote recounted in Wisconsin.

In any case, we really need to upgrade our election equipment as I'm still voting with a paper ballot...and the whole thing seems pretty insecure in many respects. Did anyone else hear that 9 ballot boxes in florida were left behind in the building by the election judge whose sole job is to ensure the votes are taken to be counted?

Sounds fishy, but I'm sure things are getting blown out of proportion to some degree.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[Eccles]

Actually, for all you know, Florida's Electoral could vote for whomever they damn well please.

There may be a state law requiring electors to vote for the winning candidate; apparently this is the case in most states. Regardless, there is no reason to value Florida electors particularly; if the count ends up 271/269, a single Bush elector (who had better have an escape vehicle waiting) in *any* state that does not require the electors match the voting could make the electoral count a tie.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[dsfox]

Sure it has only been done a handful of times, but the popular candidate has only lost in the electoral college once. Interesting times.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[David Greene]

The poll workers could not give a definite answer either way, and did not have any other authority to check with.

This may be somewhat misleading. It may be that the poll workers were legally prohibited from giving an answer. Poll workers are not allowed to explain the wording of referendum items, for example. The statement here makes it sound like the pool workers themselves were confused, which may in fact be the case, but it's not necessarily the reason they couldn't provide an answer.

--

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[DarkShard]

And your proof is what. That bold statement belies nothing more then an assertion that government isn't to be trusted. Why on earth would anyone call over americans to oversee elections in other countries if we all were so highly corruptable that we couldn't have a clean election in our own country. Your assumption that Jeb has anything to do with the electoral system in Florida is just plain ludicrous, simply because he would then have the power to keep himself in it by simply screwing with elections.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[haus]

I served in the Corp during the Bush and Clinton years. Neither produced raises that exceed the cost of living. Anyone who beleives that W will actually help has sorly forgeten the words of his father "NO NEW TAXES"

all persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental. - Kurt Vonnegut

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[Leto2]

Actually, for all you know, Florida's Electoral could vote for whomever they damn well please.

So now you know it's true, you only have to bribe up to 270 people to get your man in the Office.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[Smitty825]

ummmm...correct me if I'm wrong, but don't the republicans & democrats each have an official at *all* polling places across the country to make sure that voter fraud doesn't occur? I agree that it does occur sometimes, but I don't think it was as easy as George calling Jeb and saying "I need some more votes"

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[Jeffrey Baker]

Let me remind you why the military will *not* be voting for gore :)

Gore ponders the automatic rifle

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[rark]

> Every Gore or Bush vote could become meaningless
> because of a couple thousand people in Florida.

BS.

Yes, the primary purpose of your vote is to figure out which white dude is gonna be the head of state for the next four years

however -- votes also show what the country is thinking -- every vote for nader *ought* to tell the dems to move their asses back to the left -- every vote for gore ought to tell the republicans-in-charge (not the rank and file, as they seem to know this) to get the hell out of the religious right's pants!

etc :)

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[Zonnald]

Actually, Australia 1975 the G-G did dissolve the Government of Gough Whitlam. Many believe it was all the work of the CIA ( as you would ).

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[RandomPeon]

This could turn to Gore's favor. Assuming he wins the popular vote and the electoral vote is 269-271 for Bush, it would take only two electors who were iffy about the electoral college to change things.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[lowflying]

Let me remind you why the military will *not* be voting for gore :)

Ummm.... how do you suggest that he adjust the sling on his M16, that he is carrying (implied in the URL) in Vietnam? That appears to be what he is doing, am I mistaken?

I just checked my wallet, and yes... the "Armed Forces of the United States Identification Card" is still there. And I distinctly remember not voting for Gore, although he was my second choice.

Voting for Bush, was just not an option. At great taxpayer expense, he was trained to fly, yet only maintained flight status for 22 months. He stopped taking flight physicals when they started testing for drugs. He cannot provide any evidence that he fulfilled his military obligation. There appears to be good reason to believe that he just skipped out.

But, I don't think your preconception of how the military feels about Gore, or votes in general is consistent with reality. Right behind my military ID is my ACLU membership card. There are Greenpeace and Amnesty International patches sewn to my helmet bag. When asked, I self-identify as very liberal. I support programs like a single-payer health insurance system and broadly implemented anti-pollution measures.And while I have the opportunity, as a cog in the machinery of the war on drugs, I am an opponent of that disaster.

I recognize that I do not represent the whole of the military, and that the military is slightly more conservative than the general population. But that does not mean that everyone in the military is blindly right-wing.

Dave

p.s. After serving substantially longer than my commitment, I am now in the Individual Ready Reserve, of my own choice. I don't think it matters, they own my body for a while longer, but I know some people will draw a distinction, and I don't want to create a false impression.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[mgblst]

Dont be so sure on Canada security.

In Australia, the Queen fired the Prime Minister, i think it was Gough Whitlam.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[Paladin128]

Umm... the absentee ballots, which are largely partly military, have a VERY good chance of tipping the scales in favor of Bush. --Aaron

"Evil beware: I'm armed to the teeth and packing a hampster!"

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[rm-r]

largely partly

What on earth does largely partly mean?

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[haus]

Isn't odd that the public feels that the Military vote will suport the one canidate who is a deserter? Ken Vedaa USMC

all persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental. - Kurt Vonnegut

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[Shiva Lingham]

And those ballots are coming in via ship or plane from overseas. Does it not seem plausible that those ballots might end up "lost", invalidated due to tampering during shipping, or somehow turn into an improbable upset in favor of Gore? It wouldn't surprise me if it were a common dirty trick of this and every incumbent administration to intercept these and other absentee ballots and hold them as an "ace in the hole" in case of a close election.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[Zak3056]

um, that weapon does not look loaded to me - so to a person who is somewhat clueful about guns, this picture is not nearly as comical as a clueless person would guess -

Rule 1: ALL weapons are loaded. Even if you just checked. Even if the mag well is empty. Even if you're holding the firing pin in your HAND. ALL weapons are presumed loaded and ready to fire. Personally, I go out of the way to make sure I never point any of my firearms at my head. Don't you?

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[NMerriam]

Yeah, because everyone knows that the only people who are "Real" veterans are infantry. Everyone else is a coward, even if their barracks are blown up by a viet cong suicide bomber. Not many viet cong blew up stuff in Texas, though...

---------------------------------------------

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[rark]

> which is wishful thinking (in the sense of being
> totally false).

Not really. Many nadar voters are not die-hard green members but raising protest votes instead. How many centrist voters would be lost of Gore would show some backbone and support traditional supporters of the democratic party (like unions) and consider real evironmental issues (like he did at one point)

Actually, they would have gained a lot of the nadar voters, without losing centrist voters, if they'd nominated bradley instead...but I digress.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[ksmeltzer]

Then he should have specified IN FLORIDA. If this is what he is referring to then yes it could. Some of us in Florida watch local stations as we are in Florida where it is local news.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[lemox]

Actually, for all you know, Florida's Electoral could vote for whomever they damn well please. There is no law requiring them to go with the popular vote, it's just a matter of courtesy when they usually do.

Electorals can vote against public opinion in the case we plebes vote in someone that the current government thinks is a threat to the status-quo. How's that for democracy?

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[lemox]

That is my entire point. I don't count electors as part of some great conspiracy. I count them as relics of an outdated voting system. Yes, it is considered "bad form" for them to vote against the popular vote, but they can. Also, I find it amusing that you refer to my comment as paranoid, since you're the one saying that they would vote for Bush because they are chosen by the victorious party. If you're against Bush, then that is a paranoid statemtent, if you are for him, then it is an arrogant one.

I fail to see the use of your "civics lesson" since you didn't address anything I said, just made up some things to addresss.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[mrzaph0d]

i don't think they will though, i think it's only been done a handful of times although i don't know of any specific cases. i think they are selected for their loyalty to the party that chooses them and therefore are unlikely to vote against that party. in this case, they only chance is if they see that gore's won the popular vote and they decide to give him the win...not too likely though.
"Leave the gun, take the canoli."

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[Webmonger]

In Canada, our constitution is contains a notwithstanding clause that allows Governments to violate the Bill of Rights if they invoke it. The "notwithstanding clause" is so unpopular that it's political suicide for a government to invoke it, so it's not nearly as dangerous as it sounds.

Our Governor General is technically the head of the government, but all [she|he] does is rubberstamp whatever bills the government votes for. It's unclear whether [she|he] actually has the power to NOT sign those bills into law.

I understand that when you Yankees vote, you actually vote for an electoral college, people who have promised to vote for candidate foo should they be elected. It seems pretty unlikely that one of these people would turn tail and vote for the wrong person.

And if you think about it, a popular vote that was in favour of Republicans could still result in a Congress that had only one republican seat, if the votes broke down just right.

Government is sloppy, sure, but don't worry about it too much.
(Or you'll never stop worrying)

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[jafac]

unlikely yes, but it HAS happened. Twice, I believe.

Generally, these members of the Electoral college are not your average joe workingman on the street. They're quite often upper-class, white, Christian businessmen. Just the sort of people who favor Republicans.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[Salvage]

That's the most ridiculous thing I've heard yet today. Everybody knows that what they actually do is to use the orbital mind control lasers to activate the Bermuda Triangle....

Must I remind you again? The lasers have been turned off due to technical difficulties.

(Well, okay, what actually happened was that one of the guys in accounting ran off with the budget. The power companies then disconnected the control room for non-payment. As a result, the lasers reset into standby mode, and can't be recontacted as that part of the design was never finished. Meanwhile, the new lasers haven't been launched because they require a Saturn V to get out of the atmosphere.)

T. M. Pederson
"...and so the moral of the story is: Always Make Backups."

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[jafac]

um, that weapon does not look loaded to me - so to a person who is somewhat clueful about guns, this picture is not nearly as comical as a clueless person would guess -

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[rhyac]

if the count ends up 271 for one side, it'll be 267 for the other. yeah? 269/269 could be a tie. which is why 270 is the magic number. (538 total elector votes). i'm canadian, though, so i could be wrong (this is what i vaguely remember).

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[jdunlevy]

There's no federal law requiring them to go with the popular vote, but does anyone know whether Florida has laws requiring this? See answers to the questions Are electors required to vote for the candidate who won his or her State's popular vote? and What would happen if two candidates tied in a State's popular vote, or there was a dispute as to the winner? in the FAQ on the Electoral College section of the National Archives web site.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[ChadN]

Does anyone know if keeping your voting receipt allows you to change your vote in such an instance (ie. there is a recount and you can reasonably show that you voted incorrectly?) If so, I'd expect many Nader voters to be rushing to the election officials, saying "Oops!"

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[Shiva Lingham]

I believe there is a legitimate concern with the controversy concerning the ballot in Palm Beach County. The ballots there were printed such that out of the three ballot punchholes next to the Democratic ticket section, the topmost represented a vote for Buchanan, and the second represented Gore. In spite of the arrow pointing to the correct hole for Gore, this confused many voters who asked poll workers which hole was the right one. The poll workers could not give a definite answer either way, and did not have any other authority to check with.

As a result, Buchanan had more votes in PBC (3407) than in any other county in Florida. This is strange because Gore carried Palm Beach county easily, 64%-36%. The next highest votes for Buchanan by county is Pinellas (1100), which also had the highest turnout for Nader, and was won by Gore, 52%-48%.

Just wait, I'll start heading toward my point now. Pinellas and Palm Beach represent the highest combined turnout of Nader/Buchanan voters by number, followed by Hillsborough (which neighbors Pinellas), Broward, Dade, Brevard, and Sarasota. These represent the highest population counties in Florida. Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Pinellas, and Hillsborough had the top 5 voter turnout, respectively. In four of these counties, Buchanan voters represent .1-.25% of total votes, and ~10% of combined Nader/Buchanan voters. However, in PBC Buchanan gets .8% of the total vote, and raked in 38% of the combined, alternative vote.

This sticks out like a sore thumb, and I'm sure someone with a degree in statistics could prove my point. Why would PBC have SO MANY Buchanan voters if it is decidedly liberal? Why would it buck the trend set by counties of similar makeup and population? If one adjusts the Buchanan vote in PBC to correlate with the statewide average and the averages in other counties, One could assume that the total number of Gore votes miscast for Buchanan is ~2500.

I'm not saying that this is enough to win FL decisively for Gore, but if the final count and recount gives Bush the state with less than this margin, it will be a hotly contested point for years to come.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[gid-foo]

Ummmm 1976. Well, yeah, there's a problem. Carter, Ford. I think you're thinking 1980.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[DavidTC]

Um, no.

The people who we just elected to the electorial college are very prominate members of whatever party won in your state. The republocrats are no more likely to randomly vote democian then then vis versa.

-David T. C.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[ChadN]

In these cases, was the electoral vote not decisive enough that it went to the House of Reps to decide (as in the early days)?

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[JCMay]

I already explained why with any sincere voter, there's no such thing as voting incorrectly.

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[The_Steel_General]

More than that, *any* state's electors could vote differently. But that's not a big deal unless the final electoral count is really close.

Which it will be, if Gore wins Oregon and loses Florida. In that case, just a couple of faithless electors could change the outcome, either by electing Gore or throwing it to the House/Senate.

Personally, I'm less bothered by that, or the possible electoral/popular mismatch, than with the incredibly thin margin of difference: The votes of a couple thousand Floridians -- a tenth of a percent of Florida voters, less than a hundredth of a percent of all voters -- will be the difference in this election. Has me more in favor of runoffs in close states than in re-arranging the overall structure.

On the other hand, this is a genuine example of Your Vote Makes a Difference(tm), and it's good to have a reminder of that every once in a while.

One way or another, it should be an interesting winter.

TSG

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[TWR]

Ummmm 1976. Well, yeah, there's a problem. Carter, Ford. I think you're thinking 1980.

Ummmm, no. In 1976, Reagan challenged Ford for the Republican nomination. When Reagan gave an off-the-cuff speech at the nominating convention (when Ford was nominated) there was basically an "Oh, Shit" moment for Republicans, when they realized that Reagan would have made a far better nominee. Ford, of course, went on to lose in 76, and Reagan won in 80 and 84.

-jon

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[lowflying]

Not really. Most will vote for who ever seems more likely to favor giving us a raise, which is usually republician.

Unfortunately, I don't have time to dig this information up again. However, and the data is out there, publicly available.

Since 1980:
1) A Democrat controlled congress met or exceeded Reagan's and Bush's proposed payrolls for military every single year of his administration. At the end of this period, after adjusting for inflation, military pay was down over 10% (I don't remember the exact number) from 1980.
2) A Democrat controlled congress met Clinton's proposed military payroll, resulting in a reversal of the trend. Pay adjusted for inflation went up for the first time in 12 years, but remained below 1980 equivalent.
3) After the Republican revolution, Clinton's payroll recommendations were *never* met. Clinton proposed more than the Republican's were willing to pay (even though their overall military spending exceeded his proposal).

The result is that in the year 2000, military pay adjusted for inflation was down almost 16% from 1980. This 16% is an average, and doesn't reflect the real damage done at the junior NCO and enlisted levels. Officers (especially aviators) did better.

These numbers take into account the shadow accounting done with COLA and housing allowances.

Dave

Re:Don't forget the military vote.

[dze]

Not any more. I believe (but i'm not 100% sure...) that when canada 'repatriated' the constitution in 81 or 82 that wrote the queen out of the books for good. i don't think she ever nixed anything before that though.

Re:Mistaken vote for Buchanan

[DarkShard]

Really, why do I owe compassion or nearly nearly anything else to a people who are going to suck off my tit for the rest of my adult life... although I do feel sorry for them becuase they lack a skill of following an arrow. This could have been clearer, but it's nit-picking.

Thank you!

[provolt]

To everyone who said that your vote doesn't count... HA! I thank each and every one of you for making my vote count even more. :)

No if I can just get eveyone to not vote... I can vote myself in as dictator...

provolt

Re:Thank you!

[Ravensfire]

This election makes it look like your vote counts less, winning the popular vote but loosing the electoral vote.

I've got a problem when people say your vote counts less because of the "popular" vote.

The President is elected by the people of the states, not by the people. There's a key difference there. We tend to look at this election as being a national election, with results that should be national. But should they?

Under the Electoral College method, the number of Electors is the number of the members of Congress that state has. Each state is able to determine who they feel should be president. With every state having two Senators, the potential for a single state with large population to skew the results of an election are reduced to a reasonable level.

This system does NOT prevent the will of the people, it tends to balance the view out some. A small state now has some impact the election, but a large state doesn't have as much an impact. It's not perfect, but the United States was formed as a collection of States will all powers not granted to the Federal Goverment reserved for the states. This is a way that states are kept somewhat "in balance".

-- Ravensfire

Re:Thank you!

[lemox]

Yeah, that's really what holds the Libertarian party back, IMO. Too many psycho militia guys support the libertarian idea. I honestly think the militia guys would have a decent message, if they weren't all a bunch of white-supremacists and religious zealots they might find their message a little better recieved.

I'm wondering if the only reason Browne didn't beat Buchanan is because of all the "accidental" Buchanan votes ; )

Re:Thank you!

[mahonri]

But seriously whoever wins will not have a mandate of the people, no one got the majority.

I agree completely, but that didn't stop the Clinton administration from claiming a mandate with less than 45% of the popular vote.

Whatever the outcome, it sure is interesting!

Re:Thank you!

[M. Silver]

voter turnout in Los Angeles was ~70%

Betcher bottom dollar that's registered voter turnout. There are a lot of people who are eligible but not registered.

Re:Thank you!

[Stevis]

Partisan issues won't get through, because you need a majority of 60 -40 in the Senate to kill Fillibusters. That's how the Republicans shut down the all-Democratic govt. of 93-94.

Your take on the cooperation may very well be right though. If the Republicans are smart--not that I see any ample evidence of that--they will work the cooperation angle, and there are enough moderate Republicans and Conservative Democrats that issues from both sides can be passed.

I'll believe it when I see it, but it's certainly feasible.

Stevis

Re:Thank you!

[handybundler]

This election has more or less proven it's an Us Vs. Them country. Straight up the middle. That should tell us that we are living in a divided country regardless. Our current political system creates the argument, hence the never ending battle. "shiny happy people over here; angry, gun toting, meat eating people over there" -dennis leary

Re:Thank you!

[tetrad]

Everyone who said that your vote doesn't count was right, unless you happen to live in Florida.

Re:Thank you!

[Ondo]

Given the percentage of non-voters, no one ever has the mandate anymore.

The single most striking thing I heard watching election night coverage was a comment that while voter turnout in Los Angeles was ~70%, that the reason for that was that some official (attourney general? I don't remember) had gone through and removed people from the rolls who were dead or gone, and that after adjusting for that the voter turnout was in line with previous years.

So it seems that, at least in Los Angeles, that half the registered voters who don't vote have a damn good reason for it: they're dead. Hardly mandate-preventing.

Of course, if you can elect dead people...

Re:Thank you!

[kootch]

actually, I disagree. The presidency becomes more important.

since both the house and the senate are republican controlled, partisan issues brought forth by a united republican party could be pushed through easily without fear of a veto.

while many of these issues have been in the last 8 yrs, having a president that was of the opposing party has stalemated many of these issues from being pushed through. example: vouchers.

a closely split house and senate means that the president is now in a better position to control forward progression instead of stalemating opposition progression. If it takes a bi-partisanship to get a piece of legislation together, than chances are the president will be more inclined to pass that piece of legislation. a closer split will actually lead to more communication between the congress and the white house.

Re:Thank you!

[frinkster]

No one got the majority in the last election (or the one before that, I think). I suspect that a lot of Gore supporters will be blaming Nader for this, but remember that Perot took the last two elections away from the Republicans. What goes around comes around.

Re:Thank you!

[La0tsu]

since both the house and the senate are republican controlled, partisan issues brought forth by a united republican party could be pushed through easily without fear of a veto.

This is true if and only if the Republicans march lockstep. I don't think that will be the case in the senate. I can think of three republican senators off the top of my head (Jeffords - VT, Snowe and Collins - ME) that tend to stick to the middle, even if it's not where their party is. That right there is enough to keep the extremists from pushing their agenda with no fear of reprisal.

Re:Thank you!

[lemox]

It still doesn't mean anything if you support anyone other than one of the Republicrats. So don't get so idealist until you consider the rest of us "fringe extremists".

Re:Thank you!

[M. Silver]

But seriously whoever wins will not have a mandate of the people, no one got the majority.

Given the percentage of non-voters, no one ever has the mandate anymore.

Re:Thank you!

[Fat Rat Bastard]

AND we have a lame duck congress with some buget crap to finish and some scores to settle. It all adds up to "Government Shutdown / Gridlock," which, to paraphrase P.J. O'Rourke, means the gvm't might actually stop screwing with us for a while.

Things I'm looking forward :

* The Demo's going looking for vengence with the Greens
* Assuming he wins, Bush's many fuck ups (you just know there's going to be a lot of these)
* Assuming he wins, Gore getting even more wooden and stodgy with age / pressures of the job.
* The bloodbath of the 2002 elections. Think 1994 all over again. Which ever party gets the White House is going to get spanked hard in congress in 2002.

Re:Thank you!

[Fishstick]

Reminds me of that SNL skit I saw last week where Bush and Gore agreed to undergo a DNA splicing to 'produce a candidate so middle of the road, the election would be assured!'

With the election this close, as you say, does it really matter which one wins at this point?

Re:Thank you!

[bmongar]

This election makes it look like your vote counts less, winning the popular vote but loosing the electoral vote.

But seriously whoever wins will not have a mandate of the people, no one got the majority. I think this along with the closley split house and senate will lead to a weakened president. Which may not be a bad thing

Re:Thank you!

[Chris Burke]

Heh. Nader got a couple mil', but still fell short of the 5% he needed. But he womped ass over the Libertarians. Of course the reason is obvious -- While 1% of the population has 90% of the wealth, they still only get 1% of the vote. ;)

But I kid the libertarians.

Re:Thank you!

[penfold5]

I apologize in advance if this is a little hard to follow, I've read to many philosophy books, and I've begun to write like they read...

I think the important question here is, does my vote matter, not does my vote count. When I die and fade into oblivion (or the afterlife), will it actually have mattered if I had voted for Bush or Gore? Supposing that there is an afterlife, it could, but probably won't (how much do you know about the afterlife anyways? Bush could be the avatar of some wacked out deity who just created life for his own personal amusement, sure its probably not true, but you do, after all, never know) matter.

Re:Thank you!

[Sodium Attack]

Us vs. them??!! With Bush and Gore so close on 99% of the issues that Jim Lehrer had to ask them again and again in the second debate to differentiate themselves, without much success?

In this election, republicrat supporters even had to resort to whining about who would get to appoint supreme court candidates in order to scare people of a victory by the other candidate. Can't you come up with any more meaningful issues than that?

Re:There is no frontier left

[the_doctor]

My hat's off to the first logically constructed retort on this thread.

I will concede that my comment must be flamebait given that it has indeed attracted flames. I should have said that the replies to my comment were more flame-worthy than the comment itself.

Soooo close

[Corbets]

I'm a Wisconsin native, and cast my ballot for Bush - and let me tell you, I sure felt good when I saw the results, even though Gore won the state. With a difference of only 6000 votes, it wasn't quite as close as Florida, but it was obvious that my vote definitely made a difference. I encourage everyone to think back to this election in four years, regardless of how it comes out, and consider that when it's time to vote again.

Re:Soooo close

[Mr. Piccolo]

I did, because they are the only party who believes in the Constitution.

They don't seem to have gotten a whole lot of votes though.

So what good did it do again?

By the way, did Harry Browne actually manage to beat Pat Buchanan? I can't find overall results anywhere for him!

Re:Soooo close

[Ondo]

With a difference of only 6000 votes

You round off the difference, and claim your one vote "definitely made a difference".

Cute.

Re:Soooo close

[eastMike]

A guy I work with said they're going to re-count wisconsin too. Unfortunately I can't find a link at this time. So I suppose it's more or less a rumor as far as I'm concerned. But thought I'd mention it.

"It is well that war is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it."

Re:Soooo close

[adjusting]

According to Yahoo:

Pat Buchanan: 438,700
Harry Browne: 376,112

Re:Soooo close

[rotor]

Supposedly anyone in this country of over 300 million people can become president (Age, Citizenship, and Criminal matters aside). Yet out of all those millions of people it comes down to the Vice President, and a man who's dad was president two terms ago.

Anyone can... As long as they win the popularity contest. Sure it's somewhat closed at that level. You have to put in the gruntwork at the bottom (start off in a schoolboard election or town counsel, move up into the state house and senate, go on the the national level, etc...) Once you get past that, all that's between you and the Presidency is getting your ideas across to the people and having them agree with you.

Stop being a little lamb and start thinking for yourself. If you need to be associated with a party to feel like a legitimate person, be associated with a party that actually wants to make real changes, and isn't afraid to say what they think and stick to it. Yes, if you want to actually make a difference: VOTE LIBERTARIAN!

I do think for myself, and I voted for Bush. I don't agree with everything he stands for, but he's a hell of a lot closer to where I am than the other candidates. As far as libertarians go, I think their ideas sound great, but try implimenting them. The people of this country (and I believe the world for that matter) are not ready for that type of freedom. Sure, some are, but the majority are not. If you give them that freedom you'll soon see the consequences.

-

Re:Soooo close

[Corbets]

Had I (and others like me) not voted for Bush, Gore would have won by a significant amount. Even though Bush lost, I know that had just a few more people like me voted, we would have won - 6000 is a fairly insignificant number. I have done my part, and feel proud about it.

Re:Soooo close

[eastMike]

Wellington? Who's that? I've seen about a jillion sources crediting Robert Lee with it. Was lee quoting this wellington maybe?

there's a wellington pub in sterling heights, mi I like to go to....wonder if it's named after him.

[-1OT]

"It is well that war is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it."

Re:Keep the campaign going!

[mojo-raisin]

Bush is a shoe-in in Oregon

Electorate College v. Popular Vote, etc.

[knewter]

Excuse me.

I've noticed that a lot of you seem to feel that, since the Electoral Vote and the Popular Vote are different, the system is flawed. You're missing the point entirely. First things first, America is not a democracy. We're a Republic. We look like a Democratic Republic, and we are, but that doesn't make us a Democracy. We never claimed to make every person's vote equal. Dictionary.com defines "republic" as '2. A political order in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who are entitled to vote for officers and representatives responsible to them.' And we fit the bill. The supreme power lies in the citizens. This is not the same as a "Democracy," which is defined as '4. Majority rule.' Please understand this. I've heard so many media moguls talk about how this will forever change the way American elections take place, because there's a chance of the popular vote not coming out with the win. That is exactly how the framers envisioned it.

I live in Alabama. We have 9 electoral votes. Not a huge number, not a tiny number. However, the people in California, New York, and even Florida don't have the same issues as myself. I personally believe that the popular vote should be split up into how many states side with them; it would be a lot more representative of what the country needs. That's not the point. The point is that the Electoral College was set up for this specific purpse, and to remove it would be to completely change America's form of government, from a Democratic Republic to a Democracy. Now, I'm sure no one really needs to be told this, but pure democracy fails in a large society, always. We would either still have to be short of pure democracy, or we would have to watch our nation crumble as we changed to a form of government that has already been proven to fail. I've ranted, and I'm sorry, but people just need to understand what's going on, and they need to understand their country's governmental system, before they start to think about the candidates.

My last note is this: I will never vote for a candidate that is going to support the murder of innocent babies. Bush has said that he'll do what he can to stop it, and he hasn't dragged around his supporters by even pretending he has any power to overthrow Roe v. Wade right now. Maybe next election. Right now I'll take what I can get.

Now get it straight people, we live in a Republic. Please, remember this, and keep in mind that no innocent baby deserves death. Thank you.

--Josh Adams, Presidential candidate in 2032

Re:Electorate College v. Popular Vote, etc.

[hellfire]

And I will not support a Candidate that does not protect the most fundamental right that the election process in its very existence helps to guarantee...... Choice.

I chose a president that will preserve that choice.

Re:Electorate College v. Popular Vote, etc.

[teatime]

You are correct in that we are a Republic. The problem is that most of us are taught that it is a Democracy. Imagine all of the people who fell a sleep in civics class waking up and realizing that they have been lied to about democracy. If only those that had power would be truthful that would solve a lot of our problems.Most importantly though I refuse to support a person who murders adults underneath the mask of the state. Both of the major candidates support the death penalty and both of them know that there are grave flaws in our current system.

Re:Electorate College v. Popular Vote, etc.

[hysterion]

First things first, America is not a democracy. We're a Republic.

You mean, you're not a Democrat, you're a republican?

Now get it straight people, we live in a Republic. Please, remember this, and keep in mind that no innocent baby deserves death. Thank You.

I see. A Republic. You're welcome.

In Missouri: "I elect dead people"

[edremy]

Now, what's this about giving the seat to his widow? I say embalm him and nail him to his chair: he can't do any more damage that way than a normal senator.

Eric

Re:Nader Ruined the Economy.

[ichimunki]

This is the most insightful and interesting thing I have read about the presidential election this year. My only request would be that you somehow make available a file with numbers that support this-- not that I disbelieve you, but I think this would be an amazing little document.

Re:Electoral college go bad? possible?

[jafac]

heh, they're both the antichrist as far as I'm concerned.

Re:Critique of Electoral College - bibliography

[Sodium Attack]

At some point it seemed that a likely - or at least possible - outcome in terms of electoral votes would be 271/269

That would be rather difficult, seeing that there are only 538 electoral votes to be had. 270 electoral votes is an outright win; 269-269 is a tie.

Re:Nader, etc

[alprazolam]

Main Entry: mandate 1 : an authoritative command

hmmm doesn't look like what you said. i would think of mandate as being his ability to get things through congress. and for better or more likely worse i think it's gonna be much better than clinton's ever was. just because the talking heads on tv equate the majority of the vote and the word mandate, doesn't mean that they are equal. as i already pointed out, they were wrong about florida.

Vote fraud

[XJoshX]

From what I hear vote fraud is somewhat big in FL.

I have personal testimonies from senior citizens who were given absentees and told they had to vote democrat or no food.
Democrat vote fraud is also much more likely because they were down big + they have history. Remmember JFK. He most likely didn't win fair. Dead people voted.
He was catholic though, maybe they voted from purgatory.

Re:doesn't help

[flimflam]

As for the allegations of voting fraud, etc...why is it that every time there's a tight race in an election, everyone automatically assumes that there may be some kind of fraud going on?

Probably because the assumption is that there is always some amount of voter fraud occuring, but only in a close election is it a decisive factor.

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[Johann]

According to the Electoral College FAQ, there have been 700 proposed changes to the Electoral College and not one has been implemented. It would require a 2/3 majority in US Congress and ratification by 3/4 of the States to amend the US Constitution to 'do away with' the Electoral College. It hasn't been changed for 224 years and it probably won't in the next 224 years.

"Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life."

Re:what really gets me...

[Sodium Attack]

." I just think that I should provide for myself, not that you or anybody else should have to through your tax dollars! Similarly, you should provide for yourself and not depend on my tax dollars.

I think that's an excellent idea. What confuses me is what that has to do with Bush being a better president than Gore.

I suppose I shouldn't be too hard on you. I, too, once believed the republican rhetoric about wanting smaller government. But their actions have spoken louder than their words, and I no longer believe their lies.

Schroedinger's President Elect

[cfleming]

The votes are recounted and are tied, except one last vote. The vote is electronic. Some radioactive isotope decays and two correlated gamma's are let loose. One of the photons strikes an electron and may have changed one bit in memory, but was it spin up or spin down, was it 1 or 0.

Until that vote is tabulated we exist with a superposition of a 1/100(48*Bush + 49*Gore + 3*Nader) president elect wave function.

If we put all of the canidates in a secret room with a device that will read the last vote and allow us to communicate with the winner via IRQ . . . No wait, the 'observe spelling and grammar eigenvalue' operator will measure and collapse the wavefunction.

Oh well

Re:My Thoughts as a Floridian

[Rasvar]

That's right: the entire election of leading nation of the free world rests on the ignorant design of the ballots and fading eyesight of the voting public. God, I hope they change it, and god bless America.


I 'll be honest, it was a no win for the election office there. The reason the confusion happened at all was because the font was made BIGGER and forced them to go to the two column/page format becuase of these people with bad eyesight. The ballots are ALWAYS in alphabetical order. Plus, there were plenty of sample ballots available. I have no sympathy for people, regardless of age, who do not make an effort to verify their vote before they put it in the box. I checked my selections twice.

Those are legally cast votes. There are no provisions for redoing them. There is no provision for another election. Once the count is done, that it is. It would be a complete farce to redo the Florida vote. As a matter of fact, I would have to say that you would have to throw out the ENTIRE election nationwide and do it again for the sake of fairness. It's not going to happen.

What does this bode for the Internet Ballot?

[Yet Another Smith]

One thing that has popped into my mind what with the close election in many states and questions about ballot box screwups etc, is 'What effect would vote by internet have?'

Clearly with Wisconsin, Florida, and Oregon all being decided by less that 10000 votes, the possibility of ballot stuffing and/or incompetent polling is a really significant issue. Would polling be made more fair by using the Internet as much as possible, or are the security issues too difficult?

Re:So much for Voter Apathy

[Ender Ryan]

Here's my theory, Christian fundies and pro-life zealots thought this was their big chance to vote for a candidate who would uphold their moral beliefs(yeah right!), and everyone else came out to vote for Gore because they're scared shitless of Bush.

That's how it broke down in my family anyway.

I voted for Nader though.

Re:It's a simple case of numbers

[tordia]

But they didn't, so quit your bitching. Most of those 96,000 people obviously thought that Nader would have made a better leader for this country than Gore or Bush (or any of the other candidates). You can't blame Gore losing on those people's personal preferences. These people didn't vote for Gore, because they didn't want Gore to win. If they wanted Gore to win, they would have voted for him, but they didn't.

If Gore would have been able to CARRY HIS HOME STATE, then he would have won the election, but he didn't do that either. Neither did he carry Clinton's state. Gore basically backed out of Ohio in the last week, and a lot of Democrats are pissed at him for that, because they thought he would have had a chance there.

There's a lot of what-if's being thrown around. The election is over, let them count the votes, and we'll see who won. But QUIT YOUR BITCHING, you can't change what has happened. It's no one's fault who won the election. Someone had to win, and that is going to make some people mad, and others happy.

- A Nader voter, who without the Nader option, still wouldn't have voted for Gore or Bush.

Re:Link to story on ballot problems ...

[babbage]

Is there really "no mandate" though? To be honest, I'm not even really sure what people mean when they use that term right now. Even before we got into this mess, people were speculating that whoever wins the election will have almost zero chance of holding it for more than one term. In light of the current events, I think this has only become more accurate. Thus we have the prospect of, in effect, a lame-duck president-elect -- someone that, unless he tries something drastic, has almost zero chance of winning re-election in four years.

This person has basically two choices: accept that fate and serve as a true lame-duck president (which is what a lot of these "no mandate" suggestions amount to), or, more interestingly, take some bold moves that might endear him to the electorate in four years' time. How can that second possibility play out?

Consider Ehud Barak in Israel this summer -- he was leading without majority support, and knew that his government would likely fall when parlaiment reconvened in a few months time. Having nothing to lose, he set out for all-or-nothing peace negotiations with the Palestinians in Washington. The fact that these negotiations were unsuccessful is beside the point for the moment -- by acting decisively and accepting an un-politicianly degree of risk, he has for the time being put off that collapse of his government, and put himself in a somewhat better position to retain power.

I think that this is the sort of initiative the current president has to take. Yes, I agree, getting any bills through a congress so evenly divided will be difficult if not impossible, but that doesn't mean it's not worth trying. Further, there are lots of things the president can do without really involving the congress in the first place -- the way most foreign policy matters are handled, for example.

I think it's not so much that we have "no mandate", but that we have a man who now has basically nothing to lose, and is cornered. Placed in that situation, what will he do? Nothing? Maybe. But if he wants to double the lifespan of his job, he should try for a bit more than that. At least one of the potential lame-duck president-elects is surely smart enough to realize this. (As for the other, I'm sure someone will let Bush know sooner or later :). It's no sure bet by any means, but I would look for the next administration to be anything but deadlocked and anemic.

Re:Canadian worries.

[DoomHaven]

Thanks for the link! It was very useful; it really helped point out the ramifications between the candidates.

The one thing it didn't state is that if Gore is elected, it would make the brain drain easier because of the Democrats traditional support of immigration; see President Clinton's new H-1B bill that was just passed: 80 000 new licenses for immigrants to come on in, as well as loosening up the paperwork and restrictions that those immigrants (I, myself, am on TN Visa status, hoping to upgrade to H-1B).

But thanks for the link again; moderators, please mod up the above (parent, one level up) statement.

Live, from the Florida Polls

[wowbagger]

And now, we go live to our special corrispondant in the polls in Florida. Tell us what you see.

I see dead people...

Re:Live, from the Florida Polls

[Kenelson]

... voting.

Electoral college and the constitution

[starr_grazer]

Although i too believe that the electoral college is an antiquated and, presently, unfair representation of the poppular vote for the President of the US, i am also a big believer in this thing called the CONSTITUTION, which states in explicit terms that the President shall be elected by a vote of at least 271 of the Electoral College. Both canidates knew that this is what is written in the constitution and so did the American public, its not like the Electoral College just popped out of nowhere here folks, its been here all along, and if its going to change then it needs to be changed by an amendment passed by legal means. It should not be an issue in this election.

Re:Please guys...

[tfxx]

Then again, I'm quite happy not to be a US citizen.

So, do you feel happy to know that the other geeks will vote for Gore? What will you do should he not win?

Re:Very strange results

[JBReynolds]

This isn't suspicion, it's fact. The missing ballot boxes from Cook county were actually found some time later. The ballots they contained made Nixon the winner of Cook County, and therefore Illinois, and therefore the nation.
It's not fact. Kennedy still would have had an Electoral College majority even if he had not carried Illinois.

Re:The Nader Effect

[Chops]

This may have been what you meant by "can't decide" etc; regardless:

I saw a deeply interesting bit (can't remember where... salon?) that said that Nader handing Gore's victory to Bush was exactly the right thing to happen. The gist is that the Democratic party gets slapped in the face with the fact that they've got to appeal to potential Green voters now. Voila; we now have terrific pressure on a major political party to adopt popular planks from the "fringe" party's platform, instead of just sticking with the taxes/health care/social security trifecta. Nader could wind up giving this country a two-party system again simply by getting 2% of this election's vote, if the parties realize that they've got to be at least a little bit honest with the voters if they don't want to get a few percent of their votes shaved away.

I definitely would have reconsidered swapping my vote if I'd heard this argument before I agreed to the swap... I, too, swapped my Pennsylvania vote (Browne in this case) for a Gore vote.

Re:No. My vote does NOT count

[kalifa]

The modern form of democracy, Switzerland's direct democracy put aside, is not British. The British system was censitarian, not democratic. The modern form of democracy first took place in people's minds, thanks to the ideas of Diderot, Locke, Rousseau, Voltaire, and a few others.

Then came the American system which was more democratic, but still censitarian (slavery, etc...) and "pre-modern" in the way it was distributing the powers. Then came the French revolution. Then came decades of mess. And then came democracy.

Re:Bush wins internet vote???

[DrVital]

Conservative results on non-scientific (whatever the hell that means) Internet polls is hardly surprising. Even Time, considered a liberal rag by most conservatives has wildly conservative results on their polling every time I've bothered to play in their sad little game. During the Clinton impeachment they consistantly held the president deserved to be drawn and quatered and hung by the neck until dead, by a very wide margin. Here's some more info: http://www.people-press.org/onlinerpt.htm --Drvital-- ***********Remix Reality!

Re:Nader Ruined the Economy.

[Rupert]

The 50% disenfranchisement statement was probably a mistake.

You said:

such that a vote from North Dakota counts as much as a vote from California

but under the electoral college system, a vote from North Dakota counts as much as two point nine votes from California.

You rightly claim that someone only taking 100% of the vote in the 10 largest states would win in a direct election, but miss the entire point that this is 50% of the people in the country. And should some intransigent individuals in one of those ten states vote for the other candidate, depriving our "big-state" candidate of his majority, then votes in the small states are equally as important as their colleagues in the big states. A single voter in a small state can affect the outome of the election, even if the rest of the state votes for the other candidate.

--

Re:There is nothing wrong with the voting system

[macdaddy]

Tell me this, what if, just ONCE, there were NO candidates, and everyone just *wrote in* who they REALLY wanted to be president?

Hue Heffner (sp?) For President!

Re:The Censored Bush Abortion Story - CNN.com

[Golias]

1. Republican leaders have been, for months now, daring Flint and the Democrats to come forward with the hard evidence he claims to have about this. Since he still has not as of the day after Election Day, it is save to assume he was just blowing air up your skirt.

2. As a Senator, Al Gore voted AGAINST public funding of abortions. He was never a pro-choice Senator, and changed his view when he started his bit for President in the Democratic Primaries.

3. Both candidates are very wishy-washy on the abortion issue. Bush never made a committment to appoint pro-life judges, and did not make the usual promises to the religious right that is expected of most Republicans. The RR was motivated enough to see a GOP victory that they fell in line. Their influence in the Republican Party is obviously on a rapid decline, as evidenced by the weak showing of Gary Bauer in the primaries.

Preferences, good and bad.

[shirro]

A lot of countries have first past the post preferential voting systems. If the Presidential voting system was reformed to allow preferences then as long as you have a sensible second preference it still counts.

So with preferences you could vote Nader or Buchanan as a protest vote against the major parties and because they wouldn't get enough votes to count the second preference could go Gore or Bush.

So on the surface this seems pretty cool. You could vote for an independent based on policy but not end up with a major party you hate in power.

The problem with preferential voting is that while a lot more people would vote Nader or other minor parties, the major parties don't care so much. They are pretty sure where the preferences are going to be cast anyway so they don't have to work to keep those votes as hard as before.

I still think it is a bit fairer.

Re:Your right... your vote doesn't count

[parliboy]

Not entirely. I'm generally a conservative (moreso fiscally than socially), and left with only the evil of two lessers, would have voted for Bush. I saw Nader, though, as a chance, albeit small, to jumpstart a 3rd party through an infusion of federal matching funds. I'm dealt with a lot of people who told me I wasted my vote with Nader, until I explained why. Now they realize they've wasted theirs.

Re:Natural Law gives election to Bush

[01000111]

> The Natural Law party cost Gore the election!

now you know how the rest of us felt about Perot in '92 and '96.

The Florida Website

[sconeu]

Here's the Florida Election Commision Website. It's slashdotted.

Re:Bush and the Supreme Court

[Sodium Attack]

I see a lot of people saying Bush is going to be harmless as president, but there is something they are overlooking. Bush is likely to appoint between 2 and 4 supreme court justices to the Supreme Court this term because the justices are going to be retiring.

Please don't buy into that Republicrat FUD. Yes, the next president will appoint some SC justices. What this argument fails to take into account is the fact that which justices resign depends on who is president.

None of the justices are so infirm that they will have to resign within the next four years. None of the liberal justices wants to be replaced by a conservative justice, so if Bush wins, the liberal justices will all stay on, and only conservative justices will resign. Vice versa if Gore wins. This election will not change the ideological makeup of the supreme court.

Re:The mathematics of America's voting system

[hey!]

Doesn't adding up non parametric statistics give you a queasy feeling mathematically speaking.

Approval voting is the only system I know of that has the critical mathematical property -- transitivity -- needed to prevent irrational results.

Re:Voting is idealistic

[AxelBoldt]

The difference between voting and littering is that voting is good and littering is bad. Voting is good because it is the right thing to do in a democracy, period. However, your voting doesn't make your candidate any more likely to succeed; voting out of strategic reasons is idiotic. You vote because it is the right thing to do, not because your vote is going to affect the outcome, which it won't.

--

Was Buchanan's candidacy a ruse?

[Microsift]

I don't live in a battleground state, but is there any evidence that Buchanan made any attempt to win the Presidency? What happened to the $12 million?

Given his recent defection from the Republican Party, and his tenuous identification with Reform Party Ideals (He's against NAFTA, but that's about it), it seems more likely that he was trying to diffuse the influence of the Reform Party, which arguably cost the Republicans the White House in 1992. Imagine what the outcome of this race would have been if the Reform Party had just racked up numbers like they did in 1996...

let me get this straight

[brokeninside]

Being upset at not having the freedom to not vote, you vote for a party that wants to take away more freedom?

have a day,

-l

Re:"Keeping his word..."

[Quikah]

I SERIOUSLY doubt that a judge would rule that conceeding an election would forfeit the person from accepting the office should the vote turn in their favor.

At least the Missouri senator lost...

[paeanblack]

At least the Missouri senator lost by a good margin.

Then again, he had some stiff competition

Re:Irregularities in Palm Beach

[bruceg]

Someone needs to mod this up.. If this is true - this is a big issue!

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[David Greene]

BTW, I have an Indian co-worker who believes that the two-party system is one of the great strengths of our system. I disagree with him, but I present his view (which he claims is widely held in Parliamentary-system countries) for discussion.

I happen to agree with your co-worker. A two party system forces the major party candidates to compromise. Compromise has been the basis of our government from day one. Coalition governments tend to create a tyranny of the minority. Witness Isreal's troubles getting a peace plan past the Knesset.

A lot of people bemoan this, as they see "two identical candidates." This is actually good, because it means the candidates are actually listening to the people.

How many people voting for Nader really wanted the Green party to win? Most people I've talked to just wanted a third voice, which is fine. It allows them to voice their opinions. Now the Democrats have to listen. But the Greens can't manipulate government policy directly. They are radical, and the majority of the populace doesn't want that.

--

Re:Tie Breaker

[Compuser]

Me and my friends long advocated a cocaine
snort-off.

Re:Nader

[Phil the Canuck]

Maybe I'll take you up on your offer someday, if my country's standard of living should ever sink to that of your's.

Will we ever trust network election coverage?

[Jish]

How can we ever watch an election with confidence in the information the networks are giving us?

How can the networks ever predict early without worrying they are going to cause this situation again?

BLAH

Josh

Sickened

[RadioFlyer]

I am sickened by all the people claiming that Nader is a spoiler, or that a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush. I, myself, voted for Nader on the principle that both "Major" candidates consider themselves entitled to votes that go to 3rd party candidates. Not only that, but he was kept from debating, in my opinion anyone who is considered enough of a candidate to be put on the ballot should be allowed to debate. Even sadder than that was the fact that with the proper credentials Nader wasn't even allowed to sit in the audience says something. Nader brought 2,647,464 votes nationally with 99% of precincts reporting. That is not a small number, and it definitely does not say spoiler. If anything maybe Nader could say that Gore was a spoiler, keeping him for getting more than that by using such lame tactics as saying in his campaign things like "spoiler" and "Nader vote=Bush vote" If you ask me maybe the doj is looking into the wrong monopoly, wanna talk about having a monopoly and trying desperately to hold on to it. Sounds like strongarm tactics to me.

Re:Sickened

[TrentC]

I am sickened by all the people claiming that Nader is a spoiler, or that a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush. I, myself, voted for Nader on the principle that both "Major" candidates consider themselves entitled to votes that go to 3rd party candidates.

Amen. It was Gore's bad luck that the ad I heard said, in effect, "OK, you can make a statement with your vote and choose a third-party candidate, but let's face it; only two people are likely to become President, and as for George W. Bush, [insert various 'he's the Anti-Christ and will devour your young' statements here], so cast your vote for Al Gore".

So instead of voting for the lesser of the two big evils, I voted for Nader. Sorry, Al, you screwed yourself on that one.

Maybe if Gore does lose they can spend the next four years figuring out why they lost so much support to a third party candidate...

Jay (=

Re:Nader Ruined the Economy.

[Rupert]

I don't have population figures for the various states to hand, so I have made the assumption that congressional districts contain equal numbers of people. I think for the purposes of this argument this assumption holds up.

Each state (I have also excluded DC) has the following number of electoral votes, and n-2 "population units". I have only listed the 11 biggest states.

CA 54
NY 33
TX 32
FL 25
PA 23
IL 22
OH 21
NJ 15
NC 14
VA 13
GA 13

Add in WV (5) to give us a majority.

That's 270 electoral votes, and 246 ( == 270 - (2 * 12)) pop-units. The population of the country is 438, so these twelve states are 246/438 or 56% of the population (my math was a little fuzzy before). 51% of 56% is 28.6%, or the %age of the popular vote required to win all those states.

The 39 states not listed above (but including WV) thus have 44% of the population and 273 electoral votes. You only need 22.4% of the popular vote to get 51% in each of these states.


--

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[ChristTrekker]

I know, and that's wrong. Everyone should have a fair chance, and exclusive laws do not create a level playing field.

I don't agree with your friend. I've heard that position before. With no party holding a majority in a body like Congress, it would mean coalitions would be necessary. I think that would be a good thing, and besides, vote trading and dealing already goes on there. In the legislative branch, with only one chief, a system like Instant Runoff Voting would build that sort of compromise/coalition right in to the election process.

You're voting for Phillips, and you think you might be in the minority someday? You guys came in 7th.

Exactly my point. I am already in the minority. Yet do I have any less right to have my voice heard? I think a system that can completely ignore 19% of the people (like it did to Perot voters in '92) needs to be fixed, badly. It's not fair. And FWIW, Phillips came in 6th (with 98,224 according to Yahoo!), after Browne and ahead of Hagelin.

You're talking about an electorate where several thousand people can accidentally vote for Buchanan instead of Gore. You want them to be able to figure out a ballot where they have to cast FIVE votes for President, instead of just one?

I think the people deserve a bit more credit than that. I wouldn't expect them to be informed about every candidate, so I don't suggest a Borda count. But they can certainly take the candidates they do know and put them in order of preference, even if they only know the two.

Re:The fix is in?

[MousePotato]

There was mega incompetance going on. I changed my registration online back in may, showed up with my new card and didn't get to vote. I wasn't on the roll and I waited an hour and a half for the woman at the desk to try and get through to the phone number they call for verifying legit regs. I had to give up. I saw this type of thing happening to other people who had registered online or changed their voter reg online. The folks working the polls just did not care and lots of younger voters were visibly discouraged by the whole process (which wasn't good either). Miami-Dade county just was not prepared for the turnout nor did they seem to have any reliable infrastructure to resolve problems. The rest of the US should be very weary of what happens with the vote here. After all even the dead vote around here... just ask Xavier Suarez and Joe Carollo.I am pissed and so are a lot of people down here. The more I think about it the more inspired I am to write letters and the whole nine yards to all involved.

Electoral college *must* remain

[omission9]

As the constitution is written each congressional district sends an independantly elected elector to the electoral college. What exists now in most states(Maine is one state that is true to the letter of the Constitution) is a perversion of the founding fathers original intent. By simply implementing the great big functional spec that is the Constitution all will be well.

Re:"Keeping his word..."

[wdball]

Um, except Mel Carnahan won in Missouri, and he's DEAD. So withdrawal clearly doesn't mean anything.

Re:sad

[Evro]

the Democrats controlled the Legislative and Executive branches from 1960 to 1968 and 1976 to 1980. Is that the same definition of tyranny?

Well, no, because their definition of tyranny was all three branches being controlled by one entity. And anyway I guess my statement was somewhat biased due to the fact that I think the republican party is, in fact, evil.

__________________________________________________ ___

Re:One small comment about Nadar vote

[Stevis]

You are assuming that all the Nader vote would go to Gore--which it wouldn't. Nationally, Nader voters, if unable to vote for Nader would have voted 47% Gore, 27% Bush, 30 % not at all! This of course does not account for regional differences. Probably in Florida, it didn't "cost" Gore (as one of the left votes here for the taking, I agree with those who say Gore could have had us) but in Wisconsin it probably did make it closer than it would have been. Maybe Oregon too...

Stevis

Re:The media

[XO]

Hey now. Don't be getting on Dvorak. That man was a legend in the computing industry when I started in 1980.

Re:Florida

[CSG_SurferDude]

Now what was that web site again?

www.standonguard.com

Yeah, that's the one.

Re:Exactly!

[Eponymous, Showered]

We don't live in a democracy. We live in a republic. All votes don't count equally.

Re:Nader

[La0tsu]

MOD THIS UP!

The margin of votes..

[_marshall]

is about equal to the number of comments in this thread ;)

-------------------

Re:Nader, etc

[American AC in Paris]

My take on Nader:

It's been the job of the green propaganda machine to entrench the message that "A vote for Nader is _not_ a vote for Bush; they're both the same, and suck, at that." To this end, I have something to say.

While both major parties have been appealing more and more to centrist views, it is still true that the Democrats lean left and the Republicans lean right. Gore is an experienced statesman with a good bit of intelligence, and despite his problems, he has decidedly more "little people" support in his veins than his Republican counterpart, who lacks Gore's experience and intelligence (but, apparently, makes up for the difference with charisma and bravado, and a slew of decidedly conservative advisors.)

Of the people who voted Nader, exit polls show that 25% would simply not have voted, while of the remaining 75%, 5 out of every 6 people would have voted for Gore. Had Nader stepped down, Gore would have won the election soundly, no questions asked. There's the only statistic I'll quote: It ain't one to one, but it's closer to that than the supposed "half-vote" notion that's become popular as of late.

For those of you who voted for Nader because Nader was the candidate who best supported your views, you bet on a losing horse from the start, and now stand a good chance of having an underqualified marionette serving a rightist adgenda in the White House. Politics is compromise, and without compromise, the other side will win.

For those of you who voted Green to help bolster their federal matching funds, I must insist that casting a vote in the interest of financial gain strikes me as very much against the platform of the Green Party.

For those of you who cast a vote for Nader because you're sick and tired of the system and think both major parties are incurably corrupt, congratulations. You have accomplished -nothing- beyond satisfying your own smug little idealistic worldview. You might as well have written in MC Hammer, Snoopy, or the Magic School Bus, because nobody besides the two major candidates had any chance of winning the election, and protest votes are historically forgettable.

Finally, for those of you who wanted to send a message to the Democratic Party, I think you've succeeded; they now stand a good chance of losing a major election that would otherwise have easily been in the bag. Sadly, if Dubya wins, it'll be a good while before they can actually do anything about it, as the US will effectively have a one party government (they have the Legislative Branch still, they'll have the Executive branch, and would soon have the Judicial branch, as well.)

Nader had a very real impact on this campaign. Should Dubya win, Nader's campaign will have been a major factor in his getting there. Unless you truly and wholeheartedly believe that both Gore and Bush are equally evil, unfit to govern and not representative of your views, chances are, this will upset you somewhat.

As evidenced by a recent /. poll...

[azool]

many people read /. that aren't from the U.S. or aren't citizens.
So, just in case all this election B.S. leaves them in the cold, I thought I'd post this article
explaining the electoral college sytem and why we should get rid of it.

There is no frontier left

[the_doctor]

There is currently no frontier on this planet, much less in this country. This bothers me. In times past, people like me, when they grew sick of people like you, had somewhere to go. People went to the frontier to create new communities for themselves when no existing community was suitable for them. Well Junior, there are communities which I find suitable enough to live in.

This country is on an inexorable path towards socialism. The majority of citizens become increasingly lazy and demand more and more goods and services be provided to them. Paying for these goods, obviously, falls to the taxpayer. The majority of taxes are payed by a minority of citizens (people demonized by Gore and Nader) who happen to earn the most money. Now, I'm only 23 but according to the Liberal definition, I am rich. I am not rich. I am single. I work hard. I am intelligent. I am good at what I do. I have no problem with charging a premium for my services. I am, and likely will be until I die, a slave of the "common citizen." After less than two years in the workplace the "citizens" are already helping themselves to 35% (federal only) of everything I earn, as though they had anything to do with it.

This brings me to the frontier problem. Where can I go to escape enslavement. Europe is socialist. Canada is Europe, so is Australia. The US is becoming Europe. TV in Asia sucks. Africa maybe? Maybe not, too many wars.

So, where can people like me go to form a "more perfect union"? Maybe we just take over this little operation. Then again, the state of Texas still has the right to split into two parts, one remaining a part of the US, the other becoming an independant nation. I hate Texas, but anything's better than this dump.

be seeing you,
Doc

Re:There is no frontier left

[frknfrk]

okay i'll respond here so you can see from your user page that i've responded. very cool to discuss with you. the only problem i have with your arguments (i also happen to believe in personal control, not government control) is that these diverse states are affected by 'not invented here syndrome' when not under the watch of the federal government. look at texas: nearly the bottom in education and health, yet one of the most independent and financially successful states. the 'haves' have no impetus to stop trampling the 'have-notes' within a state. this is the fundamental problem with capitalism and 'trickle-down' economics: the good of the economoy at the cost of the people. but like i've said i am not a genius and do not know how to solve these kinds of problems. although i do agree that it is impossible to get an overwhelming majority of the people to decide on anything, and that within a discrete state a consensus actually can be reached. but as the election and polls showed, that would leave states like ohio, kentucky, west virginia, etc, to make their own environmental law, and they choose against clean air and water because they are economically based on coal, etc. however their environmental problems are not theirs alone, if ohio has no clean air laws, and pollution blows east into pennsylvania, can PA sue OH for the smog? What about thirty years from now when the pollution begins to erode at the atmosphere? similarly, problems occur from grand differences in drinking laws (teens from state X flow to state Y every night to drink then go to their home state). state A has a strong welfare program, but state B's poor and homeless move into state A to get these benefits, destroying the system. and you brought up public education ran by the states. the libertarian local candidates in my state (NC) looked very promising with their talks of campaign reform, drug reform, etc, until they started with the 'privatize public education' strand. again texas is a good example, an independent state ranking near the bottom in education. i'd talk more but i have a nasty cough and it's getting late and my wife wants some laundry done :) who says we live in a democratic republic, this is a matriarchy. sometimes i expect the 'perfect solution' to appear to all problems, and although i know no such solution exists, i know there has to be better solutions than the ones we have. hope we can continue this... -sam

Re:There is no frontier left

[scootr1]

**Finally, is there such thing as mandated morality?** Ask Tipper - just had to throw that in. Why can't people seem to understand that YOU are entitled to what YOU earn? If you earn a lot, you are entitled to it. If you earn only a little, well, you are entitled to that, as well. I thought this country was built on hard work and dedication. Hard work, in general, yields income. Unfortunately, many people think that no work should yield equal income, as well. BTW, this comes from someone that *doesn't* make a lot of money. You know what, though? I'm improving my education (paying for it on my own, mind you) so that I can earn more. It sickens me that I am required, by law, to support people that don't give a damn about improving themselves.

Re:There is no frontier left

[the_doctor]

"I assume you didn't benefit from a public education, that you travel over your own roads on your own property, and don't use any government facilities in any way. That way, your pathetically self-righteous stand would at least be conscientious."

Let's get something straight, I never said that I had a problem with the federal government. I said that I have a problem with responsiblity for federal funding being out of alignment responsibility for federal spending. Put more simply, I have a problem with the fact that control over the government and funding of the government come from two different sources. Put even simpler, a minority of voters provide the majority of funding (percentage wise). Don't get me wrong, I don't believe that voting should be in any way tied to tax returns. I do, however, believe that taxation (as a percentage of income, or spending, or however you wish to assess it) needs to be equal for those who pay them. Put exceedingly (probably overly) simple, the only fair tax is a flat tax.

I will concede that I did not clearly spell out my opinion on what role the federal government has. I do believe that the federal government has a place. That place falls in line with a Jeffersonian states-rights ideology. The job of the federal government is to do those things which the states, as independent entities, cannot do. This means that the federal government is responsible national defense, interstate commerce (including roads), and providing an ultimate court of appeals which makes rulings based solely upon the subject of constitutionality. It does have few other responsibilities (foriegn relations, management of collective endeavors, etc.) but these are relatively minor in the grander scheme of things and in now way provides for such things as the Department of Energy, HUD, etc. All other responsibilities, including education, drug policy, etc., fall under the perview of the states.

As for Texas, I suggest that you study your history a little closer. The Texas state constitution (approved by the U.S. Congress) does provide the Republic of Texas with right to sever itself into two independant entities, one of shich would no longer be a member of the union. That's why its called the Republic of Texas rather than the State of Texas. A for the federal government enforcing Texas unity, I wouldn't be suprised if they did, but that makes it neither legal for right.

Think before you speak.

Re:There is no frontier left

[Darby]

Thanks.

the replies to my comment were more flame-worthy than the comment itself.

I certainly can't argue that point ;-)

---CONFLICT!!---

Re:There is no frontier left

[the_doctor]

At last an ally. For a second there I thought you were going to be another flame I would have to put out.

Thanks again.

Re:There is no frontier left

[the_doctor]

Nice retort.

Its depressing to see how quickly even this site's otherwise intelligent readers can transition from a discussion of ideology, philosophy and history to one based on immaterial criticisms with fewer sylables than a Sylvester Stalone film.

What is it about politics that drives people to forsake reason in favor of vitriol and fact in favor of belief. It appears that even the nerds are not immune to it.

How unfortunate.

Re:There is no frontier left

[Darby]

As for the "flamebait" crack is concerned, I'd say you've got your signs reversed. IMHO, I seem to be attracting flamebait rather than producing it.

Actually you can not attract flamebait. You can however attract flames. What, you ask, would one use to attract flames?
That's right, flamebait.
Whether your initial comment would be considered flamebait by an objective reader is a seperate issue, but technically since you attracted flames it was flamebait.
---CONFLICT!!---

Re:There is no frontier left

[the_doctor]

"you, or someone you love ... will need the help of some collective group of "

That's what family is for. I have no problem helping people. I do not, however, believe it is the governments place to dicate the types of people and to what degree I must help them.

There is a difference between taxes and charity. Charity is a "good act" because it is, by its very nature, voluntary and thereby requires that the source of charity desire to do "good". Taxes can never be a good act because they are, by their very nature, compensatory and require no intention, "good" or otherwise, on the part of the individual responsible for them.

As taxes increase and the capacity for charity decreases as a function of a decrease in available resources, the total "good", both potential and actual, within a community decreases. This is the root of the moral failure of communism. While everyone would agree that sharing is "good" thing, mandatory sharing is, at best, a "neutral" thing. In a society where all sharing is mandatory there is no capacity for "good" resulting from charity remaining. This leaves the society with no moral core and thereby no mandate by which it can require moral behavior, and we all know where that leads.

I recommend that in the future you think and what the birds are saying to you before you regurgitate it into a publis forum.

Re:There is no frontier left

[frknfrk]

The thing I can't figure out is that most /. readers are probably in the same boat. According the the liberals they are rich. Why do they then support this socialist crap? I don't know. Yup, I'm in the same boat. I'm considered rich, but I can't afford to fix my dying car let alone buy a decent one. I believe in 0 government. So why do I vote for 'socialist crap'?

• Because conservatives and libertarians want to destroy the public school system which gave me my education.
• Because conservatives and libertarians want to destroy social programs like food stamps which kept me and my family fed while i got that education
• Because conservatives and libertarians want to get rid of or slash the budget for the fine arts
• Because 0 government will never work because people are greedy and that means that many people will SUFFER
• Because I actually have a conscience, and compassion for my fellow man who may have not been as fortunate as me. It could just as easily be me who was in a car accident leaving me paralyzed, but it wasn't. It could just as easily be me whose parents were rednecks and did not think school or education was worth sending their 'boy' out to get. It could just as easily be me who was born in the ghetto with nearly no possibly way out except through help.

you think a libertarian government could succeed in the current state of affairs? prisons, sewers, clean air and water, decent schools, these are things each state can consider to be somebody else's problem. that is why the federal government HAS to do these things. sure, i'd like to keep the 35% which disappears from my paycheck, so i could afford to go to a decent doctor and buy a car or house (or both). but i'll give up what is necessary for the country to be a better country. I don't happen to agree that 35% is necessary, I would think that with at least some brains and technology a MUCH lower tax would be necessary. and to the parent post, which i believe mentioned a flat tax: why? 15% of minimum wage is a lot more to that person than 15% of a millionaire. i didn't say it was fair to have a graduated income tax, but it is more fair than placing the burden on people who cannot sustain themselves under it. so if i were a libertarian, i'd perhaps think of ways to streamline government spending, not eliminate programs like public school and socialized medical insurance. these are necessary parts of a consciencious society which has left a very large number of its citizens behind in its quest for progress. when all citizens can afford to eat, educate their children, and get medical attention, not to mention walk their neighborhoods without fear, THAT is when a libertarian government could work. but not before, unless you have other ways to keep people fed, healthy, educated, and safe without government. i have no idea where this came from or where it's going, and i am an idiot. -sam

Re:There is no frontier left

[the_doctor]

The "Anonymous Coward" reply to this is mine. Using someone else's machine, forgot to login.

Sorry

Re:There is no frontier left

[the_doctor]

OK, not much of an argument in that comment, but lets run with it anyway.

First a disclaimer. I am a nice guy. I am not mean. For the sake of intellectual curiosity and discussion answer me this: if I run out of money treating my cancer, does government have the right to force you to pay for? If so, from where does this mandate originate? Finally, is there such thing as mandated morality?

Run with it.

Re:There is no frontier left

[the_doctor]

crap

Re:There is no frontier left

[the_doctor]

Here here!!

Don't get me wrong, I believe that it is my duty to help those who are less fortunate than myself. However, I also believe that it should be up to me to decide who those people are and how much help they need.

I agree with your assessment of self-improvement. I also beleive that there is a difference between being unfortunate and being unmotivated.

Re:There is no frontier left

[the_doctor]

If there's one thing I understand, its the 'not invented here' problem. I don't know the answer either.

I do, however, take issue with your use of Texas as an example of capitalism gone awry. Texas (and most southwestern states for that matter), given its geography, faces some very unique problems which can make traditional metrics for things like education and health less reliable. Don't misunderstand me, I do not hold Texas up as the "shinning state on the hill" as it were. It has its problems. However, it also has no income tax .

As I said earlier, one of the roles of the federal government is in managing interstate affairs. I believe that the environment would be one of those issues, not via organizations like the EPA but by mediating disputes between the states on such matters. They wouldn't necessarily need to sue, but there would need to be some kind of mediation system.

As for drinking laws, you will garner now sympathy from me on this. There have always, and will likely always be a problem, if you can call it a problem, with teens sneaking accross the border to buy beer where the drinking age is lower. Drinking laws, from age to legal limits, are still set at the state level.

The wellfare problem is actually pretty easy to work out. The system will bring itself into a natural equilibrium, assumming all states are willing to pay at least something out. If state A is offering better benefits than state B, the poor will move from state B to state A which has the effect of simultaneously increasing the burden on state A and decreasing the burden on state B. This means that state B now has more to offer and state A has less. If too many people move, the balance shifts entirely so that B is more attractive to the poor than A and the flow reverses. Eventually a near equilibrium will be reached.

I don't believe in 'privatized public education' either. Its an oxymoron. I do believe, however, that perhaps management and accounting techniques as well as competition from the private sector may increase the efficiency and quality of public schools. Just so you know where I stand, I do believe that vouchers for private education are an option if, and only if, the public schools within a district are unable to do the job.

Say what you will about the imperfections of our current system, but I still believe that its better than any other system currently in use.

Re:There is no frontier left

[bjrubble]

Its depressing to see how quickly even this site's otherwise intelligent readers can transition from a discussion of ideology, philosophy and history to one based on immaterial criticisms with fewer sylables than a Sylvester Stalone film.


And I think it's depressing that 23 year-olds who obviously haven't spent much time in the real world can be so self-righteous about their selfishness.

Make no mistake, you're getting monosyllabic responses because anybody capable of responding more logically and reasonably to your points can see very clearly that it won't change your mind. If you want discussion, don't post flamebait.

Summary from hell..

[iamsure]

First, we have the 3500 ballots from Palm Beach County that may need to be recast, due to the VERY confusing layout of the ballot that may have given the votes for gore to buchanan. (http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/DailyNews /ELECTION_WatchdogPart4001107.html)

Next, we have a pile of absentee ballots, with a roughly 50/50 leaning for the vote.

So, just the public vote is seriously in question (not to mention the 9 lost ballot boxes in Dade, nor the automatic recount).

The public vote determines the electoral vote.

Or does it?

Some electoral college votes voted OPPOSITE of their affiliation in both 1972 and 1960. In addition to that, if everything is as projected in the electoral right now (and bush took florida), if just *eleven* bush electoral votes in other states change their minds, Gore would win.

If you wonder about those electoral college votes, you should. They have a federal right to vote their opinion. Some states do have penalties against changing their stated vote, but the federal overrides the state, and -- it would go to a federal judge.

Which, would be close to call as well.

We wont *reallllly* know until Decemeber 8th, for sure, for sure.

Re:Summary from hell..

[Millennium]

First, we have the 3500 ballots from Palm Beach County that may need to be recast, due to the VERY confusing layout of the ballot that may have given the votes for gore to buchanan.

Have you actually seen those ballots? I have. A sleeping hedgehog in a wet paper bag could have figured out which hole was for which candidate; there were great big arrows pointing from each candidate's name to the hole. Basically, you would have to be blind not to see that (and I would imagine that the Braille ballots are designed differently anyway). Not to mention that this ballot was posted in newspapers and magazines for weeks ahead of time (Florida law requires this so everyone can see what the ballots look like long before the election), and no complaints were ever lodged. While the large Buchannan turnout does seem something of an anomaly, there's no rational reason to believe it was the layout of the ballot that caused this.

Some electoral college votes voted OPPOSITE of their affiliation in both 1972 and 1960. In addition to that, if everything is as projected in the electoral right now (and bush took florida), if just *eleven* bush electoral votes in other states change their minds, Gore would win.

If you wonder about those electoral college votes, you should. They have a federal right to vote their opinion. Some states do have penalties against changing their stated vote, but the federal overrides the state, and -- it would go to a federal judge.

You are correct. But don't forget, this can work both ways. Electors in Gore states can change their minds too. Also, I don't think you realize how rare it is for an elector to not vote with their state. The last time this happened was in 1988, where only one elector voted against the state (the elector went for Lloyd Bentsen instead of Dukakis). That shows just how rare this is. And eleven must change their minds for Gore to win. It only takes two to keep Bush from getting the majority, in which case it goes to the House.

Unless I'm mistaken, when the House votes for President each state gets one vote (the members of each state must convene and decide among themselves). This is also bad for Gore, however. Consider that Bush took most of the swing states, and the House is controlled by Republicans at the moment. So if the states Bush won in the electoral vote all go for him (a likely possibility), he wins.

Bottom line: If Gore wants to win this, he has to win Florida. If he doesn't, the chances for eleven electors changing their minds is statistically zero. Even the odds of two Republican electors changing their minds are pretty slim. If less than two change their minds, Bush wins. If more than more than one but less than eleven change their minds, it goes to the House where Bush probably wins. If any Democrat electors change their minds (just as likely as Republican electors, which is still damned slim), it becomes even harder, because two Republican electors must swing (one to cancel out the Democrat's switch, and one more to actually count towards the needed eleven).

In other words, unless Gore wins Florida, it's basically over. Even if he does, there's the possibility of Democrat electors swinging (though this is even more unlikely, as there would have to be many more in order to even take it to the House).

Now, what are his odds? Frankly, not too good. The allegations of tempering fraud from both sides are likely to cancel out if they're true, so none of it has a significant impact. If the absentees split 50/50, Bush wins, and the odds are stacked against Gore anyway because absentees tend slightly towards conservative.
----------

Re:Summary from hell..

[Hooptie]

How can they recast ballots. I am not a resident of Florida, but in my state, Texas, the ballots themselves have no identification features on them. Therefore, out of millions of ballots there is no way of telling for whom I voted.

How can they determine who voted for Buchannan accidentally, and who actually meant to?
How can they determine that people are not voting for Gore twice?
Would they simply invalidate the results for the entire precinct and have another election in that precinct? If so, couldn't the two parties go through all types of shenannigans to help bolster their numbers?

This whole thing is a giant cluster fsck!

Hooptie

Re:Nader, etc

[jafac]

I'm sorry, I'm a man - but I'm for abortion rights - but I just don't see it as being all that important of an issue.

Use a condom. Or go to Canada. DUH.

There are many other very important issues out there, which the republicans and democrats have sold us out on. Civil Liberties issues, Freedom of speech issues, um - hear about the environment? Global warming? Voting Democrat or Republican is basically choosing which big business interests you want to be sold out to.

Don't worry about a Bush mandate tho - with a republican congress, be sure to be watching out for the following coming soon to a totalitarian regime near you, mandate or no mandate;
The ten commandments recited at every public school with the pledge of allegance.
No, strike that, every public school shut down and replaced with a private Christian school (hey, those Catholic schoolgirl uniforms ain't so bad).
Banned flag burning.
Book burning.
Aquittal for Microsoft.
All national forests and preserves sold to Texaco.
Dismantling of the EPA.
Flat income tax.
No "death tax" (inheritance tax).
No "marriage penalty" (normal tax rules for jointly filing couples).
Concealed carry permits nationwide.
Drinking age raised to 100.
Drunk driving laws rescinded (he's from Texas, remember?)
Capital gains rate cut to 0.
Labor unions outlawed.
Church of scientology banned.
No gays in the military, or anywhere else.
Pr0n filtered banned from "America's Internet". (hell, we invented it, we can filter it dammit, we're Americans dammit!)
Most TV stations taken off the air.
Most Hollywood producers thrown in jail.
A new "red scare".
Castro shitting bricks (which is the real reason Bush may win Florida. Lots of really pissed off Cuban exiles there. LOTS).
More jails.
Lethal injection banned, replaced by "a tall tree, and a short rope".
Cows, cows, everywhere COWS!

Re:Mistaken vote for Buchanan

[ColdGrits]

All this proves is that some voters are too stupid to even be able to use a clearly-markedform.

How the hell are they supposed to be able to select a suitable president if they can't use a simple form? :(

(And yes, I've seenthe form - simple enough to follow if you have an ounce of intelligence, imnsho).

--

Re:doesn't help

[JCMay]

Whose fault is it if somebody is not bright enough to vote for the guy they intended to? Nobody but their own!

It's not like there's a time limit on voting, just walk over to the booth and take your time! I'm so sick of this whole business of "Buchanan got some votes intended for Gore" because they couldn't figure out the ballot! What was the rush? Am I to believe that there are people that blindly punch holes in ballots without reading them? No, those people voted for Buchanan, and somebody else picked it up as a way to raise public ire and cast doubt on the whole Florida election process.

I took over five minutes to read over every stinking ballot initiative on my legal-sized, two-sided ballot. I wanted to make absolutely sure I understood what I was voting for or against. I took my time and was careful.

Anything less shows just how cavalier that the average American takes their voting priveledges. By God's grace we were born in a country where we can vote for our leaders or on what we want our government to do. Anthing but patient and deliberate execution of that priveledge is inexcusable.

Re:Florida

[grammar fascist]

LOL

Reminds me of a quippy antecdote I heard once: "A Canadian is just an unarmed American with health care."

Denial -- it ain't just a river in Egypt.

[hey!]

A few notes on Nader and how he factored in. It does look like he could have been the difference because of Florida.

It's not his fault. It's Gore's and the Democratic party.

The mantra that "Gore lost it" is just wishful thinking. Yes, Gore ought to have run a better campaign. But he did win the popular vote and he wouldn't have lost the electoral vote without Nader. And the Republicans wouldn't (as appears likely) score a hat trick -- control over all three branches of the Federal government -- to pursue an agenda that is hostile (rather than insufficiently attentive) to Green values.

Of course the ultimate problem is the electoral college system and plurality voting. This combination sucks if you are minority party voter.

By the way toothlessness of the Reform candidate is not a counter-example. Buchannan is a washed up never has been and the Reform party is in disarray.

As you don't want Nader...

[cheekymonkey_68]

I saw his speech on CNN today and unlike the Greens over here he sounds lucid & electable, looks like the kind of politician you could actually trust, and unliked our greens is not just some crazed extreme environmentalist.

Any chance we Europeans could have Nader represent us, as you Americans don't seem to want him ?

Dammit I'd vote for Nader if someone could only ship him over. The only politician we can really trust over here is Martin Bell, a few more would be appreciated.

First hand from Boca Raton, FL (Palm Beach County)

[TomSawyer]

Here are some points to hopefully deflate some conspiracy theories:

The networks called Florida before voting in Florida had even finished. The pan handle of Florida is in the central time zone. There was still almost an hour of voting left when Florida was called. Anyone who was channel surfing through the networks might have noticed that NBC/MSNBC was showing raw scores along with their predictions. Throughout the "Gore takes Florida" phase of the evening the raw scores were consistenly in favour of Bush by at least 3 percentage points.

As for the Palm Beach ballot being confusing:

A week before elections, every registered voter in Palm Beach receives a sample ballot in the mail that looks exactly like the one bolted to the voting "booth" (it's really a table with partitions). At your discretion you can mark up your sample ballot and take it to the voting "booth" with you. This makes it so that there are no surprises when it's time to punch holes and you have a week to think your options over in case you see more choices or issues than you were expecting to have to vote on.

Some notes on the voting "booth" in Palm Beach:

1: If you insert the punch card into its slot incorrectly, all your holes will be made incorrectly. The worst that can maybe happen is that you'll vote for a republican congressman when you were on the presidents' ballot page thinking you were punching a hole for Gore. That'd be terribly because your presidential vote wouldn't be registered and by the time you got to the end of the ballot those votes wouldn't register on the card either.

2: If you insert the punch card into its slot correctly, then the arrows on the ballot pages point directly to a pin hole. The arrows are about 1 cm in size and the pin hole maybe 1 mm. All you need to do is follow the big arrow pointing to a well spaced little hole.

3: The ballot layout was created by the staff of the Palm Beach Commissioner of Elections. She, a democrat, personally approved it. Why? It was designed to avoid the confusion that could have been caused if all the candidates were crammed onto one page or were spread out over two non-facing pages.

Re:to stand...

[Golias]

and Gore doesn't seem to be any better.

Okay, I did not vote for Gore, and don't like him, and I agree that Clinton's record of troop deployment was horrible...

That said, I would like to point out that if the Florida recount tips Gore's way, he will make a much, much better Commander in Chief that Clinton ever did. All Gore and Sam Nunn are the best friends the military ever had in the Democratic party.

I don't care for Gore's economic policies, but his history as a legislator indicates that he would manage the military well.

Re:The fix is in?

[sporkboy]

Apparently these 'lost' ballot boxes were just extras, containing things such as signage.

Re:Nader Ruined the Economy.

[bonehead]

If anybody tries to give the Presidency to someone that didn't get a majority vote, I'm going to throw a fit.

So did you throw a fit in 1996? Or 1992?

In neither of Mr. Clinton's presidential campaigns did he win a majority of the popular vote. It's happened many other times as well.

For that matter, it doesn't appear that it is even going to be POSSIBLE to give the presidency to the winner of a majority vote in this election. The most recent numbers I've seen have 49% as the largest portion of the popular vote garnered by any one candidate, which is, of course, not a majority.

So, regardless of the outcome of the next few days, you had better get prepared to throw your fit, because the presidence most certainly IS going to a man who did not win a majority of the popular vote.

(Unless, of course, you meant to say "plurality", in which case you really ought to invest in a dictionary. Even one of the small pocket-sized versions would do.)

Re:The real story

[XO]

>Republicans worry that Gore will hurt their livelihoods. Democrats are terrified that Bush with destroy their lives. And that is the reason Democratic voters turned out, and the story no media will report.

I personally worry that a Bush-run administration will cause extreme harm to the economy that is bringing me, through my hard work and devotion, into this category of people making a shiploadd of money. I'm sick of making sub $30k/year. If the stock market holds, and if the economy stays high, if people continue buying my products at the incredible rates they are compared to 8 years ago, I'll be a millionaire in 5 years. That's my short term dream. I'm seriously frightened that Bush is going to fuck it up.

Rethinking the electoral system : go French ?

[stud9920]

(I am not French) In an election where there is only one person to elect and the others get NOTHING (senator, representatives, president), couldn't it be more fair to do it in two rounds, a first round to vote for the one you really want, and a second round to choose the "lesser of two evils" between the two that got most votes in first round ? This works pretty good in France I think, and the global representation in the Assemblee Nationale matches better what the people really voted for.

Re:Rethinking the electoral system : go French ?

[Djaak]

(I am French :-) )

I am French :-). Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you're saying this because you're thinking to the so-called "Nader effect" and related problems, like the fact that many people would not vote Nader because they were affraid to make Bush win. Well, having two rounds doesn't solve the problem correctly : here for presidential election, it usually boils down to a race between a social-democrat and two conservatives (why these people can never agree to have only one candidate is pretty mysterious if you ask me). Anyway, we still get the "don't waste your vote" stupidity, from the social-democrat to smaller left-wing parties for instance, because he's affraid not to make it to second round. Still, I think it helps "minor" candidates to get their fair share of votes on first round, as we usually have 5-6 candidates over 5%, never above 30 for the winner Maybe it's more fair and maybe not ;-) it's that for presidential elections, it helps "minor" candidates get their fair share of voters as most people will not prevent voting for them out of fear that their vote might be "wasted". This system explains IMHO why we usually get 5-6 candidates above 5% on first round (though the fact that the French can't ever agree on anything might have an influence there ;-)

As for Assemblee Nationale... two-round elections don't really change a lot because you still need to get more than 50% locally to have one deputy elected... so some party may have its member have say 20% of popular vote, achieve 3rd place on each county and still get no one elected. Doesn't really help to have a fair representation of what people voted for

If you really want that, you need to have a proportionnal representation : each party presents a(n) (ordered) list of N people (N being also the number of "congressmen" to be elected), and in the %vote * N first of each list get elected. You really get a fair representation of popular vote. We used to have this, but the problem was that as votes were split between many parties, it was nearly impossible to ever get a majority of congressmen to vote for any law. Which is fine for me, but as governements need to pass laws to be taken seriously, they've changed the system.

All this to say : all systems have their flaws ; a good democracy should be more or less unstable, because ideally the system should be changed frequently to prevent politicians from abusing it too much. Hard to achieve, though.

Re:Florida Votes

[JumpyMonkey]

Actually, I misread a story on the BBC website. My mistake, you're absolutely correct that I should have thought more about it more. However, your comments were obnoxious. Perhaps if you didn't post anonymously you would stop to consider before being so rude.

Re:doesn't help

[kirby697]

Just a sidenote... a DEMOCRAT signed off on the design of that ballot. It was intended to get very large fonts on the ballot for the older people... but ended up confusing them in other ways. It's the old people's own damn fault they can't follow a simple arror. They've been voting in 12 or so presidential elections since they turned 18... you think they would have the hang of it by now, don't you???

Re:Military vote is NOT generally Republican --agr

[nmx]

Harry Browne was the only other candidate besides Bush and Gore to get onto the ballot in ALL 50 STATES.

Harry Browne was not on the ballot in Arizona.

Re:doesn't help

[rossjudson]

There are a ton of seniors in this particular precinct, and apparently they had substantial difficulty reading the ballot, and interpreting the holes for Gore and Buchanan, which were abnormally close together. The statistic I read in this morning was that in the precinct immediately south of the one in question, Buchanan received only 100 votes. In the one to the east, he received 600 or so. In this one (with the odd ballot) he received 3,400 votes.

If this is so, then some sort of recount should be issued. And how do you recount votes that were cast in error because of the physical configuration of the ballot? Heck, I don't know. They might have to run it again. Why did this particular precinct use a different ballot form? Why was the form constructed in the way it was?

The Buchanan vote stats seem to indicate (even though they are only partial information) that something is wrong...

Re:Nader, etc

[Platinum Dragon]

It's been the job of the green propaganda machine to entrench the message that "A vote for Nader is _not_ a vote for Bush; they're both the same, and suck, at that."

And it's been the job of the Gore propaganda machine to convince Green voters they should choose Gore over Nader. Obviously, they failed at that.

For those of you who voted for Nader because Nader was the candidate who best supported your views, you bet on a losing horse from the start

"Bet"? "Losing horse"? It's not a horse race! It's an election - you choose the person you feel like choosing, not the person you think will win. If you vote that way, you're truly throwing away your vote.

Of the people who voted Nader, exit polls show that 25% would simply not have voted, while of the remaining 75%, 5 out of every 6 people would have voted for Gore. Had Nader stepped down, Gore would have won the election soundly, no questions asked.

However, he didn't step down. He kept campaigning, as is his right, and those voters apparently felt he was the better choice. Again, Gore's fault for not appealing to those voters enough to turn their choice to him.

You have accomplished -nothing- beyond satisfying your own smug little idealistic worldview.

They voted their conscience. You have a problem with that? If Bush loses, who's to say Buchanan didn't cost him the election in Florida? Hell, let's just ban third, fourth and fifth parties so this kind of stuff doesn't happen!

Wait. This is supposedly a democracy. Everyone is allowed to have their choice, no matter how much a chance the candidate has of winning in an election, even if someone else could use those votes. I see no problem here.

[...] the US will effectively have a one party government (they have the Legislative Branch still, they'll have the Executive branch, and would soon have the Judicial branch, as well.)

And from your post, you seem to support a two-party government, nothing more. You also forget that party members don't always vote on party lines, and the House and Senate look very close, at least closer than last election.

I think Green voters will be quite satisfied with what happened. If they wanted Gore to get in, they would have voted for him, now wouldn't they?

Nader did his job to attract support for himself and his party - about 2.5 million shows of support. It was up to Gore to campaign well enough to attract potential Green votes. It wasn't Nader's job to do that for him.

If Gore loses, he has no one to blame but himself.
-------------

Re:conservative supreme court

[mikemulvaney]

Actually, Bush nominated Clarence Thomas.

You can check here.

Mike

Re:Nader, etc

[dangermouse]

Protesters weren't in the majority in the 60s, either. That wasn't his claim.

Re:Nader

[DoomHaven]

Canada is an independant country, and as such, the UK wouldn't attack on the ground that the US is attacking the UK.

However, because the US and Canada are allies, and very close allies, *if* the US attacked, it would destroy American credibility internationally. I mean, if you beat up your best friend, how would other people treat/trust you?

As well, I would imagine if the US attacked, a UK-led UN force would probably either attack the US militarially, or economically embargo the US, which would probably hurt them.

This is just a simple view of the situation.

Re:The fix is in?

[triskaidekaphile]

Close.

Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth was Gore's Florida campaign chairman. As chief law-dude, he's the one quoting the law saying that a recount is mandatory.

But the Attorney General doesn't handle elections in Florida; the Secretary of State does. The current Secretary of State is Katherine Harris. She's a Republican.

Clay Roberts, a Republican, is the director of the Division of Elections.

Harris, Roberts, and Jeb certify the election. Changes the slant, doesn't it?

-Steve :)

(info from Yahoo!)

Re:Your right... your vote doesn't count

[The Toad]

And you have evidence to back this up?

Give me a break, everyone here is guessing unless you're one of the major networks and have access to the exit poll stats. You like to spout this nonsense and pretend to know what the hell you're talking about, but I'm guessing you don't have any more of a clue than anyone else who is spouting their own nonsense here (including myself).

Now, I'm just guessing too, but I have a hard time believing that there aren't a couple of thousand people out of the 95K or so that reportedly voted for Nader in FL wouldn't have voted for Gore had Nader come to his senses and endorsed Gore.

I also can't believe that the high turnout was solely because of Nader (if so, then why did Bush voters turn out in droves as well?). Everybody (except Nader, apparently) knew it was going to be a close election and there was a pretty good chance that just a few votes here and there would make a difference. If Nader actually cared about the country more than his own ego, he would have campaigned less in "swing states" and spent more time in places where either Gore or Bush had a clearer majority. That way, I think he would have had a slightly better chance of getting his 5% (I still don't think he would have gotten 5%), and he would have done less damage to the country. (bye-bye Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, hello global warming). Even though Nader has always been a nut-case, I used to have at least some respect for him and I thought a lot of his work had done good things, but I've lost all respect for him at this point because it turns out he's just a self-aggrandizing egomaniac that doesn't give a shit about the country or the things in his party's platform that he supposedly cares about.

Re:The media

[divec]

You can't do that. The Western voters are influenced by what they see on the Eastern results.

Interesting - are Americans more likely to go out and vote if they think their candidate is winning, or if they think he is losing?

I like this

[Greyfox]

Looks like the Onion scooped it. We'll see how close the actual event was to their coverage when the winner is announced. I bet they're dead on.

This is a win-win situation at this point. If Bush takes it, the Democrats will have some serious thinking to do on their platform or risk more losses stemming from third party candidates. And the American people will have some serious thinking to do on the electoral college system, as Gore actually won the popular vote.

If Bush loses, we continue with the current stalemate between republican controlled congress and the president. Anything that makes laws more difficult to pass is fine with me.

Of course, the biggest players in the game, the corporations, have more power than the president does and there's no balance to keep them in check, so apart from Nader potentially getting his 5% (Looks like he got about 2%) the whole thing was pretty much an exercise in futility. Which didn't mean I didn't get out there and vote. I had local issues I wanted to weigh in on (My state passed a law allowing for the medical use of Marijuana, by an overwhelming margin. Anything that pokes the DEA in the eye is also OK with me.)

Indeed, and how DARE a person. . .

[kfg]

under the American republican system run for public office and cost an opposing candidate votes!

The absolute NERVE of the man.

It ought to be made illegal.

KFG

Re:Nader

[SpryGuy]

GIVEN the current voting system, NADER is to blame. Because of Nader, someone who is anti-environmental and pro-corporate will rule the white-house. Thus Nader-voters, who know all about the current voting system, voted AGAINST their core interests by voting FOR Nader, thus ensuring that BUSH won the white-house.

It is a spearate issue that our plurality voting system is fundamentally flawed. In an approval or Borda count voting system, Nader could not possibly have cost Gore the election. And Gore would be our president with both the popular and electoral votes.

- Spryguy

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[mbruns]

Yes and no.

Bush is not stupid. Yes, he did lose the popular vote. But, look where he spent the last few days of the race. Arkansas, Tennessee, etc.

He virtually ignored the populous states, California, New York, etc. He gained a few votes (enough to win in the small states), but got crushed in the larger states (and the popular vote) in exchange.

If the race was decided by the popular vote, I think both candidates would have used very different strategies.

While I believe the electoral college has lost it's relevance, both candidates knew the rules when they started, and campained accordingly.

Re:Your right... your vote doesn't count

[The Toad]

I'm not trying to argumentative, but I'm hoping you can explain this to me because I really don't understand the rationale.

Why is it a good thing to have a third party be a major player in a presidential election? I mean, sure, people seem to get all sorts of warm fuzzies about knocking the two big parties down a notch (that seems to be Nader's biggest argument, to make the Democrats "pay"), but it seems to me that the only thing an even marginally successful third party would achieve is that it would pretty much guarantee that we'll end up with a president that the majority of the voters in the country didn't vote for (which would seem to increase the chance dramatically that we'd end up with a president that is disliked by the majority of the people in the country). Why would this be a good thing?

Yes it does

[Gorimek]

On the channels I watched several people said that that is a Florida law.

Re:Yes it does

[maraist]

The election official that they aired on CNN mentioned that it was an official process. But that it wasn't required if the candidates didn't want it. He didn't quote the law though - just said what was likely to happen.. Point is moot, however, since candidates _do_ actually want a recount.

-Michael

Re:first of all

[TheKodiak]

what was that comment about not intending to buy a landslide, again?

Re:Bye Bye Electoral College?

[Bob Uhl]

Everyone knows the electoral college is an outdated affectation that no longer represents the views of the people.

It never did represent the views of the people. It was never meant to. The Founders knew what they were doing; we're a federal republic, not a democratic nation. If you want to live in a democratic nation, there are many countries offering such. for all its horrible faults, though, I'll stick with the USA, which sucks least.

"Al & Pat mistake"?

[Daimaou]

I have seen the ballots that they are referring to. First of all, you would have to be pretty blind to mess this up. Secondly, Pat shows up right between Gore and Bush. It is just as likely that all those poor, blind, forgetful people (I say this in mockery of the Democratic party, not elderly people) meant to vote for Bush and not Gore anyway. Another possibility (farfetched as it sounds) could be that THEY ACTUALLY VOTED CORRECTLY FOR PAT!!!

How did all these old people know they mistakenly voted anyway? I thought this was supposed to be a closed ballot. Any change here reeks of tampering. If these old people are allowed to re-vote and Gore wins, then I want to revote as well so that I can vote Nader and help get the Green party the 5% that it needs for the next election.

The thing about all this that makes me sick is all the media stories siding with Gore in a large political orgy-like frenzy that will have to be put in a lockbox during the next four years and used again in 2004's election.

Another thing that sickens me about this whole circus is that we have spent the last 8 years being lied to by a president who doesn't even know the meaning of the word "is" (and yet you chide Bush for his speaking). Clinton and Gore both have blamed, accused, dodged and everything else to get out of accepting responsibility for their actions. "It" is always someone else's fault (usually a Republican of some kind). Now, the election is going the way it is in Florida because Republicans are cheating. Republicans are coercing poor people, who left their wills at home, to vote for Bush. We all know that if they had their wills with them they would have voted for Gore. Gore is a farce, the media are political sluts and the Democratic Party is a bunch of rubes.

Re:Nader

[snol]

As the numbers stand now, "I took the initiative in creating the Internet" cost Gore Florida just as much as Nader did. You think there weren't at least 2000 people in that state who didn't vote for Gore specifically because of the way that statement played in the media??

Wow

[Mike Hicks]

Wow. This sounds familiar...

``Benjamin Harrison's election in 1888 is really the only clear-cut instance in which the Electoral College vote went contrary to the popular vote. This happened because the incumbent, Democrat Grover Cleveland, ran up huge popular majorities in several of the 18 States which supported him while the Republican challenger, Benjamin Harrison, won only slender majorities in some of the larger of the 20 States which supported him (most notably in Cleveland's home State of New York). Even so, the difference between them was only 110,476 votes out of 11,381,032 cast - less than 1% of the total. Interestingly, in this case, there were few critical issues (other than tariffs) separating the candidates so that the election seems to have been fought - and won - more on the basis of superior party organization in getting out the vote than on the issues of the day.''

From here
--

Re:The fix is in?

[snStarter]

Oh give me a break.

There are a lot of checks and balances built into the election process. Now I'm in California not Florida, but I've been working on a documentary on the election process. There are a LOT of cross-checks built into the system. Signatures to cross-check with those on the voter reg cards. Serial numbers of ballots to verify the quantity issued to a polling place and the number of unused ballots balance with the number of entries.

It's not a trivial process. The people I have been around for the past 8 months care a lot about the integrity of their work.

As long as we're working with paper ballots there will be trails to follow. Should things go all electronic I'll have a lot less faith in the process. You can't walk into an electronic voting machine's memory and validate that what happened actually did. I can count physical votes and I can walk the paperwork to make sure there is consistance.

While it's all fun to believe in conspiracies I would assert that the US election process is, on the whole, on the up and up.

Nader's uncounted votes

[Elgiva]

Those of us who wrote in Nader will not have our votes counted in Wyoming. They allow write-ins here, but they think it's too much trouble to count them. No wonder people don't vote.

Re:A "simple" proposal

[sconeu]

Two of Maine's four electoral votes still go to the overall state-wide winner. Each of the other two votes goes to the candidate receiving the most votes in each of Maine's two congressional districts.

This makes sense. Remember, the EC votes are one per Senator and one per Representative. So two winner take all votes represents the Senate votes, and the votes per district represent the Reps.

Disclaimer: I don't live in Maine, but it's good to see that they do stuff that makes sense.

Re:It has to be said but...

[XO]

While this is true, and it's also true that slashdot probably has a disproportionate amount of non-United States users, look at it this way: Slashdot is an awesome communication forum for the most intelligent and brightest people, not only in the U.S., but all across the world.

I would love to see Slashdot cover the elections elsewhere in the world, although I would have absolutely nothing that I could contribute to it, whatsoever, and probably wouldn't even have the basic understanding of what's going on.
It's not that SLASHDOT is covering these topics, this is what the people who USE slashdot want to talk about. And considering that all the U.S. presidential topics on here in recent history have >1K comments on them, I'd say it's a pretty popular thing.
Not that Slashdot has ever really catered to the popular, more usually the bizarre, but even with a disproportionate number of international users using slashdot, when compared to other things, I imagine CNN and such don't have very many European customers... the vast majority of slashdot readers and contributors are most likely in the U.S..

So, if you want to see things about your governments election, I would like to point you to the upper left hand corner of your monitor, where it says "Submit Story". Click there.

Re:Nader

[Simon Brooke]

Nader took 100 000 of the Florida vote! That vote could have been Gore's and this whole thing would be over with Gore for President!

Look, I'm Scots so it's nothing to do with me. But one of the things that it looks like from here is that the Republocrat and Demoblican parties are occupying a narrower and narrower space in the centre of the political spectrum. For people who in European terms are on the Left, the difference between Gush and Bore is vanishingly small. There's no reason to believe that the people who voted for Nader would have voted for Gore if Nader hadn't stood; just as probably, they would have felt disenfranchised and not voted at all.

Is there any evidence of tactical voting in this election?

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[Bluesee]

To me, the fact that the election is sooo close indicates that the science of mass manipulation has finally matured, and each parties' operatives sought after, found, and successfully manipulated just the exact right targeted potential voters. So I now would add to my whine for Campaign Finance Reform another: please let's consider Election Reform, too. If for no other reason than to confuse the 'loophole finders' and 'system manipulators' for a few years so we can get decent public servants, perhaps a guy like Colin Powell would have considered running if the system weren't so bad; perhaps a guy like John McCain would have been nominated. Perhaps a guy like Bobby Kennedy wouldn't have been shot.

Re:is military vote clear cut?

[haystor]

The way that we are overextended is very frustrating to the people in the military. Every day the people in the military train to fight a war, and every day they are sent out to be a presence.

They are regularly in positions to be targets of terrorist attack, but are not equipped and not allowed to fight such terrorists. People ask how the Cole could have been bombed. Its quite simple, load up a boat with explosives and cruise it up to the ship. It is quite likely that the ship is not allowed to just open fire. The same goes for troops in many areas...they have nobody to fight, but are in a position to be killed.

The military wants a little more of a mission than stand-around-here-so-the-president-can-say-he's-do ing-something.

How about a two ballot system?

['This is false.']

I personally prefer the kind of voting they do in France. Every candidate who wants to can run on the first ballot, and the highest two vote getters are the only people allowed on the second vote. Although thereit is still mathematically possible for a candidate who is not the most popular to win, it is extremely unlikely. The main drwaback is you have to convince people to get up and vote twice.

Re:How about a two ballot system?

[Sodium Attack]

Instant runoff voting (IRV) produces basically the same result without the practical problems of having to run two elections.

The only problem is that you have to rank candidates 1,2,3,etc. This may not seem that hard, but considering that old fogeys in Palm Beach can't even tell which punch-hole lines up with "Gore", I'm not very optimistic about educating people about IRV.

link to cnn exit polls in FL

[aint]

All Florida exit polls here :

link: Florida Exit Polls by CNN.

Although imho exit polls are bogus.

-- .sig --

Re:The media

[Eponymous, Showered]

I'd like to see something like a fixed number of votes per state and thus give each state a equal voice to the number of political parties on the ballet

That's it! That's the campaigning tactic the candidates forgot! Maybe the republicans can do "La Boheme" and the Democrats could do "Madame Butterfly." I the Green party would do well with "Rent."

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[faqBastard]

That is, of course, that neither candidate campaigned at all in the huge majority of the country, instead focusing all their efforts on a few key battleground states.

It's unclear to me that making the electoral college completely proportional would result in a better situation.

Specifically, say for instance each state's electoral votes were proportional to their population, and that it wasn't winner-take-all by state, but rather proportional winning of the state's electoral votes.

In that situation, it seems to me that the less populous areas of the country would get ignored in favor of the more populous areas, and still the candidates would spend most of their times in a small area.

I'm thinking here they would spend all their time in the Northeast, Southern California, etc., where the population is highest; thus blowing off most of the midwest, and large areas of the west.

This would be good on a per-person basis, but would be quite bad for many constituencies which are important for the country as a whole. Specifically, it seems that farmers and environmentalists, to name two, would never be considered very important for national elections.

"Republic" not synonymous with "Electoral College"

[NetWurkGuy]

If the first place, no matter how we may reform the way we elect the President, (and VP), we remain a republic if for no other reason because of the way we elect Congress. Secondly there are any number of proposed alternatives to the EC besides simple majority vote. I would guess that the Governor of Alabama is elected by simple majority vote and last I heard that state has yet to "crumble" as a result.

Re:"Keeping his word..."

[Millennium]

Um, the definition of "concede" means, in this case, withdrawal. In such a case, since all Gore electoral votes would then be for a candidate no longer in the race, they would be rendered meaningless.

That considered, if Gore were to win Florida after conceding, Bush would not have the majority, so it'd probably go to the House, where they'd pick from the candidates (keeping in mind Gore had already withdrawm).
----------

America just likes a good contest.

[unsung]

America just likes a good contest. Honestly, can you imagine if at least ONE of the candidates was actually qualified for Presidency? The election would have been over loong ago. Don't be fooled. Neither of them have a strong following - Most people just went out to vote this year because they didn't want the 'other' guy to be Pres.

Likely the media will put a positive slant on voter turnout now. Yes, voter turnout was record breaking, but its only because we're more cynical!

Re:Nader Ruined the Economy.

[ncc74656]

Don't give the election up to Bush, either. Gore won the popular vote. The last time I checked, we still live in a democracy.

Bzzt! We absolutely do not live in a democracy. As others have pointed out already, our system of government was designed as a representative republic. It was set up that way for good reason...the founding fathers knew that democracy was one step removed from mob rule (does the phrase "tyranny of the majority" ring a bell?).

Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner.

Re:CNN Reported on the 1,2,3,5 and 6th place parti

[Harlequin Jones]

I once saw a special on CNN dedicated entirely to third parties. This was about four years ago, when the Reform Party as all the rage.

The special covered the Reform party, the Greens, the Natural Law Party, and several mini-parties, some of which were only active in one or two states.

There was no mention of the Libertarians at all, despite the fact that, at the time, they had a greater number of registered members than any other third party.

Contrast this with the McNeil/Lehrer News Hour on PBS (Now "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer"). During the campaign of 1996, they aired several detailed segments (around ten-15 minutes each) covering several of the lesser-known candidates, including Harry Browne.

HJ

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[AxelBoldt]

The US is more like the European Union and less like the Netherlands. It's a bunch of states, not a bunch of people. Like in the EU, the states decide, not the people directly.

--

Re:Nader

[praedor]

IF the Greens (and Nader) were actually reasonably, rational people instead of a bunch of hormone-addled, irrational teens and twenty-somethings, then they would have made a RATIONAL and concerted effort to trade votes. They WOULD have won 5% nationally (at least) AND Gore, who is MUCH closer to Greens on environmental and labor issues than Bush is. You Greens would have gotten what you wanted (instead of NOT getting what you wanted...3% nationally) and the Supreme Court wouldn't be up for nazi takeover and the environment wouldn't be for sale to industry.

Naderites DID give the election to Bush and did NOT get their 5%. They got nothing. What you should have done, besides concerted, organized vote trading, is actually put up some people for LOCAL elections. You didn't even get THAT and THAT was where you were more likely to make any gain at all. You don't get ANY federal funds. You gave the Supreme Court to the Republican Nazis, and you sold the environment to the oil industry. Congratulations. Job well done. Morons.

What the pro's of the electoral college?

[sideshow]

Ok, maybe this country does a lot of stupid shit in the name of tradition. I'm thinking that in the past a good reason existed to create the electoral college, but what is it? And if the reason is gone, how do we get rid of it?

From a Massachusetts voter...

[jjohn]

Refusal 2000

Americans Prefer Their Candidates Dead

As Dan Rather said during the presidential election coverage, the race was "so close you couldn't put cigarette paper between them", which provides some insight into where Rather's mind was. Synchronistically, Comedy Central's prime time movie last night was _Half Baked_, the charming story of New York city stoners and their wacky, toked-up antics.

As of this writing, the new President of these United States isn't known. The initial results of Florida's general election gave Bush the state by only 2000 votes. Because this slim lead easily falls within the margin of error, the home state of Mikey Mouse and German tourist murderers is recounting the ballets -- or blown out candles or colored marbles depending on the county. Whoever is declared the winner there will surely go on to claim "a clear mandate from the people". Considering the source, that mandate will likely include Geritol and cheap stool softners for all.

The presidential race wasn't the only bit of madness happening last evening. The population of the great state of Missouri reelected the popular governor Robert Holden, a democrat from Jefferson City. His adversary was the sober Republican candidate Jim Talent (that's his real name, honest). The Show-Me state voters chose the candidate who would best address the state's flat economy, lackluster education and low prestige. As Newt Gingrich was fond of saying "history is the best indicator of future performance" (which is utterly false in the domain of probability), so Missouri went with the devil they knew. The biggest obstruction facing the new governor is keeping voters' hopes alive while he isn't. Bob Holden is dead. Very dead. Still, he seemed to campaign better than Talent, so he has that going for him.

As all loyal viewers of the space opera "Babylon 5" knew, actor Jerry Doyle (Mr. Garibaldi from the series) ran for Representative from California's district 24. As an actor with political ambitions, Doyle was in good company. Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee appeared in numerous bad network TV shows in the 80s. Senator Sonny Bono, dead, was very popular before his death was widely known. Although I'd rather, let's not forget the Great Communicator Ronald Reagan, or mayor Clint Eastwood. Americans love their actors, but not the ones that have done Sci-Fi. Doyle was soundly trounced by the incumbent Brad Sherman of Sherman Oaks (really). I suppose the money and fame can't buy you an election after all.

Let's not forget our own state Massachusetts. Once again, the bloated and hoary friend to all DWI offenders, Ted Kennedy secured his senate seat for another six years. As long as there's booze in the state, Kennedy will continue to run and win elections. The more interesting story for the Mass elections was the ballot questions. In a state known for being pathologically democrat, it was fun to see how many republican initiatives were supported by the ballot questions. Tax cuts, toll rebates and no new health care policies all sound awfully much like what George W. was stammering about during his campaign. And what would warm old Dubba's heart more than to know that we as a state enjoy killing grayhounds? Sure, those dogs aren't convicted prisoners being executed, but we'll get to that.

In the end, this confused, befuddling, irritating election has served to renew my faith in our representative democracy. Voters caused this mess, not big businesses with political action committees. We citizens can send the jumbled message to Washington that something unclear is perhaps bothering us and we're not going to take it very much longer unless we have to. It is clear that neither major party candidate enjoys popular support. Most voters seemed to fear that the *other* candidate would be elected. Truly, election 2000 was a contest of Lessers. It seemed that those voting for Bush were trying to send a message about the Clinton years. I'm not referring to the eight years of morbidly obese economic growth, but the bald-faced manipulation that Clinton engaged in. Even supporters of Clinton have to admit that Slick Willy is a master confidence man. He lied on nationally televised video tape under oath and he escape any reprimand for it. That's slick. Gore doesn't have the charisma or the cajones of Clinton and that's why voters are venting their spleen on him.

Just to rub it in, Clinton reminds us that he "still has 10 more weeks to quack". Quack on, you licentious, profligate rogue. America can't get enough of you. ;-)

Re:From a Massachusetts voter...

[JDooty1234]

Well, thanks a lot Mister Blow-the-whole-funny-thread-on-a-technicality. :)

For what it's worth, I can't vote, (or waste a vote, I woulda voted for Nader anyway. The way I see it, he'll be too busy looking drunk on TV to waste the budget surplus.)

Re:From a Massachusetts voter...

[Hesperus]

Missouri voters have known for a couple of weeks the new gov. Holden had sworn to appoint Mr. Carnahan's wife to the Senate in place of her late husband. She's on record as saying that she will accept the post.

So Missouri voters really elected a living woman yesterday: Jene Carnahan

Re:From a Massachusetts voter...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your writing is really amusing, but Bob Holden isn't dead, Mel Carnahan is--the Missouri race in which "the dead guy won" was for the Senate, not for governor. Also, Bob Holden was not the incumbent. (This result to me says more about Senator Ashcroft than about the late Mr. Carnahan. I have heard two (unverified but believable, from sources I trust) anecdotes about Senator Ashcroft having abused his office for personal purposes: 1) Asked a librarian to open the library on Thanksgiving Day so his son could complete a report for school. 2) Attempted to intervene at the University of Missouri to try to get a low level professional staff member fired over a personal matter.) These things cost Senator Ashcroft my vote--I wonder how many others there were.

~~~

Re:From a Massachusetts voter...

[jjohn]

Doh! Thanks! I must sleep more!

Re:Very strange results

[Watcher]

You have to bear a couple things in mind with the exit polls:

First, they're terribly inaccurate for close elections, to the point of being useless. We saw that last night (PA was not expected to be such a wide margin for Gore, and I was very surprised).

Second, you have to bear in mind where they took the exit polls. They may have chosen some of the more urban areas of Florida for the exit polls, and that would definitely skew their results. Exit polls are like any other poll you take: its statistically accurate for the region you take it in, but you're not guaranteed that it will be accurate for the whole region.

I have the feeling after all the dust is settled from this, its very likely that the press will have to take up the policy of not reporting poll results until all of the polls across the country have closed so they can't be accused of influencing the western vote with results in the east. It'll make the election night news cast a bit more boring (and very late), but I figure they make more money off of Friends anyway.

Smoking Gun: Buchanan Strong in Palm Beach?

[Nightspore]

It looks like at least three thousand Florida votes that should have gone to Gore went to Buchanan instead because of the confusing ballots issued in Palm Beach:

"One supervisor of elections decided to do their ballot a little bit differently than others," Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth told NBC's "Today" show.

Butterworth said that if Buchanan won a disproportionate percentage of votes in Palm Beach County, "that may be a problem." In fact, Buchanan appears to have done better in Palm Beach, which is heavily Democratic, than in comparable areas. He won 3,407 votes there, but got only 789 in Broward County, which lies immediately to the south, and 108 in Martin County, which is immediately to the north of Palm Beach. Hillsborough County, which tends to be conseravtive, gave Buchanan 800.

The above from The Washington Post.

Re:Smoking Gun: Buchanan Strong in Palm Beach?

[TheKodiak]

The IRS noted that its plan to install accountants as the new Masters of the Universe had been spelled out in excruciating detail in several publications, all of which were available from any Post Office and on the web, and no one had complained in the 5 years since the plans' initial publication.

At any rate, I agree that a much bigger deal is being made over this than should be. I'd be a sore loser, too, if I thought that an evil, skilled President were any less bad than an incompetent, affable president.

Re:Smoking Gun: Buchanan Strong in Palm Beach?

[Bishop282]

Here is a picture of the Palm Beach ballot. The election official, who is a democrat, said that she was trying to improve the readability of the ballot for older voters in the district. She also said that they sent sample ballots to all voters and no one complained before election day.

Re:Smoking Gun: Buchanan Strong in Palm Beach?

[frknfrk]

yes, and the sample ballots had the candidates listed in a different order. but that's not my point here. my point here is that for one, there were reports directly from exit polls that people were confused, not after the election was done. and for two, palm beach being the democratic, jewish community that it is, 3000 votes for as 'born again' of a candidate as you'll ever find seems fishy to me. of course i'm just pissed off because my neighbor, a college student, still has his absentee ballot for florida sitting on his desk. oops. -sam

KEEP THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE!

[drteknikal]

The election isn't even over yet, and I've already received more than one message advocating the abolition of the Electoral College. I used to share this opinion, but did an about face a few years ago when I found a few pieces of information that forced me to change my mind.

The Banzhaf Power Index - The Banzhaf Power Index was introduced in 1968 by John F. Banzhaf III for the purpose of analyzing block voting systems, such as the U.S. Electoral College that elects the president. Banzhaf's method and previous methods are based on probabilistic analysis of the individual voters in a block voting system.

A detailed explanation and analysis of the Banzhaf Power Index is located at:
http://www.cs.unc.edu/~livingst/Banzhaf/index.ht ml

Math Against Tyranny - Physicist Alan Natapoff studied the system and published a 1996 paper outlining why, mathematically, the Electoral College actually gives MORE power to the individual voter at the local level. To quote from the summary linked below, "This process seems undemocratic, and for many years people have talked of getting rid of it. However, physicist Alan Natapoff has recently argued that the system, instead of taking power out of the hands of individual voters, actually gives them more power than a direct vote would!"

There's a useful summary, which includes a comparison with the Banzhaf Power Index, located at:
http://www.prenhall.com/divisions/esm/app/ph-la/ excursions/html/EIMM_C02.html

The entire text of the article is located at:
http://208.245.156.153/archive/output.cfm?ID=907

As I said, I was absolutely convinced that the Electoral College should be abolished until I read this paper. Then, I went back and read the Federalist Papers, and damned if I didn't find myself changing my opinion 180 degrees. I think it's a national shame that The Federalist Papers aren't required reading in every high school in the country. Federalist 68 concerns the mechanism of the Electoral College, though that mechanism has been altered by the passage of the 13th amendment to the Constitution.

Federalist 68 is located at: http://www.mcs.net/~knautzr/fed/fed68.htm
The text of the 12th amendment is located at: http://www.mcs.net/~knautzr/fed/amendments.html
(note that part of the 12th amendment is superceded by part of the 20th amendment)

Re:KEEP THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE!

[TheKodiak]

Well... Actually, it DOES give more power to individual voters, if you accept Natapoff's definition of "power". Admittedly, it also redistributes the power, but it does increase it.

The problem lies within the definition of "voting power" itself. According to Natapoff, a voter has power when his vote, by itself, would change the outcome of an election. That is to say, the closer an election is, the more power voters have. The problem is, Natapoff's strategy to make elections closer (which happens to be the strategy currently used in the US) is essentially to determine which votes are most likely to unbalance the election and through them out. It does this statistically, but as a simplified example - say we only have three states, of equal (say, 100 people each) population. One state is largely (say, 80-20) in favor of candidate A. The other two states are evenly divided. If we use a popular election, candidate A wins handily, even if 20 people in state A get sick. If we use a system like the one we have in place, candidate B has a pretty reasonable chance, and no matter what his victory/defeat will APPEAR to have been decided by only a few people.

Natapoff contends that this is a good thing, because since MORE people like candidate A, candidate A is in fact Satan, and only by virtue of the electoral college can our dark master be prevented from ascending once more to his throne.

Trust me, it's all in there.

Re:KEEP THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE!

[Steve B]

Physicist Alan Natapoff studied the system and published a 1996 paper outlining why, mathematically, the Electoral College actually gives MORE power to the individual voter at the local level.

The Electoral College does not give more overall power to individual voters; it redistributes the individual voters' power. If you cast a Presidential vote in Florida, the election just might hang on your decision -- if you cast a Presidential vote in Massachusettes... well, I hope you had a pleasant little walk on your way to the polling place because that's all you got out of it.

That's not to say that the Electoral College is a bad idea. It does serve a useful function in impelling candidates to address a wide range of regions rather than just piling up huge vote counts in one local bloc.
/.

Re:The media

[rodentia]

The panhandle is central time, but the polls close at the same time across the state, opening and closing an hour earlier in Pensacola, by the clock.

Re:doesn't help

[TheVoteIsACoinToss]

Actually, it's NOT a big difference. Consider this: there were 5816467 total Bush and Gore voters in Florida, as of the current tally, with 1805 the count in Bush's favor.

The possibilities:

1) All Florida Bush or Gore voters went to their polling stations yesterday and punched a line out on the ballot for their candidate. The individual ballots were tallied.

2) All Florida Bush or Gore voters went to their polling stations yesterday and flipped a fair coin. A heads was tallied for Bush, a tails for Gore.

Are these possibilities distinguishable statistically? As it currently stands, no.

The distribution of random processes such as a coin toss are goverened by Poisson statistics, also known as the counting statistics. The mean width of such a distribution is simply the square root of the total counts. In this case, thats:

sqrt(5816467)=2412

Larger than the difference between them! So, independent of finer-grained district-based tallying in Florida, the coin-toss hypothesis is just as likely as the voter choice hypothesis. If you gave the numbers to a statistician, and asked them to prove a bias in either direction, he would be unable to.

If you doubt the accuracy of this statistic, pick your favorite programming language with an accurate pseudo-random number generator with large enough cycle period, generate 5816467 0's or 1's randomly, count them into n[0] and n[1], and look at the difference between n[0] and n[1]. Repeat this many times, and average the absolute difference. Your answer will converge to the square root in several hundred runs.

This is scary.

Military vote is NOT generally Republican --agreed

[Ken Broadfoot]

I was in the Air Force for seven years. The most vocal folks are very republican however the vote still splits about even. There is a larger percentage of minorities, AND believe it or not a larger percentage of Gay and Lesbians than people would think.

Re:"Keeping his word..."

[sconeu]

Doesn't matter. Even if Gore's concession wasn't retracted, if the electoral vote put him on top, he wins the presidency. There ain't nothing in the Constitution about "The winner of the Electoral College Vote is the President unless he concedes."

Re:Electoral College GOOD

[SL33Z3]

Where I think think the electoral college goes wrong is that it IS a winner take-all system for each state. That means that if the state votes 50%-49%-1% between three candidates, the entire state's electoral vote is cast toward the 50% winner. I like what Maine and Nebraska do -- split it up by region. This is ultimately fair because then the elector is voting in favor of the people in the region -- not simply agreeing with the rest of the electors.

Right then...

[_anomaly_]

according to your logic, Bush should have backed out too to just leave Gore the remaining candidate, since (in your eyes) Gore is the end-all, be-all presidential candidate. why was Nader being "egomaniacal", but it was OK for Bush to give Gore some competition for the oval oriface?
i'm sorry if you take this as an insult, but it's ideologies like yours that'll bring this country to the point where you have a choice between Mr. Dictator and..... Mr. Dictator.
if Gore had energized his liberal base, he wouldn't have had to worry about Nader.
this is just the words that many of the bleeding-heart liberals are spewing about the air waves because the taste of defeat is becoming too strong.

Re:Right then...

[The Toad]

Bzzzt! Wrong.

What I am saying is that Nader was running on a platform that supposedly embraces such things protecting the environment. By tipping the scale in favor of Bush, he will have caused irraperable harm to what he claims to support. He is a hypocrite.

And what the hell does that have to do with dictatorships?

All a viable 3rd party candidate will do is bleed enough votes away from the other candiadte with the closest views and pracically guarantee that the least popular candidate wins. (see posts here from canadians about the split in their conservative party)

Re:Right then...

[The Toad]

And don't worry about insulting me. It's difficult to take anything you're saying seriously.

Re:Your right... your vote doesn't count

[Ondo]

Sure... your vote didn't count unless you live in Florida....

or in Iowa with 6,000 votes keeping Bush from beating Gore

or in New Hampshire with 7,000 votes keeping Gore from beating Bush (Nader took 22,000 BTW)

or in Wisconsin with 6,000 votes keeping Bush from beating Gore

I don't know about you, but most people (I hope) only have one vote. Not 10,000. So unless you can point out a case where one vote would change the election, one particular individual couldn't have changed things with their vote.

Re:Nader, etc

[balthan]

Nope. You'll kill the elective power of small states, as has been explained many, many times.

Oh, and people are just on the edge of their seats right now to see who wins Oregon.

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[Ondo]

If your going to end the electoral college, you should also end the Senate, as it's based on the same thing.

Re:Nader

[SpryGuy]

Do you understand how plurality voting works? It's only fair and accurate if there are *exactly* two and ONLY two parties running.

A plurality voting system allows a majority party to be 'split' by a third party (in this case, Nader, pulling from the left), thus allowing a minority party (Bush) to win the election even though a MAJORITY of people don't want him in office.

Nader was well aware of this. And the results show that in several states, Nader took several times as many votes as the margin by which Bush took the state from Gore. Exit polling showed quite clearly that Nader voters, if they had to choose between Gore and Bush, would choose Gore overwhelmingly... while small percentages would go to other, and the rest would just not vote.

Nader, in his greed and inability to compromise, threw this election to Bush. All people voting for Nader, ended up having the effect of voting AGAINST the environment and AGAINST labor, achieving the exact opposite of what they were hoping to vote FOR.

In a real voting system, like the Borda count or the approval voting system, Gore couldn't have possibly lost the election to Nader, and it's highly likely that Nader would have simultaneously done a lot better.

Do I blame Nader and Nader-voters? Yes. They're short-sighted and over-zealous, and cost Gore the election. But I also blame the voting system. Nader has lost ALL my respect (along with most Nader voters, especially in the battle-ground states). And so has the plurality voting system.

- Spryguy

Re:NADER WINS!

[ElusiveSpoon]

Now all of this brew-ha-ha has to deal with the Electoral College. Now if you remember the purpose of the Electoral College was to protect the people from themselves, because, well lot's of people are stupid and might just vote a complete moron into the White House. Yet if the Electoral College is going to protect us from the ignorant voter, Nader should win!

"When are people going to learn, democracy doesn't work"
-Homer Simpson.

Re:Nader Ruined the Economy.

[Golias]

Tax cut will be good for a little while, then the evil inflation demon will start to chew on your wallet.

People like you said the same thing before the Reagan tax cuts. The "misery index" (unemployment + inflation) was thought to be a constant. A tax cut would create runaway inflation. It was dogmatic law.

After the '81 tax cuts, inflation and unemployment both went down... way down.

The case could be made that the '86 and '90 tax hikes could be partly responsible for the recession that cost Bush his re-election.

You were wrong then, and you are wrong now.

Re:Nader

[SpryGuy]

I think you're the retarded one.

Nader split the liberal voting majority, allowing the minority candidate, Bush, get elected. By staying on the ballot, he caused the election to go to someone who opposes everything he stands for. The plurality voting system only works correctly when there are exactly two choices. Nader served as the spoiler, and allowed the will of the people to be ignored. Of course, some of the blame goes to the voting system too, but Nader should have been smarter, and less ego-driven and uncompromising.

- Spryguy

Re:Mistaken vote for Buchanan

[sdo1]

Good graphic of the ballot. And I fail to see how anyone could screw that up. It's not like there's a row of holes on the right side of the ballot to confuse things. They're right down the middle.

If someone screwed up because they were too dense, well too bad.

-S

It's confirmed you don't know what you talking

[A Bugg]

about. you know last time i checked as long as a candidate filed the correct papers they could run for president. so nader was in every right to run, he had a cause and wasn't going to back down even if he would have rather had gore over bush, because he didn't agree with them and thats why he was running, he wanted to change things and maybe this might change a few things. oh and if bush wins you know something, it wasn't nader that cost gore the election it was bush, yeah thats right bush, because we just given bush's votes to gore he would have won. you know it pisses me off to no end that people can say that nader cost gore the election, you know why in the hell should any nader supporter vote for gore if they don't agree with what he has to say, and do agree with what the green party says. people are allowed to vote for who they thing will do the best job and if that means they don't vote for A and vote for C, and it turns out that B wins, thats just to bad, cause thats the way democracy works, don't like it fine, go somewhere else. and yes i recognize the problems with the electoral college but it is still how the president it decided, "probably not for much longer after this election though". and as others have stated gore cost gore the election, and no one else.

a Bugg

Re:Nader, etc

[Nezalhualixtlan]

"Yes, it is. If the Electoral College goes away, the candidates will pander to the large population centers. They do that now, but not to the degree they would with a purely popular vote. The farmers would kiss their representation goodbye. If we abolish the Electoral College, we might was well have population-based representation in the Senate. Why would we want one without the other?"

The point is that each CITIZEN, not each STATE, would have equal representation if we went by a popular vote.

Before anyone jumps all over me though, I think a compromise would be in order. Do not get rid of the electoral college, and maintain the number of electoral votes each state gets. THEN, have the states divide their alloted electoral votes percentage-wise by their own popular vote. That way, if a state has say 30 electoral votes, and one candidate wins the state by a 2 to 1 popular vote, one candidate gets 20 and the other gets 10. If they split 49/49/2 between 3 candidates, then two get 17.15 votes, and one gets .7: Sure this has its problems as we currently don't split a full vote, but it does seem to make more sense to me. Just a thought.

Re:Nader

[invenustus]

This is a recurring problem that the left has which the right successfully avoids--no one on the left knows how to compromise.

Actually I see the opposite as the right's problem. The reason John McCain and Pat Buchanan posed no threat to Bush is that they have Rush Limbaugh on the radio for three hours every day towing the party line and keeping all the faithful in line. Bush was able to abandon his party's core constituency but keep their votes through fear. Sad, really. Buchanan and McCain were the real thing for conservatives, not just corporate pawns....

Re:Military vote is NOT generally Republican --agr

[stew777]

I'm just a kid taking 12th grade american history here in Canada, but I think your a bit confused about how the parties have evoolved. In the begining (I think) ther were republicans and federalists. The federalista were for strong national gov (like the present day democrats), and the republican (there we're actually a bunch of different republicans like jacksonian-republicans and stuff... but forget that) were for states rights and that stuff like the republicans now. Around the civil war though they made a complete switch and the republicans we're for strong national government (Lincon and all that) and the democrats for states rights and slavery and that stuff (claiming the 'republican' Lincon as the republican in the modern sense is bullshit.. he was REALLY a democrat! :). After this and leading into the 1930's and stuff is when you think of the ol' southern democrats (who we're supported majorly by the KKK among others)... however, they made another complete switch (the new deal onwards) where the Democrats once again became the party of the left, for strong government and monority rights, while the Republicans moved back over to the right and we're for segregation and all that. The Southern governors and such your thinking of from the civil rights movement wern't really Democrats, just holdovers from the last switch.. and this is where things stand today..

...blacks (and other minorities) supporting the party of Lincon and the left, while white, country folk, support the Republicans...

Now if you we're a ethnic minority (black, asian, etc...) or a religious minority (athiest, wicka, etc...) or some other identifiable group (homosexuals, women, desabled persons, etc..) you certainly wouldn't vote for the popularist republicans who are against progressive civil rights legislation, open immigration, abortion rights, gay rights.. and with their overwhelmingly pro christian, pro big business stance (or atleast that's how I'd feel.. lucky me I don't live in your fucked up country with your messed up political system).

Electoral fraud seems increasingly likely

[ODL]

As well as dubious voting forms (Sun sen tinel (florida local)), you have to remember that Florida has always been notoriously corrupt when it comes to elections. Xavier Suarez, a Hispanic Independent, managed to get dead people voting for him. In 1990, Bush (senior) appointed him to serve on the board of Legal Services. Also bear in mind that George Bush senior (who was CIA chief before president) was involved in the rigging of various foreign elections (Panama, Nicaraua, Haiti etc). Good practice no doubt. I'm sure it helps that Jeb runs Florida..... You can see how much power the Bush family has by the way it crushed the story about W forcing his girlfriend to have an abortion in the 70s and covering it up (source 1 .. source 2 )

Oswald Defense Lawyer

Re:Electoral fraud seems increasingly likely

[Smarter Than Gore]

Since you're listing election fraud, I'm surprised you didn't mention the most blatantly overt case of election impropriety yesterday. It was perpetuated by the Democrates in St. Louis who had a Democrat Judge keep the polls open late. The polls were closed in the rest of the state while the Dems attempted to stack the vote. (St. Louis is overwhelmingly Democrat) Cheaters. An appeal by Republicans closed the booths one hour late.

Re:Voting is idealistic

[nevets]

It's like throwing a piece of garbage on the ground and saying that one piece of garbage won't harm anything.

But if you get thousands or millions of people who share that same thought, is when you get into trouble.

I like to think that this is like infinity times zero. Which one wins? My vote may not count, but the fact that I vote does!

Didn't Gandhi (however you spell it) say "What you do is not important, but it is very important that you do it".

Steven Rostedt

Re:No link, but here's the short of it.

[AntiPasto]

I wish to applaud you, thank you.

----

Re:Supreme Court / reproductive rights

[Xerithane]

Ah - I got that part, apparently just didn't find it funny :)
I have someone in my in-law family apologizing for my unborns children life in such a poor country when Bush was declared winner last night.. it was rather amusing..

Re:With an election this close ..

[AnarchySoftware]

.. why don't they create a dual-presidency?

I'd prefer a duel presidency (ala Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton). Fifty paces, small sidearms, you know, the gentlemanly kind of thing.

Re:The fix is in?

[The_Steel_General]

I'm reminded of the poker game in The Sting:

Lonnegan (the villain) stacks the deck to give himself four nines and Gondorf (the hero) four threes.

Gondorf manages to replace the four threes with four jacks, winning the game.

Later, Lonnegan yells at his henchman,"What was I supposed to do -- call him for cheating better than me?!"

TSG
Who doubts anyone in Florida was cheating.

Re:Nader

[Falshire]

Did you see the split in the votes last night? Half the country doesn't wan the other guy to be president

Actually...Since only half the country voted on election day, you can really only say that 25% of the country believes that one guy or the other will screw up.

If you take the time to look at the actual numbers, you will find that most Americans are:

Fiscally Conservative - meaning they want more of their money to stay their money

Socially Liberal - meaning they believe in Social Security, Medicare, and similar govt programs and in a lot of cases favoring abortion.

In a way that may seem very contradictory, but think about it for a while...It makes real sense....

Re:Nader

[Nissyen]

I think Nader did put his energy into the liberal states. He was the only candidate to visit Massachusetts (excluding the day of the debate in Boston). And he held huge rallies in New York. I was disappointed that he didn't run any of his T.V. ads in Mass, where I think he could have gotten 10% of the vote.

I do agree though, that he should have abandoned campaigning in battleground states because in New England alone he could have raised the 5% necessary without changing the electoral votes in those states. I don't regret voting for Nader, and in the end if Gore loses he lost to Bush, not to Nader, but I think Nader's campaign should have been more focused on the 5%. I for one wanted to see the Greens get matching money.

Re:Misprinted ballots

[Ded Bob]

No Bush people were involved as far I have heard. According to ABC News they were sample ballots handed out by volunteers. I assume they were the people helping out at the polling booths. For all we know, they were all Democrats.

Re:Nader

[Master Bait]

I have a completely different take on Nader. He self-destructed the goals of the Green Party to capture 5% of the electorate by campaigning in the Gore-Bush tossup states.

Nader is a vindictive bastard. He was attracted to screw up Gore's chances in the tossup states because of the 'power' it gave him. But now the Greens don't get wads of free money for the next general election.

Any idiot would have put their efforts into the most liberal states, such as New York, Mass., etc. etc. to snatch a nationwide 5% popular vote instead of the close Wisconson, Oregon, etc.

Goodbye Greens. Good riddance.

blessings,

Sorry, these charges have no merit

[winwar]

I too saw a picture of the ballot. It was only confusing if you weren't paying attention.
If someone didn't take the time and effort to understand who they you were voting for and how to do so, there is no sense whining about it later.
I think it is called taking responsibility for your actions.

Re:Nader

[ruin]

oes to show that a vote for Nader was a vote for Bush all along, Nader appears to have cost Gore Oregano, Ohio, and Florida. Sure hope he sleeps well

Polls for Nader before the election put him at about five or six percent. The percent of people who actually voted for Nader is two or three percent. That means that a substantial number of people were swayed by the Democratic party's extortion towards voting for Gore.

The people who voted Nader this election are the people who are not going to vote for Gore. Don't let anyone tell you Gore didn't lose this election all by himself. He even lost his home state, fer chrissake.

I voted for Nader in Oregon, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

--

Re:Nader

[Zebbers]

shut the fuck up crybaby
Dont dick with anybodies right to vote for anybody they damn well please

Re:Very strange results

[Trepidity]

AFAIK they have been added, but it really doesn't matter - the Florida vote is pretty much tied and the Oregon vote won't have more than a few thousand votes difference. Since Gore is leading by 200,000 votes nationally something would have to change significantly for him to not win the popular vote.

Conspiracy

[ben_CU]

Might want to look into Bush's association with Skull and Bones. Don't believe me/don't know what skull and bones is? do a little research and I think you'll see what I'm getting at.

"Who was the fool, who the wise man, beggar or king? Whether poor or rich, all's the same in death." --unknown

gwbush.com parody site hijacked

[kshapar]

The original Bush parody site at http://www.gwbush.com, the one Bush tried to shut down and that caused him to say "there ought to be limits to freedom" (and which had been up at least to this morning), has been hijacked by a totally different site having nothing to do with politics. Tracert reveals some interesting IPs without further domain identication.

Speak freely while you still can.....

Re:There is nothing wrong with the voting system

[darkwing_bmf]

I went to Harry Browne's web page today, and I can say I am honestly supprised that more Slashdotters weren't in favor of him. Or rather, I'm supprised that more favored Nader (by # of posts) than Browne. Nader is really far left. He wants to turn us into just another socialist European nation. There is a reason America won both World Wars, and it wasn't because of big government. We are neither socialist nor totalitarian, and we never should be. However, as time goes on, more and more power is accumulated by Washington and taken away from the States and the people.

Browne is the candidate for the Constitution of the United States of America!

Re:Nader Ruined the Economy.

[Millennium]

but under the electoral college system, a vote from North Dakota counts as much as two point nine votes from California

Except that under the electoral college system, popular votes within a state are only counted against other votes from within that state, so one vote always equals one vote. Because the popular vote is decided on a statewide and not nationwide level, things even out.

You rightly claim that someone only taking 100% of the vote in the 10 largest states would win in a direct election, but miss the entire point that this is 50% of the people in the country.

Except that that 50% lives in a comparatively small part of the nation. Further, under current conditions, the vast majority of that 50% lives in urban areas, which leads to a rather unfair as. That has to be balanced out by some means, or the election is not fair.

And should some intransigent individuals in one of those ten states vote for the other candidate, depriving our "big-state" candidate of his majority, then votes in the small states are equally as important as their colleagues in the big states.

Nope. Then, if you want to keep following statistics, it goes to the 11th largest state. Then to the twelfth. And so on, and soforth, until you hit the needed majority, and none of the votes in any of the states smaller than that mean a thing.

A single voter in a small state can affect the outome of the election, even if the rest of the state votes for the other candidate.

Only in truly exceedingly rare circumstances. Take even this current election. Were it done by popular vote now, all of the votes in Florida that have yet to be counted would be totally meaningless. But because the election is decided state-by-state, they still have a chance to mean a great deal.

Each vote means more when it's in as small an election as possible. That's simple statistics. The electoral college is a way of breaking up one large election into many small elections (one per state), so that each individual vote means as much as possible in that state. But this is balanced by the fact that the number of electoral votes each state gets is based on its population.

For example, let's look at our North Dakotan vs. our Californian. In the statewide election, the North Dakotan's vote has 2.9 times the clout of the Californian's. However, the North Dakotan's vote will only influence three electoral votes, while the Californian's vote will influence many more than that. In the end they balance out, so that the North Dakotan's vote means as much as the Californian's did. And thus, we come back full-circle to a one-man, one-vote system, where no one vote can mean more than any other, regardless of geographic location.

And yes, occasionally we do get an anomaly where the electoral and popular votes disagree (I call this an "electoral hiccup.") The rate of them, assuming Bush wins, will be slightly less than 10%, and we've actually been long overdue for one if you look from the statistical point of view. That's not a perfect system by any means. Neither, though, is the case where 20% of the states decides the whole election; that's an even more severe hiccup. Further, as more and more states enter the Union, the rate of hiccups decreases dramatically (this is the only one in over a hundred years). The whole point of an electoral system is to minimize these hiccups. You can never get rid of them, no. But this is the fairest system I've seen yet.

Hey, there are far worse systems out there. What if the party that got the most votes took all the seats in Congress, for example? Some systems do it that way.
----------

Re:Nader

[SpryGuy]

That would be nice, but in a plurality voting system, it doesn't work out that way.

If we had approval voting or a Borda count system in place, then all you say would be true, there would be no controversy, no candidate could ever 'steal' an election from another, and the effect on this race is that Gore would be president with the biggest popular and electoral vote, and the Nader people wouldn't have to be worrying about oil exploration in Alaska or even more corporate power being locked up by the monolithic corporations while the individual loses even more ...

Demand not only campaign finance reform, but demand voting system reform.

- Spryguy

Re:"Republic" not synonymous with "Electoral Colle

[hellfire]

But what he says made sense way back when and it still makes sense.

The greatest annoyance that the founding fathers left us was the system of States. Since the first constitutional talks, states were constantly fighting over who had the power. Large states wanted to leverage their population, and small states wanted to have a say without getting drowned out.

Now states have continued this tradition in being highly segregated in terms of politics. New Jersey is different from New Yort is Different from Connecticut even though they are all right next to each other. In fact often the take slight advantage of each other (note Connecticut has no sales tax so everyone shops there instead of in New York in order to save money)!

However, New York has a much higher population. Whats to say connecticut doesn't have some valid reasons for letting their views be represented in a presidential election and not get drowned out by the millions of people who live in new york?

Now that he posted this i understand the college completely.

And the fact remains that the founding fathers knew one thing: The state system is really fucked up but we have to compensate for it because the small states are gonna whine about the big states!

So the problem can be fixed by abolishing states rights so we can stop all this whining about who is more important in this country and get on with our lives. Try mentioning the phrase "we should abolish states rights" in a restaurant in Texas or South Carolina and see how many people want to kill ya. I dare ya :)

Re:Bush wins internet vote???

[dohnut]

Seems about right...

The exit polls showed as personal income rose so did the tendency to vote republican. Also, statistics have shown that persons with higher incomes are also more likely to have Internet access.

Slashdot is not the Internet. If slashdot were the Internet, it still would be a close race, but Nader would have got 14% of the vote, Browne would have got 7%, and last, but not least, Jeff would have garnered 3%.. ;)

Re:Nader

[SpryGuy]

in the end if Gore loses he lost to Bush, not to Nader

No duh, but Gore does lose BECAUSE of Nader.

I for one wanted to see the Greens get matching money.

Yeah, look at all the good those matching dollard did for the Reform party! Boy, screw the entire nation and put Bush in the whitehouse all for a bit of public funds that aparently wouldn't help one bit anyway! Thanks a lot!

- Spryguy

NBC Coverage

[marmol]

Anybody noticed that NBC had a "DECISION 2000" logo last night and this morning it changed to "INDECISION 2000" ?

The lighter side of the election

Re:Don't forget the absentees

[pfoorion]

Actually the current difference of 1,725 votes out of a total 5,969,805 total votes (figures verified on CNN.com and ABCNews.com) comes out to a 0.0289% difference. And that's no fuzzy math, either. I personally don't feel that a state-wide election could realistically be expected to be accurate to that sort of precision. One missing ballot box, accidental votes, any of those could make all the difference. To say you accurately picked who the people voted for when the margin is less than the number of votes for Worker's World candidate Moorehead (1818) is a little shaky.

Re:is military vote clear cut?

[Wonko the Sane]

In my few month of being overseas on a submarine, you see lots of curious locals in small boats sailing by to look at the ship. Most keep the required 300' distance, but a few come closer. The topside watch is supposed to make sure that none come too close, but the first instinct of most of them when they see a civilian craft is to grab the binoculars and look for topless sunbathers...
I'm sure this has changed a bit since the Cole incident, though.

Re:Nader Ruined the Economy.

[Golias]

Well, I disagree, because I don't want to live in a nation that is ruled by California, New York, and Texas.

That said, even if we were going to switch to popular vote, it should not effect the outcome of this election.

Bush spent almost no time in California, because he know it would go to Gore, and playing by the rules he was better off trying to pick up states like Ohio, Washington, and Florida.

Bush did very well in his home state of Texas with the Hispanic vote. Between the Hispanics and the military bases in California, Bush could easilly have won a larger minority if he spent time and money trying to rally Republican turn-out. It's not too much of a stretch to imagine that probably could have done about 2-5% better, effectively erasing Gore's "popular vote" advantage in the national election... but he was campaigning to win electoral votes.

Even though I am not a Bush supporter, it is obvious that it would be unfair to suddenly overturn his election based on raw popular number.

Real Political Itinaries

[NetWurkGuy]

Actually in the case of either direct popular vote or, approximately the same thing, the Electoral College system with split votes, any candidate will head for whatever location has the highest concentration of "swing voters". The total number of electoral votes in the state that happens to contain such a concentration will be about as relevent as the number of letters in the name of the official state bird.

Under the EC+winner-take-all system candidates concentrate on "swing states" rather than "swing communities". Is this an advantage?

Re:Shell script to get latest Florida count from C

[Eponymous, Showered]

Another way would be to go to CNN.com

Re:The fix is in?

[elfkicker]

Buchanan supporters are clearly rightwing conservatives. To say that most true Buchanan voters would prefer to see Gore in office over Bush is just plain silly.

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[sadr]

First, the executive branch isn't representative of the people's will. It implements the Constitution.

Second, we aren't a democracy. We are a constitutional republic. There's a tremendous difference.

Last, Clinton certainly didn't get any kind of majority in either of his terms. Didn't stop him from acting as president.

Re:So much for Voter Apathy

[wflu]

When did 65% start to mean "not bad"? Everybody's talking about how the country is split down the middle when one third of the country didn't even bother to vote implying that "they just don't care". IMHO, 65% is better than what we have seen in the past, but still nowhere near what it should be.

Just my two/fifths of a nickel...

Re:Nader, etc

[Ondo]

For those of you who cast a vote for Nader because you're sick and tired of the system and think both major parties are incurably corrupt, congratulations. You have accomplished -nothing- beyond satisfying your own smug little idealistic worldview. You might as well have written in MC Hammer, Snoopy, or the Magic School Bus, because nobody besides the two major candidates had any chance of winning the election, and protest votes are historically forgettable.

You might as well have voted for Bush or Gore. Nader arguably could have made a difference by not running. Individual Nader supporters could not. Sure, nobody besides the two major candidates had any chance of winning the election, but the chance of one of the two major candidates winning the election because they won your state by one vote isn't real high either.

If you measure the value of a vote by whether it changes the election than of course a vote for a third party candidate is wasted. Every vote for a presidential candidate in the history of the US was wasted by that criteria.

Re:Nader, etc

[ftobin]

My goodness, such clarity. Why can't I see more intelligent posts like this? (I'm not being sarcastic).

Re:Fair is fair. Perot ruined Bush in 1992.

[porges]

Not according to exit polling. Perot took both from conservatives, thus from Bush, and from "we want a change" voters, thus from Clinton. Clinton would have won anyway.

Now, in 1996, the Perot vote did come out of the Republican vote, but it wasn't enough to change that result either.

Voter turnout higher than ever!

[darkwing_bmf]

I like your post about vote rigging. I can see the headlines now :

Voter turnout highest in decades: 110% reporting.

Re:The media

[The Toad]

Which is why I think *all* polls in the US should open and close at exactly the same time, regardless of time zone. Also, the polls should be open for a minimum of 48 hours, preferably 72. Most votes should be mail-in or via internet (assuming both can be made verifiably more secure than the current in-person systems that are most popular).

I sat in front of the TV watching the commentators pontificate until they nearly passed and I wanted to hear the results of the exit polls, but I think the less accurate the exit polls are, the better (hence my preference for mail-in and internet voting) because if they are known to be less accurate, then people are more likely to ignore them.

I also think alternate voting systems would be a good thing, such as the two systems explained in an article recently referenced in a slashdot article (sorry, I can't find it right now, but it was something along the lines of the methods listed here). Preferential systems of voting would, I think, make third-party candidates more viable and less damaging.

And while I'm at it, why not switch to a parliamentary government where we can have better proportional representation of the public's wishes?

Of course, none of these things seem likely to happen, some less so than others.

Re:Nader cost Gore what?

[SpryGuy]

Wrong. At the end of the first count, Bush carried Florida by 2000 votes. In the recount, Gore has picked up 23 votes so far with four precincts reporting. At that rate, he cannot reclaim the state. If the recount puts it too close (say, Bush or Gore by less than 100 votes), there is likely to be a third re-count...

- Spryguy

Why the U.S. won't get rid of the EC

[Sodium Attack]

I don't see the U.S. getting rid of the electoral college any time soon.

To do that would require a constitutional amendment. To pass a constitutional amendment, it must be ratified by 3/4 of the states--38 states. If there are at least 13 states that won't ratify an amendment, it won't pass.

The electoral college gives more power to the voters of some states, at the expense of others. Voters in less populous states have more voting power than they would in a direct popular vote. This is because each state gets N+2 electoral votes, where N is more or less proportional to population. The "+2" increases the power of smaller states proportionately more than those of larger states.

Also, with an electoral college, voters in states which are often closely divided have more power than they would under a direct popular vote, at the expense of voters in states which always go strongly towards one party or the other.

Switching to a direct popular vote would take power away from those states where voters currently have above-average influence on the result of the election. Now, I haven't done a state-by-state analysis, but are there at least 13 such states which would lose voting power by switching to a popular vote? I certainly imagine so. Will those states ratify a constitutional amendment to use a popular vote to elect the president? Of course not!

Re:Why the U.S. won't get rid of the EC

[yulek]

And if you think about it, this is the way it should be. The states with the largest Electoral Vote counts are states with big cities. It's unclear what the right balance is, to me, but I'm sure that a pure popular vote is unfair considering that urban folk and rural folk have tremendously different needs from the government. Since many of the smaller states actually have an important economic function (think food production) you can't just discount them because they have a smaller population than states like NY with cities like NYC.

In other words, I believe a purely popular vote would give too much power to the cities, and I don't think that's such a good idea (fyi, I've been a city dweller all my life so I'm not being biased here).

Now you could argue that this is what the state governments are for, but remember that the president does get to propose and veto things like budget which includes farm subsidies, educational reforms, and so on; and other legislature that can be quite differentiating for urban vs. rural dwellers. I really think that we would be naive to believe that a simple majority vote in the election of the president is what should decide the president.

-y

Re:If the Electoral College was a ...

[Chuck Milam]

If the Electoral College was a ...
...software system which looked great, performed for twenty years without fail, and then suddenly crashed, fucking up lots of valuable data, would we still use it?

No, better yet: We would run to the new system (the implementation of which probably caused the old system to crash in the first place) with open arms, eagerly shedding all vestigages of the older, reliable system in favor of the new one which crashed much more frequently, but had lots of pretty colors and pictures for the masses to gawk at.

Don't believe me? Please see: Windows NT.

Re:a deserter is better than ...

[S_hane]

Hmmm - seems to me you believe that everybody who gets pregnant is a whore or a slut.

Ever heard of Rape? People like you make me sick.

-Shane Stephens

Re:Military vote is NOT generally Republican --agr

[stew777]

actually.. what you said reminds me of what Jaques Parizo (bad spelling) said after he lost the last referendum (which, much like you now in the states, had a majority of the white/french population voting for sovernity while the large immigrant vote went to the no)...

To pararhrase hae said.. "We (i.e. White/French/Christian people) voted Yes, it was big money (i.e. the Jews.. which is rediculious) and the Ethnic vote (non-white french) that lost it for us" ...ANY chance they ever might have had at winning a future referendum we're lost with thoes words (along with his job)... now if dumb ass George Dubua' would come out and say this (true as it may be) I bet the next election wouldn't be nearly as close :)

Re:what really gets me...

[Random Utinni]

There's just one thing that keeps me from thinking like you do... From talking to people who are Libertarians, I've found that they're generally very smart, intelligent people. It really wouldn't suprise me if the Libertarian party was comprised of people who, on average, fall in the top 70% or so of the population, where intelligence is concerned. Of course you can do better than the gov't can when it comes to planning, financial or otherwise.

What I've come to realize is this: Take a moment, and think of the intelligence of the average American. Think of all the stupidity that's out there, and think about where that falls... probably fairly close to average. Then think of the definition of average. Assuming that intelligence in the population is more or less a standard bell curve, this means that a sizeable chunk of the population is *dumber* than average. Can you really expect these idiots to plan for themselves? Do you really think that they are capable of providing for themselves in an increasingly information-based economy?

The post you replied to was a little too inflammatory to get its point across, but the poster had the right idea. You, as an intelligent person, are *not* the type of person that makes up American society. It's unfortunate, but true. While you can do a better job of financial planning then the government, I'd say the government does a much better job of financial planning than the bulk of American citizens.

The question then becomes, do we say that these poor idiots are doomed to failure and poverty, or do we use taxpayer money to help them along... I say the latter. If you disagree here, then that's your right, and we go our seperate ways. But I think that this is the issue at heart.

Re:Nader

[Chris Burke]

No, the most worthless is Buchanan, and next to nobody voted for him.

But the point is that the degree of worthlessness between Gore and Bush isn't enough to make me, and 2.6 million other Nader supporters, vote for either of those worthless sacks.

Besides, look at how many voted for Bush. They don't think he's worthless, and are probably happy. If Gore really wanted to win, he should have focused on them.

Re:Could someone explain that College stuff?

[maxmutt]

The electoral college is a like middleware between the popular vote and the actual election of the presidential office.

Every state gets a number of electoral votes equal to the number of seats in the house of Representatives that they have, plus 2 for the senators. (seats in the House are detemined by population, every State gets 2 seats in the senate regardless of population), Washington DC also gets 3 Electoral votes.

The States have the power to detemine who the Electoral College members are.

a quote from Section 1 of Articel 2 of the US Constitution:

"The electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves. And they shall make a list of all the persons voted for, and of the number of votes for each; which list they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted. The person having the greatest number of votes shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such majority, and have an equal number of votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately choose by ballot one of them for President; and if no person have a majority, then
from the five highest on the list the said House shall in like manner choose the President. But in
choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by States, the representation from each state
having one vote; A quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. In every case, after the choice of the President, the person having the greatest number of votes of the electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal votes, the Senate shall choose from them by ballot the Vice President."

So, the State Electoral College members can actually vote for anyone they wish, in any numbers that they wish. Not a winner take all proposition as is usually assumed.

The States send the results to the Congress that tallies the results. If there is no clear winner, the House of Representatives then takes it's own vote, repeating this until a decision is reached.

To give you some idea; I have heard, some of the original signers of the constitution expected this full process to be followed 19 out of 20 elections.

how do they know

[awarlaw]

they voted the wrong way?

Re:The mathematics of America's voting system

[seer]

There _is_ another system, called "Approval Voting" that is basicly a "yes/no" for EACH person on the ballot. This, IMHO, is a far better way to vote! That way, you could say "YES" to Gore AND Nader and "No" to Bush and still have your complete point getting across without someone saying that so-and-so is "stealing" votes from someone else.

Think about it. If there are 6 people running (like there was in most states) than you could say "Yes" to each and every person you thought could handle running this country. Doesn't that sound more democratic? Doesn't that curtail (at least a little bit) the "two party dualopoly" that Nader talked about so much?

I'm not a Nader fan myself, but I would have liked to cast a vote for "Other". Personally, living in Humboldt County, CA I kind of wanted to vote for Frank Zappa. Sure he's dead, but why not? Couldn't do worse than Bush!

Re:Shell script to get latest Florida count from C

[Mike Bridge]

#!/bin/sh
lynx -dump http://www.cnn.com/ | grep -2 PRESIDENT | perl -e '
while()
{ $n[$i++] = $1.$2.$3 if (/\s(\d),(\d{3}),(\d{3})/) }
if ( $n[0] > $n[1] )
{ $difference = $n[0] - $n[1]; print "Bush winning by ".$difference." votes in Florida.\n" }
elsif ( $n[1] > $n[0] )
{ $difference = $n[1] - $n[0]; print "Gore winning by ".$difference." votes in Florida.\n" }
elsif ($n[1] == $n[0])
{ print "Its a tie!\n" }
else
{ print "I have no idea who is winning....\n" }'

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[logicTrAp]

OK that was pretty inarticulate of me. What I'm trying to get across is that while the electoral college may make it easier to get a clear majority, it does that at the cost of making the result moderately arbitrary - in this election Gore will win the popular vote, but is going to lose the electoral vote because of Nader. The irony is that the majority of people in Florida (51%) voted for a Liberal - Gore (49%) and Nader (2%) but they've elected a conservative. Given that the electoral college has various other features which are bad IMO, the fact that it provides an arbitrary way to determine the winner of a close election seems like little comfort.

Re:is military vote clear cut?

[dangermouse]

Too bad. We're not going to fight a war just to keep the troops' spirits up.

Look, I understand your point that the military is trained to fight and is not particularly happy if it has no well-defined enemy. But sometimes the job of a standing army is just to stand.

Re:Nader

[MrGrendel]

I'm happy to compromise, but first I have to be included in the debate. Most of the issues that have driven Nader supporters away from the Democratic party are issues that neither of the major candidates care to discuss. When was there an honest debate about involvement in the WTO? Never -- the two parties agree on this issue. When has there been an honest debate about corporate wellfare and unreasonable tax breaks for corporations? Again, the two major parties have refused to take action on either issue, despite assurances that they would. When did either major party debate the scope and abuse of IP laws? When did they discuss cracking down on US corps commiting blatant human rights violations in third world contries? When did either Gore or Bush have a public debate with Nader? When did they make any effort to appeal to young voters?

The Democrats have no right to complain about a lack of compromise from the left wing when they are not willing to even engage in a discussion of the issues we care about.

Duh

[Aciel]

They should have used Linux.

Aciel
aciel@speakeasy.net

script to see who CNN thinks won the state

[CoughDropAddict]

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

print "CNN declares " . ("Bush", "Gore")[rand 2];
print " the winner of Florida\n";

--

Some actual data...

[talks_to_birds]

...shows what everyone is talking about in West Palm Beach county.

See: http://enight.dos.state.fl.us/report.asp?Date=0011 07 (click on President/Vice President in the left frame..)

This is county-by-county ballot counts for the State of Florida.

Pat Buchanan received a total of 16,989 votes in the entire state.

Buchanan's highest vote total was Palm Beach with 3,407 votes.

Buchanan's *next* highest was 1,012 in Pinellas.

Buchanan's **next** highest vote total was 845 in Hillsborough county.

In other words (or numbers..) Buchanan received 3.36 times more votes in Palm Beach than in his next highest county.

Another way to look at it is to see that in Palm Beach, Buchanan received 61% of the vote cast for Nader.

In Pinellas, Buchanan got 10% of Nader's vote; in Hillsborough Buchanan got 11.3%.

Another approach is to see that Buchanan received 20.05% of all votes cast for him in one county: Palm Beach.

Now, having said all that, I've looked at the ballot examples and in MNSHO you'd have to be pretty fsck'ing stupid to screw that one up...

...but, as everyone but the Libertarians know, there's a helluva lot of stupid people out there.

t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®

Re:There is nothing wrong with the voting system

[kfg]

There is nothing wrong with the electoral college, which still functions EXACTLY as it intended, to PREVENT the majority from tyrnnizing the minority.

The electoral college exists to protect small states from being bullied by larger more populous states, and it does it very well.

If you believe we live a democracy and that majority rules is the law of the land then you have some VERY serious misunderstandings of our system of government.

Go read a good book on the Constitutional debate and the Federalist Papers.

You'll find that the division of Congress into the house and senate, the cedeing of land from Virginia and Massachsetts AND the electoral college system are cooperating units in the attempt to foment * fairness* and *justice* into the democratic system.

Majority rules is tyranny, just like any other. Our founders feared it, and were RIGHT to do so.

Remember. Hitler was democratically *elected* to his office and the majority loved him.

Re:The media

[PurpleBob]

Whoa! 1770 people got to punch Buchanan? I want to punch him too!
--
Obfuscated e-mail addresses won't stop sadistic 12-year-old ACs.

Re:Absentee ballots - not just for GOPs anymore!

[drsoran]

That sucks. Thankfully my polling place wasn't very crowded at all. Went to lunch from work, went to my polling place at noon, and walked right in. There were about 5 people total there voting. hehe. The primary was the same way. I can't even imagine people waiting in a line. :-P

Yes, but you are the exception

[Tejota]

about 1/4 of Nader voters said that the would not have voted. 3/4 would have voted for Gore (by their own report) if Nader were not running.

More importantly, Nader KNEW this, and chose to campaign MOSTLY in the states where the margin between Gore and Bush was the narrowest.

In other words, he INTENDED to defeat Gore. Like most extremists, he hates people who agree with him one some issues less than those who disagree with him on all of them.

Which is precisely why he would make a lousy president. The man is incapable of compromise.

tj

Re:Illuminati

[weeeee]

I don't know. The best explanation I found for the Illuminati was actually in the Deus Ex Strategy Guide. In the back of the guide there is a plot spoiler that explains the whole plot (and stuff about the Illuminati). I'm not a big fan of the idea so I don't remember much but check it out, it might provide the information you need. Just grab some Joe and sit at a B&N and read.

The facts in the Palm Beach Scandal

[Philipp]

Since it is down to a few thousand votes, it might come down to this: The layout of the ballot sheet confused voters in Palm Beach and many mistakenly voted for Buchanan. Voters there are now planning to sue.

Here are the facts:

Buchanan received 16,962 votes statewide in Tuesday's election, but 3,407 of that -- about one-fifth -- came from Palm Beach County alone. By comparison, Buchanan received 561 votes in Miami-Dade and 789 in Broward County.
from the Miami Herald

A good picture (not just a diagram) can be found here.

Re:The facts in the Palm Beach Scandal

[btlzu2]

Yep, and you've got to be ONE FUCKING IDIOT not to follow the BIG BLACK ARROW to the hole you have to punch for your choice. This is only an issue because the Democrats risk losing. If you're a FUCKING IDIOT, you have just as much of a chance of making a mistake voting for Buchanan instead of Bush. This "argument" PISSES ME OFF IT'S SO STUPID!!!!!!! AAAAAGGGGGHH.

Re:other junk including the Roe vs Wade thing....

[Enigma2175]

If Utah wanted to say "We do not want abortion on demand in our state!", the people have NO power to pass such a law.

Utah did pass such a law. It was struck down, not because of the Federal Government, but because it was in violation of the Utah Constitution


Enigma

Re:Keep the campaign going!

[drsoran]

Which is why I'm curious... why aren't they calling it??? Last time I checked he was over 20000 votes ahead. That's a LOT more than in several other states where the difference was less than 6000 votes. I realize that Oregon is all mail in ballots but still. They should be able to extrapolate that Bush will win that state.

Re:Nader

[Kreeblah]

All I have to say about Nader and Gore is:

Bush, Clinton, Perot in '92

Re:With an election this close ��

[_Shad0w_]

iirc this actually what the Roman Republic had - two people sharing power, neither able to make a decision without the others agreement©

Caesar did for that though© He intimidated his opposite number until he was affraid to go out and perform his duties; all the power basicly then rested with Caesar©

I wonder if that makes him the first Italian Mafia Don©©©

My memory is a little flakey though, I could be wrong©

Illegal Ballots--- is this true?

[chamelion]

Well, I have my doubts about whether this is true but someone I know personally told me their friend at a polling company has been contacted because there are irregularities with the absentee voting cards. Even more amazing if true is that someone (a priest) found a ballot box which wasn't counted. Even though this comes to me through 2 degress of separation and from someone I know, I still have some serious doubts about the validity of this so don't hold me to this or accuse me of posting junk. However if true it would be very interesting and you read it here first! Florida is a very corrupt place so you never know!

Re:Very strange results

[Nick]

Regardless of which party you tend to affiliate with, election history shows that the Democrats are far more likely to "fix" an election than Republicans.

Using your logic it is then safe to assume that the Republicans are far more likely to wiretap, break and enter, sabatage and espianage Democratic campaign headquarters.

Re:"Republic" not synonymous with "Electoral Colle

[NetWurkGuy]

What you say makes some sense in the case of Congress, especially since there are Congressional districts and the views of, say, Long Island need not be "drowned out" by the views of New York City which has a much higher population. But the President is only one person and is expected to execute the laws of and represent the interests of the nation as a whole. This has nothing to do with "abolishing state's rights".

I have seen any number of rationales for keeping the current system but everyone of them has the common defect of losing sight of the purpose of having a Presidential election in the first place. The President is to represent the interests of the NATION.

Re:The Nader Effect

[PuppeteerJPV]

This has to be the stupidest thing i've heard so far... "a bunch of people... traded votes with a couple of "fools," and ended up voting for Bush anyways!" Let's examine this... say your "bunch of people" traded with a nader-voter, and reneged on the deal only to vote for the frat-spoiled-unemployed-idiot-boy, they've gained nothing. As a matter of fact, they hurt MoronBush's chances by causing the other person to vote for Gore. The other option is that your "funky bunch" traded with a gore-voter. In this case, they are half-helping the Gimpmaster's chance in the election, but essentially are only taking away Gore votes by causing Gore supporters to vote for Nader. This is a 1/2 vote, essentially. Ooh. The pain. Essentially, this is yet another Republican attempt at being sneaky which amounts to rampant idiocy. I traded with a voter in Texas who was quite happy about actually making her Gore vote count for something in Pennsylvania, as I am a Nader supporter. I see nothing wrong with working the system to make it work for you. I would rather have Gore (at least an EXPERIENCED and relatively competent politician) in office over a candidate whose chief qualifications are that his Daddy was the president. This is a guy who hasn't held a legitimate job in his life, and what few jobs he has held have been with companies that go rapidly down the toilet (not affecting his paycheck, of course) or were pre-set-up cash cows for him. He makes ME look like an over-achiever.

Re:Illuminati

[Goonie]

Yeah. By the way, does anyone know of a *coherent* explanation of the supposed Illuminati on the net somewhere? After playing Deus Ex, I wanted to satisfy my curiosity about them, but all the conspiracy theorist websites I found weren't too big on spelling or grammar. I don't think the people behind the idea are exactly rocket scientists :)

Re:Record Turnout

[ackthpt]

When I got home from doing patriotic and laundry duties, I turned on my laptop and went to the web. The info on TV was frustrating, with all the quips and gee whiz and such. I found what I wanted in about 10 minutes and had a steady stream of info on local, state and federal decisions. Given the choice of (a) having the info picked and spoon-fed to me OR (b) choosing my info source and feed (which may include more than just one site), I'll take (b) everytime. ABC's count by state was much better immediate gratification than the talking heads.

Don't even get me started on Bryant Gumbel reeling in his own awe on the boob toob, when I got immediated results off the web. Sorry. Even 99 channels on cable can't touch this.

--

32% of Nader supporter wouldn't have voted...

[Platonic1]

...according to exit polls. I think that many of Nader's supporters are new voters and people who might not have voted otherwise, so his impact on the result may not be that big at all.


_____________
I'll bet / with my Net / I can get / those things yet.

Re:Why Gore?

[Ranger Nik]

no-one really wants gore - which is his problem. but every person in their right mind (and that apparently excludes 50% of all americans) would vote _against_ bush.

the man is a dimwit [he proves that whenever his PR people take him off the leash], and an asshole to boot. i don't know _what_ bush will do with the country (kill more people? blame the internet for columbine? bring the kansas school guidelines to the rest of the states?) but it certainly won't be good... the only hope for bush is that he _will_ dance to the corporate music. hurrah corporations!

a foreigner in the US,
nik

P.S.

[kfg]

The electoral college has nothing to do with supporting the two party system. The two party system is supported by laws the parties themselves wrote when they came to power, because that is what parties DO. That is why Washington warned against parties in his farewell address to congress.

You will find that in virtually EVERY form of government there eventually arise two dominanant parties because that is the natural balance of power. Mutually opposed forces pushing and pulling at each other.

It dosn't have a damned thing to do with the electoral college system and Nader would STILL have placed third without it.

The danger is actually with the introduction of a small third party who can sell its politcal influence to either side for its own gain. THIS is the tyranny of the minority, and was well known to the founders, and they feared it even more than the tyranny of the majority. This is why we DON'T have a British style parliment.

Think about it. What if the Greens had just 3% of the vote nationwide and were * willing to trade those votes to one party or the other.*

That 3% minority would rule the other 97%.

THAT is scary.

The pluralistic ( i.e. MULTI party) republican structure INCLUDING the electoral college PREVENT this from happening.

Re:NADER WINS!

[JDooty1234]

Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I would not feel comfortable with electing a president with the first name, "Ralph". Just my one cent. I don't have enough cents to make two. "My cat's breath smells like cat food" --Ralph Wiggum, voiced by Nancy Cartwright

Re:a deserter is better than ...

[Forkenhoppen]

Abortion isn't the answer you stupid piece of ...

With all due respect, sir, it's people like you who give pro-life (or anti-choice, whichever one prefers) advocates a bad name. Please show a little restraint in the future. As any advocate will tell you, a convincing argument will get a lot better response than a flame any day.

I, personally, cannot offer any argument that would be likely to convince the general populace around here. And I doubt many posters would be interested in it after this.

In case any moderators are curious as to why I'm utilizing my +1 bonus on this post, it's to counterbalance another +1 response to this message, where the poster rightly discredited the original poster. I'd like people to believe that, even though our views may be different, there are some of us pro-lifers (or anti-choicers) who can at least be civil in a public forum.

James

Re:Interface Design

[Field Marshall Stack]

Here (provided Time hasn't moved things around in the meantime) you can find a picture of the ballot in question actually "in use". I can see where it'd be _very_ confusing, especially for someone who isn't forewarned that it's a "weird" ballot. First, the arrows do _not_ line up right, second, it's highly possible that someone could read the left side and not _notice_ the right side.
--
"HORSE."

Murder adults under the mask of the state?

[knewter]

I'm so extremely sorry, sir.

Surely your last comment was merely a joke. Assuming it wasn't, I'll give a little bit of a rebuttal to it by clarifying a couple of things...

Firstly, let me clarify the two issues in question: abortion and the death penalty. Now, on the abortion side we have the senseless murder of innocent children. Occasionally this is done under the facade of protecting the woman having the child. My first argument on that is the fact that she had the choice to have the child (excluding rape); what this means is that she could choose to bring the child into the world, but the child could not choose to be brought into the world. Assuming she had made a mistake, and it was endangering her, that still gives her no right to kill the innocent child. She could always have a Caesarian section as a possibility (this doesn't cover every situation, but the fact that she had the choice does cover every situation.). Regarding partial-birth abortion, they bring the child out feet first, which is what they try to avoid in every other delivery /because/ it can endanger the mother. They do this so that they can kill a baby at the last stages of birth without it's "mind" every physically exiting the womb. Somehow this makes it a non-person. But I digress...

Now, the death penalty is a completely different issue. Instead of murdering innocents, we're exacting punishment on the wicked and guilty. This is completely justifiable: Biblically, legally, and morally (which is inseperable from Biblical, IMHO). So we are not, apparently, even comparing apples and oranges (they're at least both members of the 'fruit' category). What we're comparing is closer to apples and orangutans. The death penalty is a moral, justifiable judgment on the guilty, while abortion is state-justified murder of innocents that our nation will inevitably pay for; that's all I have left to say about that issue.

Thanks,

--Josh Adams

Re:Nader Ruined the Economy.

[Quikah]

Inflation.

The economy has been too good, which is why the fed raised interest rates. The probelm is that you have a big tax cut and you will eventually need to raise the interest rates again.

Tax cut will be good for a little while, then the evil inflation demon will start to chew on your wallet.

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[aka_daedalus]

Last time I checked, Florida doesn't represent the entire population. Gore has the slight national lead of 48,873,524 to 48,640,101 Your assessment of the whole thing as "horseshit" is correct, however. You're just wrong in that one point.

Re:Nader Voter= idiots giving the country to Bush

[fcombine]

Lots of Democrats defected to another candidate as well, Bush. More than went to Nader, I'd bet. You saw how many states went to Bush that went to Clinton last time, and Nader wasn't even a factor in those.......

So why don't you stop being such a whiney little prat? You're only blaming Ralph Nader because that's the only target your media infected brain can find. It's the only reason the media outlets are giving you, so you're obediently parroting it around the net. It'd be cute if it wasn't so pervasive. You need more information, ya fool.

fc

Looks like only the truly confused could err.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Let's make that a link:

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/DailyNews/ ELECTION_WatchdogPart4001107.html

On the radio they make it sound like there are two rows of holes exposed, and the two for Gore and Buchannan are side-by-side. The picture is nothing like that.

This actual picture looks abundantly clear to me. There are arrows pointing to the holes from the center of each section, and the Buchannan hole appears to be exactly on the line between the Bush and Gore sections.

I don't see how a large number of people - even the nearly blind - could make the claimed error, or that errors could be so biased toward Gore->Buchannan and away from Bush->Buchannan to give Buchannan thousands of extra Gore votes.

On the other hand, the text claims that there was a handout (that was NOT shown) giving the candidates in a different order. If it matched the layout but switched Buchannan and Gore that might be a different kettle of fish.

Re:Looks like only the truly confused could err.

[tunesmith]

It's a lot more confusing than that. The fact is that the correct arrow is pointing AWAY from its candidate, and the incorrect arrow is pointing TOWARDS it.

You can narrow it down to the correct answer by counting down from the top, but a lot of people might not have thought to do that.

It is very common for an appropriate button or checkbox in another form to be vertically aligned at the top of the section rather than in the middle.

If any voter on these ballots had looked for the arrow pointing towards their candidate, and the hole that was vertically aligned with the top of their candidate -- they would have voted for the wrong candidate. In this case, Buchanan instead of Gore.

tune

Oops. Sorry bout the format.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

I somehow lost the HTML end tag between my preview and my posting, so the link went on forever.

Sorry 'bout that.

Re:Nader Ruined the Economy.

[clary]

The last time I checked, we still live in a democracy.

Actually, we live in a representative republic, not a direct democracy. (IMHO, a direct democracy would be icky...but that is for another post.)

If anybody tries to give the Presidency to someone that didn't get a majority vote, I'm going to throw a fit.

Wow...I'll bet that will affect who becomes president almost as much as the price of eggs in China!

Take a look at our constitution, which can be found at a variety of places, such as USConstitution.net. Pay particular attention to Article 2, Section 1 and the 12 Amendment. Then, if you don't like how things work...get cracking on a constitutional amendment!

Re:Did Gore invent the Internet?

[Eccles]

Credit where credit's due... my posting was quoted from Eric Zorn's article, "GORE'S INTERNET LINK IS NOTHING TO JOKE ABOUT" dated August 22, 2000, published in the Chicago Tribune.

Re:Please...

[Arjuna Theban]

I said nothing about the election being unimportant. I simply said I think everyone (Americans included), want this decided. Why do you say you're speaking for all non-americans then? Just say everybody wants this over with. Your desire for this to be over with and assuming everyone shares your opinion has nothing to do with you speaking for all internationals, or with you even being an international. I agree with you on the fact that this should be resolved soon, it's taking too long. But your initial post did not say that. Now this comment is beaten to death, let's jump to another one.

Left and Right Shift

[Mutok]

Clinton only became more moderate (read: right) because he wanted to avoid a government shutdown. In a Congress controlled by conservative Republicans do you seriously think anything would be accomplished by having a serious left-wing Executive? The same thing would happen if any liberal was voted into office. The duty of the President (as well as all government) is to serve the best interests of the people. Obviously, the population was divided between left and right and it was best to serve a middle ground to make as many people happy as possible.

Now, onto your voting. The idea in voting is to vote for whoever can promote your ideals best, correct? Political Statement? Whoopty doo... I thought the whole idea was to vote about the issues and not the candidate. Not voting for Bush or Gore cleary shows that you don't have an interest in the future of the nation. There is no way that Browne or Nader would win! Pipe dreams... Btw, thank you for helping us [most likely] get Bush elected. Hope you like breathing polluted air (yes, he will cut the EPA) and seeing women and minorities losing rights. That doesn't even mention the fact that the public education system will collapse... oh yeah... and don't mention the National Endowment for the Arts or NPR or PBS!

Re:Live by the media. Die by the media.

[_Splat]

That's bullshit. Bush didn't talk to the "people", the featured video clip of him showed him talking about how his friend, the Republican governer of Pennsylvania, still thought he was winning there.

This is a Republic, not a Democracy

[Anonymous Coward]

For a group of individuals who are supposed to be educated and politically savvy, I find it both amusing and disgusting that there are so many who have absolutely no clue why the Electoral College is preferable in our country. This was set up as a group of independent States, with a weak central government. The idea was that each State would have its own set of rules so individuals would have the opportunity to live in a free society, yet pick and choose the community which most closely matched the beliefs and ideals they held - including the laws and rules of conduct. By giving each State power in choosing the manner in which the central government operates, each State is therefore guaranteed to get at least a little bit of attention from that government. If all political offices were chosen strictly upon popular vote, Presidential candidates could campaign in only the most populous states, and ignore the rest of the country. The individuals who live in the most sparsely populated states would be comletely ignored, because they would have little or no influence on the outcome of the election. Though I live in California, I find absolutely ridiculous to think that the inhabitants of a very few populous states could dictate completely the officers in the Federal government without those officers having to even consider what the majority of the other states need or believe in. I also find it laughable that people who feel they have 'lost' will whine about how unfair the system is, even though it has produced one of the most stable and successful societies in the world. Though I did not comment on it, I also found Jon Katz' article about how not voting was a 'statement' to be completely ludicrous. Sitting in your bathroom jerking off instead of voting is not a statement. Sitting in the polling both and jerking off *IS* a statement. See the difference? There is a reason 'activism' is based upon the word 'active'. If you don't like it - get your ass out there and do something about it. Talk, learn, suggest and get involved. Otherwise, you are simply a whiney, self-centered, ignorant fool who thinks he is smarter than some of the greatest minds in political history... The funny thing is that those political geniuses were smart enough to realize that even whiney, self-centered, ignorant fools have the right to express themselves, and have a hand in choosing their own destiny - but not *too* much of a hand...

Re:This is a Republic, not a Democracy

[JimmT]

Amen!

Re:This is a Republic, not a Democracy

[iconian]

Yep, this country is not a Democracy. Democracy is strictly defined as the rule of the majority. Contrary to popular belief, this is actually bad because majority rule leads to minority oppression. Our founding fathers were well aware of this so they designed a system where the majority will rule but not at the expense of the minority. That's why we have a senate system where every state gets 2 representatives regardless of the state population size. It is to make sure that the large states do not oppress the smaller states. That's why senators can filabuster. It gives one senator power over the entire senate.

Re:NADER WINS!

[Ralph Nader]

I don't think it's very funny to joke about me like that. No, I didn't win.

Here are some funny Bush quotes for you. Enjoy!

"Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?"

"Laura and I really don't realize how bright our children is."

"I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family."

"If the East Timorians decide to revolt, I'm sure I'll have a statement."

Re:NADER WINS!

[Ralph Nader]

So instead you want to elect a Shrub or a Gore?

Re:Nader

[MoooKow]

Um, people who are blaming Nader are making a retarded argument. It makes about as much sense as blaming the people who didn't vote for Al Gore's loss of those states. Woowoo... whatever.. . Yeah.. if the people who voted for Nader had voted for al gore instead then al gore would have won. and if the people who voted for bush voted for al gore instead he would have won... so what is your point.

Nader $$ vs. Buchanan $$

[Platonic1]

I'm not sure how much Buchanan spent, but the total gov't money was 12 million. Nader spent 6 million TOTAL. For perspective, Maria Cantwell and Slade Gorton both spend more than 12 million each on the Senatorial race here in Washington state.


_____________
I'll bet / with my Net / I can get / those things yet.

Was a Slashdot bug.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Just checked my history: Slashdot corrupted the HTML tags in the entry window when it previewed my post. Changed the / to a ; in the tag ending the link and the / to a space in the tag ending the itallic.

Very strange...

Re:Why Your Vote Doesn't Count ... As Much

[Dahan]

The city of Washington DC is not in a state, and they get to send a signle elector.

Actually, they get 3, the same as the least populous state. See the complete list here.

Re:So much for Voter Apathy

[ackthpt]

Once the recount in FL finishes and the winner is picked, and some speculation about what it all means subsides, the media will turn its ever watchful and observant eye to the turnout. These weren't outstanding or distinctive candidates, yet the turnout was very high. What caused it?

--

Typical lame-brained over-simplification

[clevershark]

What a moronic thought. But let's not stop there. If it hadn't been for Ross Perot, Bush would have won in 1992, and your precious little Al Gore would not have gotten to be VP and would now probably be an insignificant little footnote in history.

I do seem to have a violent allergy to idiocy, don't I?

Anyway, as anyone with half-a-brain knows (but evidently this tidbit flew right by you), a good deal of the votes Nader picked up were from people who would not otherwise have voted, so you even fail to make the feeble point you're so pathetically on about.

TAE

Re:It has to be said but...

[harmonica]

Also, I wonder if Slashdot will be paying as much interest to the UK elections next year? France, Germany or Italy? I think not.

This article/comments are under the USA topic. If you don't like it, edit your preferences accordingly.

Re:Mistaken vote for Buchanan

[Jeremy Erwin]

Thanks for the links. I can imagine that the ballot design had a possibility of confusing the far-sighted. Perhaps they should have used colored bars.

I think we had something similiar in Israel

[nidarus]

A few years back, one would vote only for a party (for the Knesset) and if the two large parties would get very close results then something roughly translated as a "unity goverment" (there might be a term for that in English, but I haven't heard of one).

Now, I'm not sure whether this is true for the new election system (where you vote directly both for the prime-minister and for the party), though in the previous elections (which were very very close, though it's not that unique here), there were talks (on TV, anyhow) about having to form one.

The last time such a goverment was formed, each candidate was supposed to serve for 2 years as a prime-minister, but that somehow didn't work (hell, I don't remember when was the last time our goverment actually completed a full 4-year term). Of course, I don't really know what "responsibilities" the other candidate had, so I guess they didn't exactly "share responsibilites, discuss issues and help each other out", but... close enough (hey what do you want, it was moderated 4:Funny).

Re:Nader

[Nissyen]

Gore can take a flying leap for all I care. He picks Lieberman, who is down right socially conservative as a running mate. He keeps a low profile for the last eight years, as the number of prosecutions of environmental crimes decreases, and as auto-makers roll out huge fuel-inneficient polluting SUVs, and then expects liberal democrats to jump through hoops for him. Well he can't. He can't count on liberals to vote for him out of fear anymore, and if it takes putting a shithead like Bush in the white house for democrats to realize this, then that's just too bad.

If programmers designed a government...

[Hollinger]

If a government is designed by programmers, what structure would a programmer choose?

I would see a programmer designing a dictatorship, since he would have fewer lines of code, a tighter decision-making process, and (in some cases) a very efficient constructor and deconstructor.

My associates, however, insist that an absolute monarchy would be the best, simply because a sucessor is already selected for you once your leader dies.

What we did decide on was that a programmer would NEVER arrive at a presidency.

What do you think?


--
Mike Hollinger

Easy Solution

[Peeptophe]

I just want to state a few points.

1) This could easily be remedied by a REVOTE in the counties in question. If any of you have seen the ballots on various sites like Yahoo!, you can understand how someone of age could get confused.

2) Regardless of who "won", Gore by popular vote, Bush by electoral, I am tired of the politicians and the media saying this only PROVES that every vote counts. I disagree. When a candidate is appointed due to Electoral but was not the Popular vote, this just confirms that our votes, while meaning something, mean very little.

I suggest we all write letters to our congressmen, our senators, our governors, etc and DEMAND that the way votes are tallied be changed.

There are three obvious ways to do this, which is best, I am unsure.

1) Individualized voting. Popular votes = win
2) Precinct/County votes. Electoral votes are given by precinct rather than by state. 3) Not giving the ALL the electoral votes to one candidate but rather, break them up by percentage.

Any ideas?

A vote for Bush is a vote for Morons everywhere.

Re:With an election this close ..

[31:]

yumm... symmetric multi-presidency... i can't help but wonder what the bandwidth between them would be...

---
I'm not ashamed. It's the computer age, nerds are in.
They're still in, aren't they?

Re:is military vote clear cut?

[EriondII]

Hello..McFly. That's almost word for word what Bush has said. Maybe you should have watched the debates.

Electoral vs. Popular

[jvanber]

With all due respect to the popular vote, the US does NOT have one large election for president...

We have 51 smaller elections that combine TOGETHER to elect the president. Viewing the election in this manner should enlighten you as to how the electoral college has come to be.

Re:The fix is in?

[twit]

The Secretary of State in Florida is Katherine Harris, a Republican. http://www.dos.state.fl.us, and please wipe your feet before you stick them in your mouth.

You're confusing her with Bob Butterworth, the Attorney General of Florida, who a Democrat. According to Florida law, the Attorney General is not involved with the voting process.



--

No!!!

[2nd Post!]

I've heard this said really well, eloquent and all, before:

A vote for Nader (or Browne or Buchanen) is not a vote for Bush.

If Gore wanted our votes, he should have championed our issues!

Likewise, if Bush wanted our votes.

It just so happens that our votes were for our consciences and our ideals, and not for Bush or Gore.

The nick is a joke! Really!

Re:Gore Ruined the Economy.

[Drakantus]

No, actually it was Al Gore. If it wasn't for Gore stealing votes from Ralph Nader, Nader would have had a real chance. So many people are afraid of 'wasting' a vote on Nader they instead waste it on Gore. Serves them right. I can't believe anyone voted for Gore when in truth they prefered Nader.

I personally could care less whether Bush or Gore win, they both look like liars to me and what they say has nothing to do with what they will actually do.

Re:I resent...

[Tiresias_Mons]

Beautifully said.....I also found it amusing that he wasn't a candidate, he was, "The Nader Factor" and "That Nader Business", yeah welcome to the land of the free, where your vote really does matter....unless its for Nader, Hagelin, or any other independant (save Buchanon in Dade County, those mattered) "No disrespect to the people of Oregon and Wisconsin, but you have become irrelevant" -- Tim Russert NBC News, live coverage yeah, their votes matter too right? oh wait we're in America

Re:Nader Ruined the Economy.

[Fishstick]

>I'm going to throw a fit

Cool! Can I come watch? That's probably exactly what will happen. Man, talk about a constitutional crisis if Bush takes Florida's electoral votes while Gore 'wins' the popular vote (although I wouldn't consider 48.8 million to 48.6 million exactly winning the popular vote - more like a virtual tie, if I'm doing my match right that is like .4% -- maybe they should settle it with fists)

Re:The fix is in?

[ryanw]

> I think it's sad that we'll probably never know who the people of Florida *REALLY* wanted for President :-(.

I think this is outragous!!! I mean seriously. Al Gore and Buchanon were not the only ones on the ballot that looked like that. If they marked it wrong in the begining they would have noticed that after looking over the other canidates and such.

This crazy. I can't believe people are actually buying this. If they didn't realize they voted for Buchanon at the time then why are they NOW saying "I voted for Buchanon, but I ment to vote for Gore. Opps."

I think they voted for Buchanon cause they said they would and were loyal to him while THINKING it wouldn't matter because Gore was going to win anyways. Now that Republicans are going to be in Office they are doing everything they can to stop it.

I think it's awful that it's such a close race. They're both not "truely" worthy of being President. But bush is definatly the lesser of two evils. Sad, but true.

Re:Run-Off Election?

[maxmutt]

A run off election process exists, just not a run off popular election.

see:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constituti on.articleii.html#section1

if you read the the XXII Amendment you can see that the run off process could run past March 4th of 2001.

wheeee...

Re:Nader Ruined the Economy.

[baglunch]

Why is everyone saying that Gore won the popular vote? Gore looks like he has a lead in the popular vote, but it's what... 250,000 votes out of millions? And that with 2 states still not reporting. Nobody has the popular vote, nobody has the electoral vote. We are waiting.

Re:Nader, etc

[Nezalhualixtlan]

"Each citizen does have a voice"

However, each citizen does not have an equal voice. Individual citizens in more populated states have less power to their voice than those citizens in less populated states.

"Do you agree that citizens don't have a voice in the House or the Senate?"

It's not a matter of not having A voice, I was bringing up the matter of each citizen having an EQUAL voice. But then, I was thinking nationally as a whole country, not as states in a union - as is actually the case.

"Note that this is a state issue, not a federal one."

I realize that the elections are separate state elections, and not really national federal elections. I was simply pointing out some problems with the electoral college as is. Simple majority vote has its own set of problems, but I don't need to get into those.

Re:Nader

[SpryGuy]

I agree with you on all counts except that I can't be so selfish and self-absorbed that I totally ignore the impact to the greater citizens of the country. Of course, I live in Texas, home of the environmentally raped and corporations running amok, so... ;-)

- Spryguy

It doesn't matter.

[crackhed]

Either way, we've got four more years of mediocrity. God bless America!

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[porges]

1. You could remove the EC and require a plurality rather than a majority of the popular vote.

2. If the election goes into the House, it's one vote per state, so the relevant number is the 27 states that will be Republican in the new House, not the 218-210 you mention. But Bush still wins in that situation, yes.

Re:Odd ballots

[itachi]

Actually, there was a really interesting article in the Washington Post about election disputes under Fla. law. Any voter or candidate may challenge the election if the is a "reasonable doubt" that the election results "[express] the will of the voters". If the judge rules that the ballot did not meet the specifications set out under Florida law, then obviously some rememdy needs to be implemented. This is not about changing the rules, it's about making sure that the rules were indeed followed.

itachi

Payback fro Dallas, 1963

[OriginalGangsterTrol]

Think about it....

Re:doesn't help

[porges]

Because people are complaining that they made a mistake, asked the poll watchers how to fix it, and were told it was too late and their votes had to be counted for Buchanan.

way OT

[itachi]

funny, it looked fine when I previewed....

itachi

Re:The real story

[Saxerman]

Voter turnout? We barely squeeked out 100 million at the polls, which represents only 1/2 of the eligable voters. This closely matches the 49% turnout we had back in '96. As far as long waits at the polls... this happened all over up here too. (Roughtly 2 hours waits across the board.) This is because they're still using tech such as PUNCH CARDS to tally this stuff, as computers can not be trusted.

Re:Very strange results

[c_chimelis]

Gore easily won the exit polls in Florida, which is why the Major networks declared a Gore victory in Florida early on.

One thing that I think a lot of people are forgetting about the exit polls is that most people (at least in South Florida) don't speak English as their first language. Simply addressing some of those people in English first will cause them to avoid you and not talk to you (take it from me, I live here and speak both English and Spanish luckily). While the Hispanic community tends to have a great voter turnout percentage, they're usually not very keen on dealing with just about anyone from outside of their community. They also tend to take the "secret ballot" thing very seriously. In all, at least in two counties in South Florida, Hispanics make up over 25% of the population of the state (estimate on my part). If this population was under-represented in the exit polls, it could easily account for the initial false estimates of Gore taking Florida 3-1.

All things considered, though, I seriously doubt that we should take exit polls very seriously. There have been many occasions where their validity and accuracy was in question (with good reason). It's also not a very scientific method of determining an accurate representation of voting trends. But, since people see it on the news, they assume it is. Hell, I had to stay up for hours trying to explain why the differences between AP estimates and actually vote tallies were so large at times and why the media flip-flopped so often.

Re:doesn't help

[porges]

Which brings up another potential argument against the Electoral College -- going to an overall popular vote might discourage this kind of targeted fraud, because you wouldn't be leveraging a few fraudulent votes into a big EC win.

Gore climbing

[RandomPeon]

http://www.startribune.com/viewers/qview/cgi/qview .cgi?template=elections_nation&slug= prez 09

Apparently more Gore votes are showing up in the recount - thus far he's picked up 843 votes.

Also, another irregularity popped up:

"In one heavily Democratic county, officials said 19,120 ballots in the presidential race were tossed out before they were counted because more than one candidate was picked."

And there is a real chance of a revote, where the Nader supporters can redeem themselves.

Finally, there is one group of absentees we've all forgotten about: Jews in Israel. I guess there are quite a few Jewish-Americans casting ballots from there - more info here

Unfortunately, it looks like my links have died since I wrote that sentence. Hope they come back.

Re:Gore climbing

[Chris Johnson]

Balls.

The Gore supporters who wanted to play radical and vote Nader out of some sort of 21st-century liberal paternalism can redeem themselves by voting for the guy they apparently wanted in the first place.

Real Nader supporters would still vote Nader. Haven't you even listened to anything the man said? I frankly don't think many Gore people voted Nader, whether they promised to or not. I think they made big promises and just like their candidate Gore, promptly ignored them.

The one good thing I can see coming out of this election is that _both_ parties are blatantly lame-duck parties. There is no consensus, no majority, no mandate. I hope the government stays in deadlock without causing too much damage for the next four years. And if the government refuses to give money to Nader next time around, I will just have to build it into my meager budget, save up, and give him money (and vital time and effort) myself. Screw the government.

Re:Misprinted ballots

[kevin42]

It wasn't misprinted, it was potentially confusing. There's a huge difference.

As to recasting the ballots, I don't think that can be done in part. I don't think there are any precedents for that, but I may be wrong.

Re:The media

[ev0l]

The exit polls are not released until the polls are closed. But the US covers four time zones. So of the polls close at 7:00 (as they did here in Florida) it is only 4:00 in California.

Freedom of speech is more important than "fair elections" what ever that means. With out the former you can not have the latter.

Will

Re:The media

[Malc]

Yes, but see-sawing back and forth was good for viewing figures and advertising dollars, which is obviously more important.

A concession isn't what you think it is

[twit]

The election isn't decided by concession or defiance. It's decided by the Electoral College, which votes in December. When you voted (if you voted), all you voted for were "Electors for the campaign of ..." or simply "Electors for ...". That's how it's written on the ballot.

Al Gore's "word" in the form of a concession, just like any concession, is merely a courtesy which allows the President-elect to get on with the business of preparing for his role in government.

More to the point, you obviously weren't watching how things happened. When Gore phoned to concede, there were 200k votes in Bush's favour and more than 80% of precincts reporting. To fail to concede at that point would have been childish.

Likewise, when the margin fell below 10k, it would have been chilish to refuse to retract. Gore can't simply take it upon himself to override the will of the electorate of Florida and concede out of foolish stubbornness.

Admittedly, it would have been more classy had Bush called Gore and refused to accept the concession given the circumstances. That would have given both an exit from this awkward situation with dignity. As it was, only one of them kept his.



--

Yeah, but

[Galvatron]

The only reason he wasn't on the ballot in Arizona was because of internal party problems. The Arizona Libertarian party split, and the national party made the mistake of supporting the wrong faction, so the group that finally got legal recognition chose to put their own Libertarian canidate on the ballot. I fully expect that things will be back to normal by the next election.

Just a reminder

[hex15]

A vote for Bush is vote for Microsoft.

Re:Nader Ruined the Economy.

[SmokeSerpent]

A nail. Not the nail. But removing the power of the Several States to elect the President is one more step down the path of letting the more populous States take control of the US Government.

Arrow's Impossibility Theorem

['This is false.']

Even this doesnt work perfectly however. If: (1) if everyone votes candidate a over candidate b, then canidate a is ranked above candidate b. (2) if candidate a wins over candidate b, then moving votes from a to b means a still wins (3) if some switches their preferences from say abc to acb, the results for candidate a will not be affected Then the system must be a dictatorship (i.e. only one persons votes count). Arrow proved this in the mid-50's if I remeber correctly. - Richard

Re:Nader

[OriginalGangsterTrol]

I agree with you on all counts except that I can't be so selfish and self-absorbed that I totally ignore the impact to the greater citizens of the country. Of course, I live in Texas, home of the environmentally raped and corporations running amok, so... ;-)

Of course I'm self absorbed, I'm American. No one is looking out for me but ME, so why should I look out for anyone else?

Re:Nader

[OriginalGangsterTrol]

Amen! Can't agree more....

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[Ralph Wiggam]

I was thinking about this last night because some states do this for primary voting. Common sense would say that if electors were divided by the % of the popular vote within a state, then it would be equivalent to a national popular vote (my common sense anyway, I could be wrong). Can someone prove mathematically that I'm either right or wrong? After thinking about it for another minute I realized that because the elector number is an integer, the rounding involved could make this system go against the national popular vote. But as it stands now, a person can win something like 11 states, get 12.5% of the popular vote and still be president.

-B

Moderation

[gvonk]

Actually, dimwit, I posted this comment before Taco added the link to the article, but I guess you didn't know that.

Jeb's Election Games

[doughboy666]

Today, according to Florida Department of Elections web site, a recount is indicated, but last night when I was there, a RUNOFF was indicated, not just a recount. What's going on here? Does anyone know the *real* rules in Florida? If it's just a recount, why did the Brother Jeb's Florida Department of Elections web site indicate a RUNOFF and then change it's mind (and text on the web site) very early this morning?

Re:Supreme Court / reproductive rights

[Oztun]

Going through old post and noticed your attempt to attack my comment. I DID NOT MEAN THAT AS A JOKE!

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[Chakotay]

Exactly. How can they possibly call it a democracy when obviously the will of the people is basically ignored? If more people voted for Gore than for Bush, then Gore should be president, period, and you can't argue against that whether you've voted for Gore, Bush, Nader, Buchannan or Cowboy Neil.

)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity

Gore will conceed

[Galvatron]

Don't get your hopes up. Even if that happens (unlikely, looks like Bush will take Oregon), Gore will probably conceed, because it would be unlikely he would succeed, and it would greatly damage his public image. Assuming he fails to get the two votes, he'll look like a sore, bitter loser, and people won't want to hear from him again. If he conceeds gracefully, he can then go do whatever he damn well wants, and he will be deeply respected by Americans for being a man who fought a good campaign, but accepted it when he lost. That's why the canidates always give their concession speeches before all the votes are in. They could stand there waiting until every last vote has been counted (as they will have to this time :), but it would look bad.

Is this the proper way to determine a president?

[ybmug]

I'm just wondering if there is a better way we could go about electing a president. It's awfully unsettling to me that how the country is going to be led for the next 4 yrs based on this vote, considering all of the things that are going on.

Is this the proper attitude: "Oops, we don't know who has a majority yet so let's do a recount, may be there will be a difference." That combined with the fact the Gore has a clear popular advantage (albeit a slim one). At least in congress important decisions have to be won by a 2/3s majority.

Also, the fact that this all has to be basically done on one day (minus absentee and military). It makes the process awfully rushed, which makes it awfully sloppy. If it was spread out over a period of a few weeks could we avoid problems such as missing ballot boxes and voter fraud.

Just my $.02, (Heck, maybe that is a whole $.03)

Re:Supreme Court / reproductive rights

[Xerithane]

hehehe.. dude. read the history books then, cause if it wasn't a joke it was just dead wrong. Wasn't attacking your comment, merely trying to understand something that was confusing and/or wrong .. best thought was it was a joke.

(Hillary) Clinton/Liberman 2004!

[Chuck Bucket]

You heard me! Chuck Bucket

Chuck Bucket
----

Re:(Hillary) Clinton/Liberman 2004!

[kurioszyn]

Are you a psychic ?

Re:Nader

[SpryGuy]

GORE cost HIMSELF the election.

I still maintain that through his hubris, he cost all liberals the election, and did himself no good in the process (democrates now loathe him for costing Gore the election, and he didn't get enough to find any matching funds... not that matching funds helped out the Reform party).

He cut off his nose to spite his own face. Gore didn't help himself, to be sure, but if Nader hadn't run or hadn't been so strident, Gore would have won EASILY. As it is, prepare yourself for environmental rapeing and tons of corporate welfare.

- Spryguy

Re:And so we wait...

[gwalla]

Here's a fun little thing to tide you over in the meantime: Bush and Gore rap!
---
Zardoz has spoken!

Re:The fix is in?

[woogie]

WRONG!!! Bob Butterworth, the Attorney General is Gore's campaign chief in Florida. He has absolutely nothing to do with the vote counting. I have seen so much misinformation in this thread that my head is spinning.

Woogie

Fairness of the US Presidential voting system

[Grauniad]

If you will excuse a mere foreigner from commenting on US politics, this election outcome seems to highlight several fundamental failures of the voting system used in US Presidential elections.

1. Voters for third-party candidates are effectively disenfranchised. In many European countries, the top two candidates stage a run-off election a week or two after the initial election. That allows voters for candidates who could not win to make a choice between the two most popular candidates. But that's slow, inconvenient and expensive. A better system used in Ireland and Australia and elsewhere is the single transferable voting system. That allows voters to specify their order of preference for candidates; if their first preference can't win and is eliminated, their vote is transferred to their second preference, and so on. This is widely recognised as a much fairer system. Details of the system as practiced in Australia are described at .

2. The fact that the winner of a state gets all the college votes for that state can lead to extreme unfairness. Suppose there are just two candidates and two states. If one candidate wins a state with 40 college votes by 100,000 votes, and the other candidate wins a state with 4 college votes by 100,000 votes, they have the same number of popular votes, but one has 40 college votes and the other has 4 college votes. That's ridiculous. College votes should be allocated approximately in proportion to popular votes in that state. And that ignores the fact that college votes can actually be case independently of the popular vote!

3. I heard a US commentator on the radio state that convicted felons in Florida were ineligible to vote even after release from prison. That's very unjust. Apparently this includes enough potential voters to have easily changed the outcome.

Re:Fairness of the US Presidential voting system

[titus-g]

The states seem to vary on that, some you can't vote while in jail, some until you are off probation, and some you never can. 4% ineligable to vote because of this including 12% of black men (US totals, not Florida).

Was GW ever jailed? kinda ironic if became president, when he may not have been allowed to vote in some places :)

Re:The Nader Effect

[tetrad]

Gore doesn't own my vote. My vote for Nader didn't take anything away from Gore because Gore never earned it. I still can't decide which of the dumbass twins i'd prefer in office.

No doubt that's true. Not all Nader supporters would have voted for Gore next. My father, for instance, told me he supports Nader and then Bush. Nevertheless, I think it's pretty clear that most Nader voters would have supported the more "liberal" of the two major candidates. Gore, with all his flaws, matches this description.

Hmmm...

[AshPattern]

Interesting that a couple of shires in a swamp is shaking the world right now. I wonder if they're going to hold the presidency for ransom.

Or if both Gore and Bush will both go there and make multi-million dollar deals with the citizenry.

In any case, this entire event seems staged like a bad sitcom. It's like "they"'re trying to give us a cliffhanger of an election for our entertainment. Are they trying to appease the peasants or what?

What I'm going to have a hard time explaining...

[OriginalGangsterTrol]

....to my kids-

1. President Bush can snort coke, why can't I?

2. President Bush can pay for an illegal abortion, why can't I?

Re:Very strange results

[Rasvar]

That said, this looks really fishy. Gore easily won the exit polls in Florida, which is why the Major networks declared a Gore victory in Florida early on. Bush then gave a short press conference refusing to concede Florida and then the networks placed the state back in the unknown column.

Wow! That is worthy of MS FUD. Simple matter is that the exit polls were messed up. A data entry error for the NE Florida error caused the exit poll service to issue a bad call. All of the networks used the same company. It had nothing to do with news conferences or anything like that. you may want to get your facts straight before you make a foolish comment like that.

No way!

[Chris Johnson]

Nuh-uh! You can't have him! We'll be needing him in four years- and I'm sure he'll be very useful before then, haven't you been reading about our corporate abuses?

We need him more than you 'cos we're way more screwed up than you :P doneventhinkaboutit!

Re:No way!

[cheekymonkey_68]

You may need him more, but I'm just damn jealous you've got him in the first place.

I saw that speech he made after the voting and I was blown away.

You could argue that he is not really a politician:

- No evidence of 'spin doctors' writing his speech
- Appears to be honest
- Seems to have developed coherent policies
rather than trying to second guess what would be the most popular policiy with the voters.
- No real corporate influence over policy making
- No apparent skeletons in the closet

Hmm he sure doesn't sound like a REAL politician

Re:Electoral College

[giberti]

25 states say yes, they must vote as they people want. in the other 25 states no, they do not have to, however tradition has carried forth, and although I may not be 100% correct on this one, they have only not done as instructed 3 times this century and it had absolutley no influence on the election.

I'm not sure we really need people to do this anymore but the idea of the college is still good.

Um, Oregon, anyone?

[baraboom]

What in the world are they smoking up in this country's NW? Its been days (at least it feels like it) since the polls have closed and CBSNews is reporting that just 85% of the precinct results are in for that state.

I do realize it doesnt make a hill of beans difference (unlike 19000 tossed votes in FL) in this election, but still.

Re:Um, Oregon, anyone?

[tjw]

I've heard that Oregon has 100% of their polling handled by the USPS (snail mail) this year.

They're probably waiting 3-10 days for all the ballots postmarked November 7 to arrive. It's a good thing that the race didn't come down to Oregon. I'd be willing to bet there would be some tampering with the mail if that was the case. IMHO, it is not a very good voting system and will be replaced by the next vote.

I remember hearing Dan Rather commenting how _fast_ oregon would be called this year. I guess he didn't think that through.

Re:Um, Oregon, anyone?

[TrentC]

I've heard that Oregon has 100% of their polling handled by the USPS (snail mail) this year.

They're probably waiting 3-10 days for all the ballots postmarked November 7 to arrive.

Nope, we don't throw them in the mail on November 7; most of the old voting precincts (libraries, etc.) had special drop-off booths set up so people could drop their votes off.

There may be a few votes that were mailed, say, Friday or Saturday that are caught in transit, but after that everyone waited until the 7th.

I remember hearing Dan Rather commenting how _fast_ oregon would be called this year.

Well it would have if so many people didn't wait until the last minute to vote. They got far more votes at the last minute then they expected.

Jay (=

Re:doesn't help

[KNGPaul]

Representitives from all candidates will be present for the recount, also it dosn't say that Butterworth is in "charge" of the ballot counting.

Re:Margin of victory

[Chris Johnson]

Maybe he'll settle for 500.001 points of light :)

The US popular vote split

[zaphod]

I think the US popular vote, even though it goes to Gore, is dead even. The 200,000 votes could EASILY have been lost due to the networks' error giving Gore Florida (Bush voters may have given up).

Wither way, this sends an interesting message. Half the people want a more socialist US and half want a more capitalist US. If either party goes to far to the left or the right, they will lose the 2004 election.

Re:The US popular vote split

[zaphod]

I think soon we will see a strong 3rd party. Not a Green or Reform party, but a new one. The Green and Reform parties will actually be the "extremes" and the third party will be down the middle. No huge tax cuts, but not a lot of Government involvement with health care, etc. Abortions and guns will remain legal (not photo ID's for guns). Just my thought.

(I think the Libertarian party goes a little too far with small government. Again, just my view).

Re:The US popular vote split

[zaphod]

There are absentee ballots in several states that need to be counted as well. Those tend to be Republican, but who knows.

My real point was that we really do have a country split in half about which way we should be heading. I don't envy whichever candidate makes it because the will have a VERY tough job ahead of them (above and beyond the normal tough work).

Uh, exactly what does this prove?

[BeanThere]

When it comes to corruption and bribery, this means absolutely nothing. Sorry.

Maybe they should just..

[JeffryG138]

Maybe Bush and Gore should just split the job - flex-time presidency could be nice. They have the same platform... could could just refer to them as "President Bore".

Re:Nader

[Squid]

Don't underestimate the power of vote fraud. What good's a traded, carefully finagled vote for Nader if the senile old poll workers throw it away thinking you wrote "Darth Vader" instead of "Ralph Nader"?

Truth told, if the Greens were reasonable, rational people, they wouldn't have bought the "a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush" propaganda line and changed their minds at the last minute. The 5% would have meant a much easier time getting candidates in local offices - that was the IDEA, not for Nader to win, but for him a) to bring new issues into the election, and b) to bring home enough bacon for the party to start building itself nationwide at the local level. It's not like the Green Party is gonna be funded by corporate contributions, y'know.

As to your last remark: the environment was sold to the oil companies years ago. What was Gore gonna do to fix that, pray tell, that he couldn't have done in the last eight years as vice president?

As for me, I have no guilt for voting for Nader. If Nader wasn't running, I would not have voted. My vote for Nader was not stolen from ANYBODY.

You are yelling at Nader and his supporters. Why? They're not the ones who explicitly pushed the Bush button in the booths because they actually WANTED Dubya to be in charge - that's HALF THE COUNTRY! Doesn't that scare you? No, you'd rather point fingers at the 2% of us (well, those of us whose votes didn't get "lost" at the polls) who decided NOT to be swayed by "a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush" FUD. We cost Gore the election. Not Bush appealing to the scary conservative half of America. Not Gore, losing ground in the last weeks because he couldn't even give people reasons NOT to vote the other way. Nope, it's us, the Nader supporters, who are to blame for everything that happens in the next four years. Whatever.

bleep before Bush's short speech today

[zodiak]

When Gov Bush and Dick Chaney were walking to the podium to give their short speech today, I could have sworn that I heard part of one of Bush's comments bleeped out (I was watching CNN). Did anybody else notice this, or was I hearing things?

It was supposedly broadcast live so I expect that it was just me, but if not I'd sure like to know what he said.

Re:bleep before Bush's short speech today

[riot158]

yeah, i heard that, too. something along the lines of "i hope everyone got a good fucking night's sleep".

Re:GOP?

[dietcrack]

My understanding is that this stands for Grand Old Party. Yeah, I don't get it either.

Re:Bush to thank Nader for the presidency.

[OriginalGangsterTrol]

Fuck off, it's no one's fault but GORE'S for losing the election, he just didn't appeal to voters.

Re:doesn't help

[malacai]

Can someone please tell me how folks have
figured out that Gore votes went to Buchanan???
It's not like there's some verify screen, so
why are people thinking this?

In other news, people are saying Florida would
have gone to Gore except for the voting
Slashdot effect, where some 4000 self proclaimed
geeks voted for "First Post!"

Re:Ehmz, wasn't it Bush?

[ksmeltzer]

At present the difference is less than 2,000 votes. Voting has a margin of error and it is greater than that number. Give them time and let them recount, as it is truly the fair and just thing to do. In Florida the local news is coming in faster than the national news so for those of you interested Bush is still in the lead.

Re:The Nader Effect

[Junks Jerzey]

Note that if Bush does pull off a victory in Florida (which at this point, I suspect is likely), then we will conclusively be able to say that Ralph Nader cost Gore the election.

Oh stop it already. If Nader hadn't been running, then likely one of the other 3rd party candidates would have gotten more press and sucked up about the same number of votes as Nader (or maybe a combination of 3rd party candidates). Many people who voted Reform Party in the past few elections went with the Green Party this time around, but only because that option existed. Leave the idiotic lessons in so-called "strategic voting" to news commentators who dropped out of college because Math 101 was too difficult.

Overall, I'm annoyed at people who treat this like a high school election. This is President we're talking about. We're trying to elect someone who has been proven to be a great statesman or someone who has higher aspirations than simply to be a career politician. It's pretty sad that bozos like Gore and Bush (and especially Bush) managed to end up on the ballot. I'm sure Europe and the rest of the world are laughing heartily.

abcnews article

[jesser]

Democrats allege polling irregularities: misleading phone calls, ballots with holes too close too each other, sample ballots not matching actual ballots.

--

you misunderstand the difference

[brokeninside]

In a republic, people are chosen by voters to make laws.

In a true democracy, people vote to make laws.

Republics are typically the first form of government chosen once a society outgrows the scale of which true democracy is efficient.

The US will still be a republic whether or not the electoral college exists as a mediator between the office of the president and the citizens of the US.

have a day,

-l

Re:you misunderstand the difference

[Harlequin Jones]

I do believe you missed my point.

The US can go on in one of two ways -- with relatively independent states implementing a wide variety of standards, or with the Federal government forcing one standard upon every citizen in every state. For most of its history, the US followed the first method, but power has shifted toward the national level in recent decades.

Would it not be preferable to have some states be liberal, others conservative, others radical? Or should we fight continually at the national level to determine who gets to force their will upon whom?

Which would be better for human happiness?

Eliminating the Electoral College would, I believe, simply reinforce in the minds of people this notion that the US is a single super-state, rather than a collection of smaller, different places. One can already find pundits calling for the elimination of the concept of states altogether in the interest of "unity" or "efficiency".

HJ

Re:you misunderstand the difference

[brokeninside]

Eliminating the Electoral College would, I believe, simply reinforce in the minds of people this notion that the US is a single super-state, rather than a collection of smaller, different places.

This would be the case if US senators and representatives were to nationally instead of locally elected, but that is not the case.

The other problem I have with buying into your view is that it assumes that unity within a single state is more important to an individual than having his or her vote be meaninful.

I think the reverse is true, that most people would rather have their vote count in a nationwide election than for their vote to be lost because of geographical quirks.

The state I live in was not carried by the candidate I voted for, therefore, my vote does not count in deciding the president. If the president were decided by popular vote, then my vote would have weight whether or not the people that live around me and vote differently than I outnumber me.

have a day,

-l

Re:If Bush wins...

[Malc]

Clinton had a majority of the votes, which *is* a majority of sorts. Of course, given an opportunity to vote for the two most popular candidates, the other 51% or 57% might still have voted against Clinton.

Re:The fix is in?

[seeken]

I think it's much more likely that the problem stems from incompetance on the part pf the election judges at the polling places. My girlfriend is a law student in Maryand- she became an election judge to gain insight into the the process for a paper she is writing in her election law class. She was quite astounded at the disregard for the law exhibited by her fellow judges. They ended up with more votes than voters... I imagine similar forces are at play in Fla.



Surfing the net and other cliches...

Mail in ballots

[DataSquid]

Don't forget about those! It could be weeks until you know for sure.

What's all this about the electoral college?

[blacksun19]

according to Grolier encyclopedia:

The electors, popularly elected on election day, meet in their respective state capitals on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December in presidential election years. They vote by BALLOT separately for president and vice president. To discourage having a president and vice president from the same state, at least one of the candidates for whom they vote must not be a resident of the electors' own state. Certified lists of votes cast for the two offices are transmitted to the president of the U. S. Senate--since 1950 through the General Services Administration. On the following January 6 the president of the Senate, presiding at a joint session of CONGRESS, opens the certificates, and the votes are counted by tellers. The election is decided by a majority of the total electoral college vote.

doesn't this mean that, with the vote being this close and all, that we will have to wait until the electoral college actually meets (according to this - 01/06/01) and votes before we can be really sure which of half of the same man will be the future king of the usa?

and to top it off, no independent party (according to indymedia.org) received 5% of the vote - meaning they will not get federal funding. also meaning that this outdated, misrepresenting bi-partisan government system ain't goin' nowhere. damn the general public.

Re:The Nader Effect

[Augusto]

Gore losing votes is not Nader's fault, but Gore's fault. Nader also brought in a lot of people who would have not voted at all, but Gore is the one that lost them, not Nader.

As for vote swapping, what a ridiculous idea. I've already heard from a bunch of people who say they traded votes with a couple of "fools", and ended up voting for Bush anyways !

Re:is military vote clear cut?

[Anonymous Coward]

Every one I know that is in the military or recently got out (guess why)

They weren't asked but still told?

What's going to happen with those senior votes?

[dirty]

I want to know what's going to happen with those 2000 votes that supposedly went to buchanan(sp) that should have gone to gore because florida made an ugly ballot. Normally I'd say that it doesn't matter, but in this race 2000 votes means a LOT. IMHO the best thing right now would be for florida to just hold another vote, with easier to read ballots. This would almost definately ensure that gore would win because he would probably get a substantial portion of nader's ~10,000 votes.

Re:What's going to happen with those senior votes?

[iskander]

I agree: Florida should scrap these results. Even if we ignore Jeb and voter fraud and ballot layout for a moment, it seems reasonable to demand that the people of Florida vote again because the integrity of the counts from the ballot boxes that were (briefly) missing yesterday cannot be guaranteed. At the very least, there should be a well-run federal investigation of the whole affair.

Re:GOP?

[Jeremy Erwin]

G.O.P = "Grand Old Party." Apparently, it's the official nickname. The Republican National Commitee explains it here.

Has it ever mattered less?

[GrievousAngel]

Has it ever mattered less, in the history of our republic, who ultimately wins this race? In either case, the president will have no popular mandate, and be facing a Congress that has been divided down the middle with an Exact-o knife. It will be all but impossible for either candidate to push through any legislation that is the least bit controversial. And as for the much-ballyhooed Supreme Court appointments, expect bland, inoffensive nominees of the Souder/Breyer variety. With all this in mind, does anybody besides Barbra Streisand really care about the ultimate outcome?

Re:Has it ever mattered less?

[metis]

The real power is not in the ability to pass big controversial issues. Few presidents has done that anyway. Appointing a do nothing anti-trust head, and do nothing FDA head for example, requires no legislation. likewise, not vetoing the republican congress pork is good enough for the GOP.

Re:The fix is in?

[revnight]

same here in volusia county (daytona beach area.)

i just heard one of the state representatives in palm beach moaning about how he was terribly confused by the ballots in his area, and how he saw people crying as they left the polls because they were so befuddled. essentially he said because most of the electorate there was elderly and jewish, this ballot was too confusing for them (no, i'm not making this up. cnn at 9:45...i doubt he meant the last bit the way it sounded, but it is what he said.)

frankly, i don't have a damned bit of sympathy for anyone who was confused over the ballot. after seeing it, it seems pretty clear to me what needed to be done...we had similar ballots here in volusia in the 1992 election, and i don't remember any outcry over it. i suppose what it comes down to is this...if people can't figure out how to fill out their ballot (and are too dumb to ask if they don't understand it,) i'm not sure they should be voting anyway.

gods how i hate thinking that.

Re:The fix is in?

[angelo]

I'm just depressed that my vote REALLY counted for shit (in Pennsylvania) since the big rep wins here didn't carry the state.

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[Refrag]

It is called a democratic-republic.


Refrag

Re:Very strange results

[Malc]

Who says that they even did their exit polls properly and scientifically? Personally, I always give a wrong answer to those people.

Kill the EC

[berniecase]

I'm slowly but surely starting to think that Bush is going to win, and that doesn't make me happy.

But, what makes me more unhappy is how outdated the electoral college is. Its time has passed and it's time we get rid of it.

--Bernie

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[M. Silver]

most states now legislate that electors vote based on how the state's populace votes

This came up on alt.folklore.urban, and I believe that no one could come up with a cite.

Re:doesn't help

[c_chimelis]

that the ballots were messed up, and they arne't going to fix that.

If you have some ideas on how to fix that, please call Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth...I'm sure he'd like to know how to do that without calling for another national election.

Seems kind of suspicious considering who runs that state...

I don't know what state you live in, but in Florida, Jeb doesn't have that much power, considering many of the offices involved in elections are controlled by strictly partisan Democrats (including Bob Butterworth). Jeb's only the governor, not the King of Florida. Much like any city/county mayor, that position sounds more lofty and powerful than it really is.

As for the allegations of voting fraud, etc...why is it that every time there's a tight race in an election, everyone automatically assumes that there may be some kind of fraud going on? Usually, this kind of thing is only mentioned by the supporters of the losing candidate, unfortunately. If there was some type of fraud involved, though, then everyone should not only blame the folks that ran the voting centres, but should also blame the observers from each of parties/candidates for not catching the fraud (they are there and it's in their best interest to be honest if they really do support their candidate).

As for past voter fraud, yes it's happened. I would be surprised if you could find a major metropolitan area where it never happened, though, so it's not that unusual. In the only case that I can remember, the City of Miami mayoral election was tainted by a fraud case where votes were registered by people who turned out to be dead and buried. It was quite comical for those of us who live here and, considering who was involved, it wasn't terribly surprising. The scam was quickly exposed, however (it was in our local fishwrapper within a week, meaning they had the info within a day of the election). I seriously doubt that anyone in this state that Florida would end up being this close. I never did, that's for sure...I thought it would be close, but not like this. Therefore, you'd have to be a logical/statistical genius psychic who has something to gain to throw the election by this small of a margin. Does such a person even exist?

In short, let's just let the recount happen and live with it sans bitching. I mean, Gore supporters will be disappointed and Bush supporters will be elated, should the recount confirm the current numbers, but that's life. Overall, it was a tight election all across the country, so why should Florida be any different?

Re:Nader

[mrzaph0d]

i think one of the (many) polls about nader voters showed that the majority of them would have voted for bush, and the rest wouldn't have voted at all.

"Leave the gun, take the canoli."

Re:If Bush wins...

[eastMike]

Well, maybe you're partially right. Contrary to popular belief in Minnesota (not trying to flame here), jesse ventura probably wouldn't have much of a chance in the rest of the country. But the "third"-party movement has been getting a lot more attention lately than usual, what with the new reform and independence parties, and all the attention being given to nader and the greens lately...not to mention the libertarians. Of course, with several parties (that is, several parties that could each at least get a few percent of the vote), the person who is elected will have less and less of a majority most likely. I don't think this is all bad...I'd rather have more realistic choices. After all, I'd rather be right than have my candidate be president. :)

"It is well that war is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it."

Re:Shell script to get latest Florida count from C

[jesser]

I was surprised that none of the large news sites had text-only versions of the data. You don't lose a lot of information or usability converting small tables to plain text, and you save a whole lot of bandwidth. It might have had something to do with the fact that browsers don't turn urls in plain text documents into hyperlinks, because the sites want to be able to link to at least a few articles (as well as to the graphical version) and Windows users have no other quick way to jump to urls from text documents.

--

Re:The Nader Effect

[OriginalGangsterTrol]

That's a pretty big generalization...

All of my friends that voted for Nader would have voted for Bush over Gore any day.

Gore disaffected the liberals, that's the reason why we voted Nader. We'd rather see Bush in there than 4 years of Gore failing to get anything done that he promised 8 years ago.

Re:Electoral College

[x24]

Only in some states. In others, the electors (I think that's the word) could vote for Nader if they wanted to.

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[Megane]

I know, I've been thinking the same thing. But now that it's an issue with enough people interested in it. I've been listening on TV and radio to arguments for it.

It seems that the one thing it does is keep the states with lower populations from becoming completely insignificant, amplifying their votes a bit. This was one of the concerns back in the 1770's when there were only 13 states, that the little states would be reduced to insignificance, and is also why we have a bicameral (house+senate) system that is set up the way it is. After all, who would campaign in Rhode Island otherwise?

Still, I'd kind of like to see the "winner takes all" thing done away with. In a state with a near 50/50 split, and there were quite a few of them, it seems kind of silly to count it the same as a 100/0 victory. Plus, this would give third party candidates a chance. Nader's 4% in California would have been enough to give him at least one electoral vote. Then we'd also have to start thinking about coalition voting, with third part Electoral College delegates voting for the best coalition, to avoid it going to Congress.

(Hillary) Clinton/Liberman 2004!

[Chuck Bucket]

You heard me!

Chuck Bucket
----

Re:Ehmz, wasn't it Bush?

[Chang]

Actually, a guy named Cask (sp?) who is the #2 guy at the Florida Division of Elections said that in the 5 years he's been there recounts haven't changed the count at all. The computer counts get it right the first time.

This was during a live interview on CNN at about 4am Eastern this morning.

What will change the counts (but perhaps not the outcome) will be the absentee ballots. They can arrive up to 10 days after the election as long as the postmark is on or before November 7.

No confidence

[Quintin Stone]

It really is speculative at this time. It's all based upon people exiting the polls remarking on how confusing it was and they weren't sure they actually voted for the candidate they wanted to.

Here's a hint: if you're confused, try asking someone before you submit the ballot.

Re:Bush to thank Nader for the presidency.

[cloudmaster]

For one thing, those people voted for Nader. I could just as easily claim that the people who voted for gore *would've* voted for Bush if gore hadn't run - but that would be equally stupid. They *did* run, and the people voted for the person they wanted to be president. If they'd wanted gore, they would've voted gore. Damn it.

In addition, if you'll look real close, *neither* cantidate has a majority of the popular vote. So, at least you got that part right...

Whatever happens... the president will be weak

[JPS]

How can one claim to have been legitimately elected when the difference is made on a smallish bunch of votes? I meant, whoever wins, there will be suspicion of fraud, or misleading ballots or booth closing 5 minutes late or whatever. Of course, that won't come from the "big" guys, but you can be sure that the controversy on this election will last for loooong.

I meant what will the new president say?
"Thanks to all of you! We totally kicked the a** of the [republicans|democrats]. Thanks in particular to the 5 folks who made the difference in Florida. Now, we are just going to apply _our_ politic without taking care of these losers!"
;)

Re:Please...

[Arjuna Theban]

No you don't speak for us all. I care about this probably a lot more than most Americans around me. So shut up and don't speak for us all until we call you to do so.

Re:The media

[angelo]

Not to mention the fact Florida is also a two-time-zone state. That really buggers everything up when the next city over starts blabbin about the EST section's vote..

electoral system fix

[frknfrk]

the electoral system is the system the framers created to deal with the slow movement of information of their time. i believe it is good on the one hand, because it ensures proportional representation of the states (if 100% of vermont votes (all Rep), and 30% of michigan votes (20% dem, 10% rep), the popular vote looks very close but the electoral points could be very, very much in favor of democrats. this is a good thing, because the people of vermont, even with 100% turnout, should now outweigh the people of michigan. however, the electoral system has the inverse fundamental problem: while ensuring proportional representation of the states, within the states it is the opposite. if, as is the case in florida, 49.98% vote for candidate A, and 49.99% vote for candidate B, 100% of the state's electoral votes goes to candidate B. Hrm. This doesn't make sense, as obviously florida is NOT 100% sure who should be president. so, simply, the electoral college of florida should cast half their votes for candidate A, half for candidate B. that makes sense, as this system keeps the benefits of the electoral system (populous states still count more even with less turnout) while ridding us of the stupidity of it. i took a few stat classes along the way in college (on the way to my BS in comp sci) and i don't remember a damned thing i learned in them. but, i put together some examples of how this system could work, even with minor third parties like Nader throwing their wrench in the works. perhaps have it go like this:
if a state has 20 electoral votes...
the winner gets what is left after...
each candidate gets the floor of their percent times 20

example:
candidate A gets 56% of the vote
candidate B gets 40% of the vote
candidate C gets 3% of the vote
candidate D gets 1% of the vote
in a state with 20 electoral votes

candidate D gets 0 electoral votes (calc is 0.2)
candidate C gets 0 electoral votes (calc is 0.6)
candidate B gets 8 electoral votes (calc is 8.0)
candidate A gets 12 electoral votes (calc. is 11.2)

this preserves that the winner of a state will receive a benefit greater than the simple popular vote, yet also rewards those who earn a substantial amount of the popular vote.

how about another example:
candidate A gets 40% of the vote
candidate B gets 36% of the vote
candidate C gets 14% of the vote
candidate D gets 10% of the vote
in a state with 20 electoral votes

candidate D gets 2 electoral votes (calc is 2.0)
candidate C gets 2 electoral votes (calc is 2.8)
candidate B gets 7 electoral votes (calc is 7.2)
candidate A gets 9 electoral votes (calc is 8.0)

i believe that this system more accurately reflects the wishes of the people of this fictional state. for the state to award 100% of the electoral votes to any candidate is stupid, because we say every vote counts, and EITHER WAY, 4 million votes are going to count as ZERO in florida. anyway that's my 2 cents, and i'm broke.

Re:Ehmz, wasn't it Bush?

[Chris Mattern]

Huh? The votes counts I've seen put Bush ahead
by barely 1500 votes; a recount could easily
swing the vote that much. I don't understand
how votes in other states can make any difference
to a *Florida* recount. The election now hangs
on Florida's electoral votes, and the only thing
that will determine Florida's electoral votes is
Florida's recount.

Chris Mattern

Please guys...

[tfxx]

"News for the nerds. Stuff that matters"?

Re:Please guys...

[fizban]

If you don't realize that politics matters a lot to nerds these days, then you need to wake up.

Politics has everything to do with who makes the laws, what laws get passed and what effect those laws have on the people. And in a society like we have now, which has become more and more dependent on technology and the creations of us nerds, you'll find that a lot of stuff you care about is going to be affected by those people in office.

So, I'd suggest you take politics a bit more seriously. I'm glad to see this stuff on Slashdot. Nowhere else can you read about what other nerds like yourself are thinking about the issues in our country.
----

Re:Florida

[wemmick]

>p.s. Wow, I hope Slashdot gives the Canadian elections this much coverage in three weeks' time...

y'mean they didn't vote yesterday like the rest of the country?

(duck!)

--

Electoral college go bad? possible?

[Helix150]

if I remember my HS Civics class... the EC can vote however the f*k they want. Could the 'gore' EC member vote for bush? what prevents this from happening?

Eastern votes influencing the West

[Chakotay]

I think that's just extremely wrong. They shouldn't start counting votes in the east until the voting has closed in the west.

What would also be a Good Thing (tm) is the ability to indicate a second choice counting as half a vote, or maybe a quarter vote, or maybe make it an option so you either throw your full weight at one candidate, or split it into 3/4 to your primary choice and 1/4 to your secondary. However you impliment it, it would allow people to, for example, vote for Nader, while giving Gore the second choice, which would be my vote in such a system if I were actually American :)

)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity

Re:Eastern votes influencing the West

[sdr]

Senate in Rome used to have a similar system. Each senator could vote for as many candidates/alternatives as they wanted. So a in this election someone who wanted to vote liberal could vote for both Gore and Nader without fear that his vote would be wasted.

compulsory voting

[brokeninside]

No country should make their citizens vote, otherwise you have bitter people voting or non informed people, which on both cases, isn't good.

From what I understand about Australian elections, turning your ballot in is compulsory but filling it out is not. People that really don't care still won't vote.

have a day,

-l

Payback for Dallas, 1963

[OriginalGangsterTrol]

'nuff said.

I'll have an "R" please Bob

[Fishy]

Jesus,

This makes the Royal family look good.

Which idiot do you want to elect today?(TM)

Still if Bush wins can take the piss out of the USA for many years to come, woohoo!

"and at number 6, the new hot hit from TMBG, its subliminalallyinallyinal"

Steve

Re:Nader

[Sodium Attack]

A vote for Nader was only half a vote for Bush. Do the math.

I don't agree with the Buchanan issue...

[jmccay]

I don't think it is fair to say that people who voted for Buchanan meant to vote for Gore. In that case, they really should do a revote.

The mathematics of America's voting system

[mblase]

This year, Discover magazine published an article the month before the election about the problems of electing candidates based on simple majority, which begins to fail when more than two candidates have a strong following. With the fuss about Nader voters "taking away" votes from Gore, this is very relevant in this election.

Four years ago, they did a similar article on the electoral college, and how it actually gives more power to the average voter when a very large pool of voters exists.

Both articles should be required reading for all scientifically-minded would-be voting reformers.

Re:The mathematics of America's voting system

[Vancouverite]

One interesting point on the Electoral College that I noticed (but haven't read anything about elsewhere) is that, on the balance, the EC gives relatively more power to the smaller states than to the larger states.

How? Consider how the EC votes are distributed. A state has a number of EC votes equal to the number of Senators + Representatives they have in Congress.

Since Representatives are proportional to population, the larger states have more total electoral votes. However, every state has two Senators. So, your electoral votes are 2 + (proportion of population). A voter in a small state (i.e. North Dakota) 'controls' a relatively large proportion of the total electoral vote, larger than the contol of a voter in a larger state.

This helps ensure that the smaller state's voters have some say in the outcome of an election. If only the popular vote mattered, the smaller states would be virtually ignored - gaining 60% of the North Dakota vote is much less significant than gaining 51% of the California vote, but it can matter if the election is close (as in this case).

Re:The mathematics of America's voting system

[mttlg]

Four years ago, they did a similar article on the electoral college, and how it actually gives more power to the average voter when a very large pool of voters exists.

The flawed assumption here is that giving a voter more power is a good thing. While it might help voter turnout (which is unlikely given that this year's extremely close race failed to increase voter turnout significantly), more power in one person's hands must equate to less power in someone else's hands. All voters should have an equal voice, not just voters who live in states with close races. I'm in Massachusetts, and everybody pretty much ignored the people here. I voted in New York, and the situation there was the same. Everyone assumed (correctly) that Gore would win these states, so the Republican voters in New York City, Boston, and the rest of both states had no power in this election. The Democrats completely ignored California, confident of victory. The electoral college system does not force candidates to campaign in all 50 states - it forces them to campaign in highly contested states and ignore many major population centers.

Re:The mathematics of America's voting system

[Sodium Attack]

This article is so easy to refute it's not even funny. It shows that some voters have more power with an EC system than with a direct popular vote. What they do not take into account is that that power does not come out of thin air; it comes from voters in other states who have reduced power.

This election provides a perfect example: a voter in Florida has quite a bit of electoral power. I, living in Indiana, a state which votes overwhelmingly republican in presidential elections, have very little power.

With an EC, the overall average voter power remains the same. It's just distributed much less evenly than with a direct popular vote.

Re:The mathematics of America's voting system

[Kafir]

But the recent Discover article leaves out the "instant runoff" voting system, pretty clearly superior to the approval voting and Borda count systems it praises.

Socialist candidate David McReydnolds explained it in the slashdot interview:
You would cast your ballot with, as one example, your top five choices. Let's suppose it was:

McReynolds #1 Nader #2 Gore #3 Bush #4 Hagelin #5

If Al Gore got enough #1 votes on the first count, he is the winner - end of story. But if on the first count no one gets a majority you take the lowest candidate (let's say it was me) and find out who my #2 choice was, so that is added to Nader's total. It is possible - not likely but possible - that Nader might be #2 on enough ballots that he would have a majority. But probably he wouldn't and you'd go on down the list, transferring Nader's "second choice" to the next candidate, etc.

This means that if you voted for a Socialist Party candidate you weren't helping elect Bush. Also means if you voted for the Libertarian candidate you wouldn't be helping elect Gore.

And in this election means that Nader would have received more votes, but Gore would have solidly won.

Re:The mathematics of America's voting system

[haystor]

One thing I would like to add to this is that the campaigns were run assuming an EC. If they had been run for a strict popular vote, Bush would surely have campaigned more heavily in the larger states (CA, NY) that Gore won, while Gore would have had to campaign more heavily in many many smaller states to swing votes.

If the election were held for popular vote (and campaigned accordingly) it would have still be very very close.

Re:The mathematics of America's voting system

[Millennium]

Clue time: that's impossible. Voting power is relative; if you increase one voter's power it is necessary to decrease another voter's.

This is true. However, in a direct-popular system, densely populated areas will naturealy have more influence than sparsely-populated ones, to the point where only large states will have any real power at all.

So you are correct that increasing a voter's power in North Dakota would seem to decrease a voter's power in California. But in the end, because California was alrealy so powerful, you've balanced things out.
----------

Re:Please...

[Happy Monkey]

Why do you limit this to non-Americans? I've been saying this for at least a week.
___

Re:I wish it came down to 1 vote

[jflynn]

The issue isn't that each vote counts, obviously it does, by a fraction inversely proportional to state voting population. Let's leave illegal corruption out of it for now and just look at how it is stacked legally.

The deal is that you have to divide your effective power in voting by 10 because there is only 10% difference between Bush and Gore on issues, perhaps less. If the same person ran for both parties, you'd have zero power, right? Both are free trading pro drug-war social conservatives in favor of censorware, Internet regulation, and intellectual property enforcement. The differences, like w.r. to Wicca and atheism are small to many who think themselves unaffected.

Abortion is the one significant difference I think, and their positions don't differ that greatly, it's the Supreme Court appointments that make the difference loom large. And after either one gets in office it will be the campaign donors that get access and attention, not you. Try getting an appointment with the Prez on the basis you voted for him sometime. You would be more powerful if you contributed a few hundred thousand to both of them (as soft money, of course) rather than voting. That's why your vote is devalued. I wouldn't say it doesn't count, but that it doesn't count as much as it could or should.

In a tie election you have the deciding vote. Given the likelihood of a tie, how powerful does that make you? Not very.

And the loser is���

[The Man]

Every American citizen, who will have to put up with one of these indistinguishable bozos for at least four years© As with every election in this country, unless you agree with ideas of big government, censorship, and the right of the government to redistribute income, you lost before the first ballot was voted©

Re:GOP?

[s390]

Here's a little help - at one time, the Republican party styled itself as the "Grand Old Party" - thus GOP.

The similar slang for the Democrats is "Dems" but that's obviously a lot more intuitive.

Re:bullshit, nader supporters screwed us all

[OriginalGangsterTrol]

Fuck off, Gore has no one to blame but himself.

I voted for Nader but would have voted for Bush any day.

Why is Gore still promising to fix the same things that he promised he'd fix 8 years ago???

That's why liberals voted for Nader, atleast things will get accomplished this way.

Re:Going to be interesting

[eastMike]

Are the reports on this just speculative right now? That is, can they say with confidence that a certain number of ballots were counted for buchanan when they should have been for gore? It seems like the only way to fix it would be to have everybody that voted in that precinct to come and vote again. Otherwise how could they know?

"It is well that war is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it."

Re:Nader

[Sodium Attack]

If Bush is in office, the supremes that retire will also be conservative. No change in the court's ideology.

Re:Very strange results

[angelo]

I've heared *rumours* of an effort to send letters to non-resident aliens along with pre-registered voting cards signed (rather photostated) by Bill Clinton. Of course this is illegal, but it will get chalked up as a mistake.

If dead can dance, why not let them vote too?

Re:Nader

[Nissyen]

I keep hearing this "Nader Factor" talk, like Nader is costing Gore the election. So as a Nader supporter I get excited thinking that Nader is actually doing well. But looking at the Florida results (pre-recount) I see that Bush has 2,909,136 votes, Gore has 2,907,331 votes, and Nader has 96,698 votes. Maybe instead of complaining about Nader's votes Gore should have been more concerned with Bush's votes.

I think it's likely that there are potential Gore supporters who voted for Bush, probably more that 100,000 people in Florida could have been swayed. More than all the Nader votes put together. So if Gore loses the election, he lost to Bush, not to Nader.

Re:Well, Rob, if you're sick of it...

[chrischow]

why is slashdot devoting so much time to this anyway? its a .org so its supposed to be an international site after all. the US election is of interest but not very much. are there no tech stories today or what? will slashdot cover the british election equally as well?

Exactly!

[Chakotay]

Voting for Gore in a state like Texas or Omaha doesn't make any impact whatsoever, voting for Gore in Florida could make the ultimate impact. In a democracy, shouldn't all votes count equally?

)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity

Re:Exactly!

[Cannonball]

We live in a Republic, NOT a Democracy, therefore the individual states carry the power. It's a preventative measure. The Electoral College Makes Sense to me. Go Read George Will's Article in the Washington Post.

Re:Exactly!

[Chakotay]

Then why do so many politicians keep saying the US is a democracy? Why do so many politicians say they want other countries to become democratic too? Why "too" if they don't think they're democratic aswell?

I can see the virtues of the electoral college, especially in a country as large as the US. A parliamental democracy slash constitutional monarchy as we have here (Netherlands) simply wouldn't function on that scale...

)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity

Why an Electoral College?

[Falciera]

We have the best government in the world. We have many people representing our interest and our beliefs. We have a Senate, a House of Representatives, a Supreme Court and a Presidency. All looking over each others shoulders, all second guessing the other, arguing different stand point. Not very efficient, but it sure as hell keeps all these parties in line. Our government is based on a system of check and balances that never gives too much power or too little power one way or another. And most people in america think this is great. But then, why not for voters? In the first election it was established that based on population each state would receive a set number of Electoral votes to be cast by people who represent the majority. These people where to base their decision on their district and then on the state majority. Thus, casting a vote that reflected what the people wanted. This was a check system. This was the state looking over the shoulder of the voter to see what they were doing, and going, Hmmmm, really? The Electoral system was set up to make the people of america think before they voted. To make sure they choose wisely, because their vote really did matter. And why is this so bad? How many of your peers do you know who didn't even vote, let alone went out and voted Democrat or Republican just because that is what they were registered as? Forget what the candidates says or what they stand for. It's too much trouble to learn about the person who will be running the country for the next for years. If he messes up, we just vote him out next election. These are excuses, bad ones at that, that are more commonly used than, I voted because so-and-so stands for this and that, and I think that this is a noble cause, or I agree with him on this issue, he is really right on in his thinking. More and more people today are not voting educationally, and are apathetic to politics. We have people voting like this is america and we think that a check system for voters isn't necessary? Mind you, should the electoral College ever really mess up and not represent it's state then there will be a problem, but until then our originators where right on. Make the people uneasy, make then think before they step into that booth and check one name or another. The peoples vote really does count. And the Electoral College is still doing it's job. Stop complaining...we have it better then we think. Go Gore!

Three times is enough

[BitKat]

Can't we make a separate "US" section or something? I would feel that local issues don't belong on /.

Re:Three times is enough

[squiggleslash]

Much as I hate to state the blatently obvious, there is a United States topic, and this is on it. Go scroll to the top and have a look. Now go to "Preferences" and turn off the United States topic if you don't want to read this stuff.

That said, could we have a Great Britain topic set up so we can discuss next year's general election? (*ducks*)
--

Re:CNN Reported on the 1,2,3,5 and 6th place parti

[cheezybob]

Exactly! I was getting very, very angry last night watching the CNN ticker and not seeing Browne. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't he beat Hagelin in every single state? (except New York).

I always respected CNN before this, assuming they wouldn't do anything this stupid. Whatever happened to journalistic integrity???? I was too busy getting mad at CNN to watch any other channels and see what they were saying about Browne. Did anyone else witness the other networks?

I'm definitely writing a strongly worded letter to CNN, and I will do my best to not patronize their corporation until this issue is acknowledged (and resolved!).

Rob

Re:Tempted...

[Art_XIV]

A wise and thoughtful reply... much better than the previous one.

The subject was "tempted" because I did actually vote for Browne, whom I had favored all along.

Re:Nader

[Sodium Attack]

Get out of my life, Government!

Yep, the Republicans have been spouting that line as long as I can remember. Don't feel bad, I used to believe it too. But after enough years seeing what Republicans actually did in office, rather than what they said, I wised up to their hypocrisy.

It's moot anyway, but...

[TopShelf]

This is from the ABCnews story:

The Democratic National Committee said it started receiving complaints from voters that the actual ballot was very confusing. Basically, voters said, the hole punch for Gore on the ballot was so close to that of Buchanan that many voters weren't sure who they had voted for. "By Gore there were two holes ... I had to figure out which one," said voter Lena Fransetta. "I asked one of the ladies for help and she didn't know. When I left I figured out I voted wrong." Another voter, May Cohen, said, "I don't know if I voted wrong ... Republicans had only one hole, Gore-Lieberman had two. I think I did right, but it was very confusing."

It sounds like not even the poll worker was able to help the one lady. Seriously, I doubt anything could (or should) be done to address this situation in the present vote, but I would think a standard should be developed with maximum clarity and ease-of-use the focal point of ballots. With all the local offices and referendums appearing around the country, I could see how some people could get confused.

Constitutional Republic != democracy????

[vlax]

Canada is a monarchy. Mexico is a federation. China is a "People's Republic." They're just names, and have little or nothing to do with democracy.

There are huge differences between different schools of thought on what exactly constitutes a fair vote and a fair campaign. Most countries that run regular multi-party elections limit candiadtes access to funds and media, and as far as I know, all of them have some centre of power not elected by simple one-man-one-vote formulas.

In Canada and the UK, leadership is decided based on a first-past-the-post system in each constituency, where the party with the most seats in parliament leads. This can - and in fact usually does - lead to representation out of proportion ot the actual vote count. In France, in addition to a British-style parliament, there is a Senate with limited powers elected by methods that heavily favour conservative rural districts over liberal urban ones. Canada has an appointed Senate, and the UK has the House of Lords. Germany has proportional representation in the Bundestag. The UK has regional governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland that distort power relationships to favour those regions.

Does any of this disqualify them as democracies? Not by any sensible current definition.

As for me, I think that Condorcet voting is the fairest way to handle single office elections, and proportional representation is the only realistically fair way to handle electing legislative assemblies. I understand that political realities in most nations require some from of disproportionate regional representation, and I'm for them wherever truly necessary, but not otherwise.

I don't think the US needs the electoral college anymore, not in an age of rightly diminished state power and loyalty. As for this election, it seems to me that considering the Nader vote, the majority of the American electorate has expressed a liberal tendency and that Gore's mandate is better than Bushes. Condorcet voting would almost certainly have elected Gore, although still not by any huge margin.

The Nader Effect? Phooey.

[SunRunner]

There is no Nader Effect. Gore's in the position he's in because he's run a horrible campaign, and dropped the ball at just about every opportunity along the way. He's refused to listen to the evolving left (especially the 18-35's) and the issues that are close to their hearts. Those issues really aren't that far away from Gore's platform. With a little compromise, he could have won the confidence of Nader's supporters. Compromise, however, isn't Gore's strong suit. It's his way or the highway (just read the stories from Gore camp staffers who had to work with the guy) when it comes to policy, and his uppity arrogance has cost him this election.

For once and for all, let's put the blame where it belongs on this 'Nader Effect' issue - on Gore's shoulders. Power to the Green Party, and kudos to Nader voters who refused to be weak and fold their morals to those Gore supporters who refused to take a stand against a leader whose policies are strongly lacking.

Repeal part of the Bill of Rights

[majornemo]

I think the appointment of supreme court justices will be important, but not for the reasons you think.
When the founders of the US wrote the constitution, they found that the states would not approve it without adding some amendments, which are known as the bill of rights. Starting with FDR's court, the supreme court has chosen to ignore the 9th and 10th amendment in many cases.
Bush just wants to appoint justices who read. If the Democrats or Greens want the federal government to have unlimited power, why don't they just repeal some of those pesky earlier amendments, such as the 2d, 9th, or 10th.

Re:what madate?

[kootch]

you're not supposed to envy them. they are supposed to have a hard job. balancing millions of people's interests and the interests of the country is a hard job. giving politicians the ability to push through legislation that 49% of the country does not support irregardless of the representatives that happen to be elected is the job of our government.

by having a government that is pretty evenly split (also called "checks and balances") makes for some exciting government proceedings.

Re:Shell script to get latest Florida count from C

[romco]

Here's a little "how to" put it on a web page for those that care. (requires php)

1. Create the file vote.sh in your root web dir
2. chmod it 755
3. add the following code to your web page:

<?
//show current florida vote
system('./vote.sh > vote.txt');
include("vote.txt");
?>

Note: This is quick and dirty and probably not the safest way to do it.

I just want to know one thing

[macdaddy]

When do I get to see Tipper in celebration dancing naked on the coffee table in anticpation of getting nailed in the Oval Office, this time by her husband?

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[Thagg]

While I believe that the framers knew what they were doing when they gave small states a disproportionate share of the electoral vote, and I agree with that -- they could not have anticipated the biggest result of the process. That is, of course, that neither candidate campaigned at all in the huge majority of the country, instead focusing all their efforts on a few key battleground states.

If you believe that campaigning informs the electorate; or that campaigning nationwide would force a candidate to be more candid with his views on all issues, then you have to ditch the winner-take-all nature of the electoral college.

Making it a proportionate representation, while still giving Wyoming 3 votes, would make the election more 'democratic', where everybody's vote would be sought relatively equally.

thad

Re:Florida

[Quintin Stone]

Not true at all. Bush has been ahead since 7:00 AM EST this morning, and is still listed ahead by about the same margin, about 1,800 votes.

I'm not sure why you'd make up something like this.

electorial college vs popular vote

[pjones]

Yesterday morning, Repugnicans that I know were all saying that the electorial college is subverting democracy and the will of the people.

This morning, it's the Democrats that are championing the popular vote.

How many states bind their electors to the vote in their state? I recall Virginia electors deciding to cast several of Virginia's votes for Sen. Byrd who had not been on any ballot.

Re:Nader

[um... Lucas]

Ditto that. I consciously chose not to vote, only to register at the last minute after seeing Jello Biafra speak about how a vote for Nader could only serve to strengthen another viable party. And more choices are good choices, right?

So, Nader didn't take my vote from gore, he just took a vote that didn't exist in the first place.

Accuracy of /. poll...

[mdtrent3]

Well, the /. poll came out to be a tie (20% v. 20%) so we should've expected this, right? :)

I wonder if it's possible for the POPULAR vote to TIE? what would happen then? just a thought...

Re:The real story

[M. Silver]

If we're so disenchanted, why did we turn out in droves?

We turned out in relative droves. A high percentage of registered voters is not the same as a high percentage of eligible voters.

Re:do over

[x24]

I prefer having a "none of the above" option on the ballot, and if it gets enough votes then the election has to be done over with new people.

Maybe I'm being cynical, but I think this would happen quite often.

Re:Bush to thank Nader for the presidency.

[jothenull]

Actually polls have indicated that 80% of Nader's supporters (including myself) would have not voted for either major canidate had Nader not been in the race. I got your majority profile right here. ;)

Re:I wish it came down to 1 vote

[Foogle]

Some people's votes literally do not matter. Clearly that's not the case in states like Wisconsin and Florida, but in my mostly Democrat home state of Massachusetts Gore had almost twice as many votes as Bush did. I still went out and voted, because of the other questions on the ballot, but regardless of how I voted, Gore was going to get our Electoral.

Re:other junk including the Roe vs Wade thing....

[ph0rk]

I thought the confederacy lost...

Re:The fix is in?

[ChadN]

Well, if they still have the voter log, and know the ballot serial numbers, they can at least check to see if there is anything obviously wrong (ie. more votes than voters, etc.)

Not sure if that would be enough to allow the votes to be validated.

Re:The media

[jafac]

In America, free speech is valued above almost everything.

That and freedom of religion are THE two key pieces of nationalistic propaganda that are rammed down our throats here at a very early age.

Most of us don't learn the truth (that we have neither) until High School civics class, and by then, we're in our rebellious teenage years, so it doesn't matter.

With Gore taking this election, and a republican congress, you can be sure that the rest of the world will be laughing their asses off in the next 4 years as "free" America amends it's constitution to prohibit the burning of the American flag.

Personally, I think flag-burning should be a sacred ritual at every family's 4th of July celebration (to celebrate that we have the right to do so - any Christian, and there are many in America I'm told, ought to understand instinctively that for an ideal to live for ever, the symbol that represents it must be destroyed).

But I digress, we're talking about the media here, and that's what freedom of speech is really about - and the media will manipulate the elections with biased coverage and reporting to make sure the most profitable (for them) man wins. Which candidate is most profitable? The most controverisal! The one that's easiest to spoof, tease, and lampoon. The one that's going to make those ratings jump as he does one lameass thing after another.

I'm guessing this is why Slashdot has "elected" Jon Katz to write editorials here. Same reason ZDNet uses Dvorak and Bearst.

Re:a deserter is better than ...

[spectecjr]

Abortion isn't the answer you stupid piece of shit. If you are going to kill someone you should do it because they deserve it. If you kill someone and you deserve to die, you SHOULD die! You should have time to show the world you deserve to live, not kill you will in utero. You sick ass wipe. Stupid whores and sluts that get pregnant shouldn't be let off the hook. They should be FORCED to give up the baby for adoption and let ethical people raise the child.

Like you? Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah ahahahahah!

You crack me up.

Re:sad

[Bishop282]

: Also, if bush wins, we'll see the republicans controlling the Legislative, Executive, and soon the Judicial branches -- the definition of tyranny as laid out by the founders. But I somehow doubt that all the NRA folks are planning a revolution anytime soon. Sorry to see the constitution fail us here.

If the Republicans control the Legislative and Executive branches, this will be the first time since 1954. The Legislative branch was in the hands of the Democrats since 1954 until 1994. Therefore, the Democrats controlled the Legislative and Executive branches from 1960 to 1968 and 1976 to 1980. Is that the same definition of tyranny?

The Constitution is working here. We are not following it with regards to federal powers. Programs such as social security, welfare, department of education, etc. are unconstitutional because the federal government does not have the power to run these programs.

Pleased to Note..

[ryanw]

Bit off topic, but I noticed expecially since www.cnn.com is handling the load it is getting beautifully while the state of florida's servers have been hit and miss all night.

www.cnn.com is running Unix, while florida is running NT ..

Netcraft results of CNN.com

Netcraft results of Florida's Server (enight.dos.state.fl.us)

Re:Nader

[KingBozo]

I don't see why everyone is still saying that Nader stole votes from Gore. Get a life. Gore and Bush both stole votes from Nader in that most people felt they had to make sure the other one didn't win.

I know I would have voted Nader but didn't want Gore to win, so I voted Bush.

Re:But Terribly Fun Results! Better than football.

[jafac]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer wasn't even very good last night.

Lesbian Witches. How cliche.

Keeping things honest

[IP, Daily]

Maybe we need to send Jimmy Carter down to Florida to oversee this recount. You never know how ugly this could get.

Re:Nader

[ZoeSch]

Well if he cost him Oregano, he should've gone for parsley...

Sorry couldn't resist

Re:Very strange results

[Chang]

> Gore easily won the exit polls in Florida

The exit poll CNN has up was 48.94% for Gore and 48.14% for Bush.

What exit poll are you referring to?

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[Quintin Stone]

The question is whether or not it is still appropriate for a modern society.

• The Electoral College has evolved, shaping and being shaped by the two-party system, which probably would not survive abandonment of winner-take-all allocation of electoral votes.... By avoiding proportional allocation of electoral votes, America's system... buttresses the dominance of two parties

This is the biggest problem with it, in many people's opinions, and why I don't think it will ever change. Why would the two big parties give up their stranglehold on American politics? And frankly, I think this is why it needs to go.

Re:The media

[Megane]

I was stunned when after they had given Florida to Gore they took it back.

I wasn't stunned about that. I was stunned that they gave it to Gore in the first place. When about 10% of the precincts were in, and Bush was leading 50/48, I wondered where the hell they pulled a solid Gore win for the state from, and guessed it was based entirely on exit polls of 1770 some odd people, which in a close race is about as reliable as pulling it out of your ass.

Finally CNN pulled Florida, then Fox News, then the two networks I was also switching to.

Now the really tricky part about this was that the polls were apparently still open in the Florida panhandle (which I guess is in a different time zone) when the networks gave the state to Gore.

Re:Mistaken vote for Buchanan

[squiggleslash]

As someone who works in nearby Martin County, I can point you at some info on what happened in Palm Beach County where the allegations are being made. First, here's stuff from the Port St Lucie Tribune, the local paper where I live:

• Ballot mix up may have Gore votes sent to Buchanan by mistake
• Full Florida results by county

There's nothing about Palm Beach county to suggest that the extraordinary high Buchanan turnout matches local opinion compared to the rest of the State, IMO.

A collegue/friend of mine lives around there and voted and said she nearly made the same mistake. Her mother did make the same mistake, but noticed before posting her ballot and asked for another paper. It seems reasonable to conclude that it is likely that others made the same mistake and didn't notice until after their ballot was out of their hands.
--

Re:But bush wins :-(

[Anonymous Coward]

Is "annathea" some kind of gay cyber imaginary girlfriend of yours or something? I have noticed that slutty internet girls talk about kittens a lot. I think it makes people think they are cat like. Thin, fragile, elegant. Not obese and covered in pigs fat. It sometimes works, it sometimes doesn't.

Re:Nader

[Naga666]

actually, that is not 100% accurate. Of the current justices, three are expected to retire or at least be considering it: Rhenquist: since he has publically stated that he more or less wants to retire and that it would not happen while a democrat was president, odds are if Bush wins (which at this point seems highly likely), Rhenquist is leaving. Since he is extremely consevative (save for his surpirising vote earlier this year to uphold Miranda) Bush's appointment of a consevative justice would not shift the court's idealology. Stevens: Liberal (more or less), and old. I think he might be the oldest on the court at this point (around 80, as I recall). He too has made it known that his time to step down is close. Whether or not he does if a republican president is in office is up for grabs. O'Connor: Has also made her desire to retire known. Technically, O'Connor is closest to a federalist. How that plays out is that she acts as more of a swing vote and cannot typically be labeled conservative or liberal. She, along with Kennedy, have acted as the fulcrum for many of the courts closest decisions. It is hard to say, but chances are that bush, if elected will pick someone who is definitely more consevative.

Re:If Gore loses, don't blame Nader

[TrentC]

Ridiculous. Add it up.

Nader's support in Florida is a little over 90,000 votes. The margin of Bush's (apparent victory) is likely to be much less than that, probably less than 5000.

As a result, Nader denied Gore victory, and the democrats who warned of this outcome were right.

Here's a hint for you: I am not obligated to support Gore; he's the one obligated to support me. That's how voting is supposed to work.

To mangle the Mel Gibson speech from Braveheart, we do not exist to provide the two big parties with power; they exist to provide us with freedom. If the Democrats and Republicans aren't going to support my desires for the direction of this country, I refuse to vote for them any more.

Read Michael Moore's open letter to Al Gore about why he supported Nader. There are probably a lot of people who voted for Nader who feel the same way.

Jay (=

Re:I resent...

[mbright]

I resent the fact that the _worst_ possible candidate may win because those of us who are smart enough to know what the issues are, are devided among Gore and Nader and all the uninformed people are united for Bush. Don't agree? Fine. At least I put my name on my opinion.

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[Sodium Attack]

That's what the pundits said about Jesse Ventura.

to stand...

[big-giant-head]

but NOT TO BE TO STAND IN THE WAY OF DANGER AND NOT ALLOWED TO DEFEND YOURSELF. Clinton's record regarding troop deployments is dismal (ethiopia??) and Gore doesn't seem to be any better.

Re:The real story

[King Babar]

It seems to me that the real story of this election is the turnout. I had to wait in line for nearly two hours to vote, and there are similar stories from around the country. In my state (Georgia), voter turnout is expected to approach the all time record.

For years now, we've been told that American voters are apathetic. Turnouts have been approaching record lows, and the pundits have chalked this up to our being disenchanted with the process.

How then to explain what happened yesterday? If we're so disenchanted, why did we turn out in droves?

What pundits say, interestingly, sometimes does not bear close scrutiny. On Monday, during my regular lecture, I made an attempt to explain how the so-called "margins of error" for polls are constructed, that they usually correspond to a 95% confidence interval, and that, at least if you're a Bayesian, you are perfectly able to interpret differences with this interval. Especially if you have multiple polls. Interestingly, the Hotline Scoop electoral summary turned out to be mind-bogglingly accurate on its calls for various states, which were based on on who was leading the state by any margin whatsoever, unless two reputable polls conflicted, in which case the state was considered a toss-up.

Now, the big difference between the polls and the actual vote wasn't in the statistics of the polling itself, but in the selection bias of the samples. The problem was that while we had pretty good information on the preferences of voters who were most likely to vote according to the likely voter models used, very little if any weight was assigned to the votes of voters who fell short of the likely voter threshold. As it happens, one key predictor of whether somebody will vote is whether they voted last time. This works fairly well, except that it can lead to gross errors when you try to predict the voting probality of, e.g., college students who have no voting track record, or the votes of voters who only turn out in close elections. These days, people have realized that advance and exit polling do a really good job of predicting outcomes, and can choose to vote or not based on how likely it is that their vote will be "important". So the problem in the likely voter models for the 2000 election might be partly due to the fact that there was very little if any doubt about the outcome of the 1996 election, so that many "likely" voters decided not to bother. Now, this was clearly not the case in the 2000 election, but the likely voter models were partially blind to the new voting "strategies".

You could call this voter apathy, but some would call it voter strategy, and a few might even call it voter rationality. It's a close call. :-)

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[Sodium Attack]

Common sense would say that if electors were divided by the % of the popular vote within a state, then it would be equivalent to a national popular vote

No, it wouldn't, because each state has N+2 electoral votes, where N is proportional to the population of the state. Wyoming gets 3 out of 538 electoral votes, despite the fact that it has considerably less than 3/538 of the country's population.

Re:CNN Reported on the 1,2,3,5 and 6th place parti

[swordgeek]

"Turner and his ilk are well aware of how many people vote for Democrats out of fear that Republicans will implement a fundamentalist Christian agenda, rather than because of actual agreement with Democratic economic policies." (shakes my head) "These Americans are crazy!" (With thanks to Obelisk)

Electoral votes cast when?

[Trinition]

When the recount is done the Florida's Electoral will cast their votes in favor of the winner of the recount in Florida.

I'm not sure what you intended by this, but to be sure, the Electorals of all states cast their votes on December 18th this year.

Now, does anyone know if they can vote out of faith with their state's popular vote?

Re:Electoral votes cast when?

[FatouDust]

Even so, in the states where there is a law binding the electorate to the popular vote, there is not actually any immediate recourse, should an electoral college member decide to be faithless.

That is to say, if an elector votes contrary to the popular vote, the state can take action against the elector (fines, expulsion), but the elector's faithless vote still stands. The election will still be based on that vote, regardless of the later consequence to the elector.

So it is entirely possible that a few electors could change the course of the entire election, with or without the backing of their region's popular vote.


---
"The Constitution...is not a suicide pact."

Re:Electoral votes cast when?

[ksmeltzer]

Yes I did not clearly state that in my post it is Dec 18, I apologize. I am pretty sure we are faithless but our electors have never gone against the popular vote.

Re:Electoral votes cast when?

[mweier]

except in the nixon election

Re:Electoral votes cast when?

[rvcinco]

Yes, they can. It's happened several times over the last 50 years; check the article in yesterday's WSJ talking about different electoral college scenarios.

Re:Electoral votes cast when?

[sdo1]

There are some number of states, about half I think, where the electoral college MUST by law vote for the candidate that the people of those stats have chosen.

BUT, in the other states, there is no such law. Those people in the electoral college have promised that they will vote along with the popular votes of those states, but they are not legally compelled to do so.

It's close enough. Someone in the electoral college could actually change their vote and throw the election...

-S

Re:Supreme Court / reproductive rights

[Chris Burke]

Well, I'm a Nader kind of person myself, and agree that the candidates are too similar, but here's a brief list (from CNN, even). I can't speak for you, but some of these issues would count to me as "important".

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2000/resources/where.t hey.stand/index.html

Take your time reading, since it's too late for you to become educated on the matter anyway.

Re:Florida

[SunRunner]

nerpdawg: I don't know where you're getting your numbers, but:

Please Click Here

Bush has been ahead for a while now. My biggest question is, how did crap like this get mod'd up to 5???

*grumble* *grumble* *grumble*

Re:Nader

[MrGrendel]

I'm not giving up on any issues. We are taking the risk of a Bush presidency, but that risk is small compared to the risks people had to take in other social movements. People who supported civil rights in the south risked hanging from a tree. Bush may want to hang me from a tree, but he won't.

The environment and abortion are serious issues, but the democrats haven't been much better than the rebublicans on a national scale in the last 8 years. Gore won't support environmental policies that risk a negative economic impact (even if the impact is only temporary) and even though women have a legal right to an abortion, they can't find a doctor to perform one in 85 percent of the counties. This is worse than when Clinton took office. The supreme court is another issue, but remember that the most conservative justice was confirmed unanimously by a democratic senate (that includes Al Gore's vote). The president nominates the justice, but the senate doesn't have to go along. The democrats abdicated their duty to balance the executive branch when they had the opertunity.

I should also point out that the supreme court should be the final defense against unconstitutional laws, not the only defense. The chief justice criticized both the president and congress last year for passing blatantly unconstitional laws and leaving it up to the judicial system to sort out the mess. This has to stop and politicians who engage in this kind of behavior need to be held accountable. Unconstitutional laws need to be stopped at the source.

Many of the issues raised by Nader get a lot of support in the polls, but people are too afraid to stand up for what they believe in. These aren't fringe issues, even though the two major parties want you to believe they are. A large majority of americans believe that corporations have too much power. Why don't the democrats and republicans address this instead of bowing down before their masters?

We Miss Clinton and You All Know It !!

[Aquafina]

Can you imagine if Clinton had ran against Bush? Boy it'd be another landslide, with Bob Dole in the back hissing!!

Ha ha... There DEFINITELY is a hole in the bush

... administration.

And to the Gore administration, boy don't they wish they could've let Alien Gonzalez stay so his dad can vote for Al Boreland!!!!

Thanks a lot Janet Weno Your-a-shemale!!!

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[Sodium Attack]

Gore? A liberal? Oh please. Do not confuse "slightly less conservative than Bush" with "liberal".

Re:Link to story on ballot problems ...

[sdo1]

Yes, the picture of the ballot could be confusing, but where are the instructions? ABCnews.com conveniently left that part out.

Without looking at the instructions, I'm guessing you connect the line with the arrow next to the candidate? Or punch a hole in there, or something? Seems pretty straightforward to me. They're even numbered top to bottom. I don't see how people could vote for Buchanan accidentally. There's only one arrow next to each candidate.

-S

Re:The Nader Effect

[jafac]

oh, it wasn't Gore's Campaign staff that failed to appeal to me (a Nader Vote in California).

It was Gore's pathetic environmental record. And his election funraising record.

Gore's just lucky McCain wasn't running, because McCain would have had my vote.
(IMO, nobody's going to fix the environment, nothing will get done until campaign finance reform happens. That's gotta happen first)

it would be very difficult

[Pierre]

I was listening to a bit about what it would take to change it. It would take extraordinary approval at the congression and state levels.

All but 13 states would have to approve it.

This includes at least some small states who would be left with a weaker voice without the electoral college.

Re:CNN Reported on the 1,2,3,5 and 6th place parti

[jafac]

that just means that for the 5 or 10 people who voted Libertarian, there were another 50 or 100 that voted Green.

We're in an exclusive club here, gentlemen.

Who are electors?

[homunq]

Electors do have the right to change their minds. But electors are chosen from committed party members of the winning party (they are NOT chosen before the election). That is why fewer than 1 in 1000 electors votes "faithlessly". It is also why "faithless" electors always vote for a MORE RADICAL candidate instead of switching sides (in this case, analagous to Bush electors going for Buchanan). And all 4 of the 20th century faithless electors have admitted under oath before congress that they would not have switched their vote if the election hinged on it.

Re:Who are electors?

[boinger]

Uh - wrong.

Only in half the states.

Re:The media

[MissKitty]

Oh they'll just smack themselves on the hand and say, "Bad Reporter," then go back to doing what they've been doing.

You don't think they'll take the critisism seriously, do you?

Irregularities in Palm Beach

[duplicate-nickname]

Most of the news agencies said there were some problem in Palm Beach with Gore supporters accidentaly voting for Buchanan. This happened because they enlarged the font for the candidates names on the ballot, but the circles didn't line up then.

When looking at the numbers, these people that accidentally voted for Buchanan could be the difference. Currently Gore is down by 1,805 votes in Florida. In Palm Beach county, Buchanan recieved 3,407 votes.

So what, you say...that doesn't mean 3,407 should have voted for gore. Ahh...but Palm Beach is a heavily democratic area, and Buchanan recieve 0.79% of the vote there, compared to 0.29% state wide. In fact, nearly 20% of Buchanan's votes in Florida came from Palm Beach county.

If anything, citizens in Palm Beach should be aloud to recast their votes!!

Re:The fix is in?

[sxpert]

Interestingly enough, Dade county is the subject of this book and has a long history of vote fixing...

Re:New 'USA' category

[Sodium Attack]

...3,4 or even possibly 5 chief justices of the supreme court

Please educate yourself on the structure of U.S. government before presuming to educate others on it.

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[Donut2099]

Perhaps we could make a few more fundamental changes to the way we elect our presidents. Getting rid of the electoral college is just the beginning. What next? Presidential Time Share, of course! Every candidate would receive an amount of time in office proportionate to his share of the popular vote. But wait, there's more! Yes, by voting for yourself, you get 2 minutes in the Oval Office complete with veto power and military command. Want to press the button? GO AHEAD!

Also, instead of appointing supreme court justices, all legislation will be subjected to the patented /. Moderation system to determine constitutionality.

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[sdo1]

In 1992, Clinton won with only 43.3% of the popular vote. That sounds like even less representative than what we're about to get. The turnout was 55.09% of voting age voters and 65.97% of registered voters.

If my math is right, that means that less than 29% of the registered voters actually voted for Bill Clinton in 1992.

No matter what happens this year, the President will have a greater mandate than Clinton did in 1992.

-S

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[Smallest]

According to an NPR story i heard the other day, the electoral college has had over 700 challenges in congress since its inception, making it the most challenged part of the constitution. Those challenges have failed, of course.

-c

Re:What I'm going to have a hard time explaining..

[1024x768]

Sorry Trollster,

If you have difficulty explaining this concept to your children, you have no business being a parent. I'll give you a hint: "If Al eats in a whites-only restaurant leaving his nanny out in the car, are you going to do it?"

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[Syberghost]

You're completely backwards.

This election shows clearly the fact that the two major parties have become damn near identical, and thus the electoral college makes it possible for a situation to arise where a third party wins with only 31% of the vote, if the major two only get 30% apiece.

Without the electoral college, all you get in that situation is no winner, which means the House of Representatives decides, which is like the Electoral College but without the accountability.

Last time they had to decide, they went against the popular vote *AND* the electoral vote.

-

Florida politics

[feorlen]

Oh boy is this one going to get talked about back home...

Yes, if Nader wasn't in the race, it would be over by now. And Florida does have a long history of
"irregularities" and not just the dietary variety.

Too many people outside the state assumed that because ole brother Jeb was guv'nr, that everything would go along just fine. Anybody who has a clue knows how wrong that is. Florida is always a contest, and is not a reliable outcome for any election.

The latest governor's race was a popularity contest, and Jeb had that hands down. This was his second attempt, recall, and was no match for Chiles who was not eligible for another term, even if he had not untimely expired a short time after the election. Bush's opponent was, well, lame. "The Democrats went to Tallahassee and all I got was a lousy Lieutenant Governor." MacKay just wasn't able to keep up. So there ended up a Bush in Tallahassee, and many of my friends still there are none too happy about it.

If Gore loses, don't blame Nader

[Platinum Dragon]

I can already see the self-righteous posts now. "Nader took the presidency away from Gore!" "It's Nader's fault we have Bush!" "Nader sucks!" "Hot grits!"

I will make this short and sweet:

It's not Nader's fault Gore didn't get enough votes. It's Gore's fault he couldn't attract the necessary votes. Clearly, Green voters who chose Nader found Gore wanting. Not Nader's fault.

If Gore wins, s/Gore/Bush and s/Nader/Buchanan or s/Nader/Browne
-------------

Re:If Gore loses, don't blame Nader

[Platinum Dragon]

Ridiculous.

Not ridiculous. You may not like Nader, for good reason. However, clearly Gore couldn't convince those 90 000 Green voters to choose him over Nader.

It's not Nader's fault Gore couldn't drum up support from those people. Run that one through your head four or five times - Greens have no duty to get Gore elected, they have no duty to the Democratic party, and they certainly shouldn't be forced to vote for someone they don't want just because another candidate could use their votes and possibly win. Last I heard, it was still technically a democracy down there, not a two-party oligarchy.

If Gore loses, he or his successor will simply have to do a better job attracting Green votes next time. That's reality in a democracy.
-------------

Re:If Gore loses, don't blame Nader

[frknfrk]

the thing is, in the electoral system which we have, a candidate with 49.1 percent of the vote, a candidate with 49.0 percent of the vote, and a candidate with 1.9 percent of the vote, the first candidate takes the entirety of that state's electoral votes. if 1 vote could go to the third candidate, slightly half to the 2nd, and slightly more than half to the 1st, then i would have no problem with nader or a hundred other MINOR politicians on the PRESIDENTIAL ballot. but the simple fact is, with the winner take all electoral system, MINOR candidates have NO PLACE. they should be given complete access, and equal air time in debates, things like that, but if they have absolutely 0 chance to win, they will only be defeating the purpose of the system if they show up on the presidential ballot. each state's ballot should include candidates with actual support, not 2-5% gnats. when nader has 15-20% support he should be on the ballot, not before, unless the electoral system gets tweaked, because as we've seen, the people's will does not get executed in such circumstances. the 'framers' i am sure did not have this in mind, they, i am sure, wanted the people's will to mean something. I don't like any of this. Personally I think it should be fine to vote for who you want. And the reason Gore could not reach out to the leftist voters is because a true leftist candidate doesn't have a chance to win a national election. The best a leftist voter can hope for in a president is that they at least have some leftist ideals, because the majority of the country actually is conservative and both parties know it. in most states they run ads against local democratic candidates by decrying them as 'liberals'. that's their nasty smear campaign which works every time. call someone a liberal in most states and it's an insult. anyway i'm ranting as usual. personally i do believe that nader's political statement needed to be made, but did it have to come at the cost of the four years the republican president/house/congress has to completely screw over the economy/country? i dunno... it's all too complex for me. and as for my politics, i am a communist (not socialist) which basically means i could vote libertarian if they weren't so damned stupid about public schools. i believe in 0 government but i know that can't possibly work, the government has to do the dirty work... police, schools, sewers, anyway... -sam

Re:If Gore loses, don't blame Nader

[Gender != Sex]

: Now we get to see Nader explain how more Clarence Thomas clones and the loss of reproductive rights for women (overturning of Roe v. Wade) were inevitable "whichever candidate (Bush or Gore) won.

Hogwash. Overturning Roe v. Wade would not stop a woman from killing her child if she wants to. It would return the decision back to the states where it belongs. The federal government does not have that power and therefore, it falls to the states because of Amendment 10. If your state believes that innocent people should not be killed, but you still want to kill your child, go to a different state.

: Nader is a self indulgent, self-aggrandizing idiot, who apparently cares nothing for female reproductive rights, gender and racial equity, or the long-term health of a progressive democratic alternative in the United States.

There is no such thing as "gender" equity. Gender is a grammatical term and not the biological division of a species. The phrase you are looking for is sex equity.

what really gets me...

[beagle]

I'm really surprised the vote is so close. It really perplexes me that HALF of yesterday's voters wanted Gore. In this great economy I'm truly amazed that so many people want to depend on the government to provide for them and make decisions for them. It just doesn't make sense, what with all the $$$ being made out there. I really do not understand, and am saddened and disappointed.

Re:what really gets me...

[talks_to_birds]

...what with all the $$$ being made out there...

God!

What a tiny little world you live in.

You need to get out more.

The entire nation isn't made up of self-absorbed high-tech dot-com millionaires...

t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®

Re:what really gets me...

[beagle]

What a tiny little world you live in.
You need to get out more.
The entire nation isn't made up of self-absorbed high-tech dot-com millionaire...

I am not a "self-absorbed high-tech dot-com millionaires... ." I just think that I should provide for myself, not that you or anybody else should have to through your tax dollars! Similarly, you should provide for yourself and not depend on my tax dollars.

Personal charitable contributions are another matter entirely. The main difference is that charitable contributions are made of one's own will. Tax dollars are "given" because the government demands them.

Anybody who knows me would tell you that I am not rich. And I don't work for a dot-com.

Re:what really gets me...

[mbright]

So...your excuse is that you just don't know what you are talking about?

Re:what really gets me...

[frknfrk]

yes yes yes this is the issue at heart. but i'd add all people who by circumstance cannot provide for themslves, not just the incompetent. such as people born into poverty and locked there by 'trickle down' economics, etc. i wish we could do something about the lazy people, but hell, i guess they have a right to be lazy? dunno about that one... peace, -sam

Re:what really gets me...

[mistah_monkey]

I don't know about that statement, that Libertarians are generally smarter. Harry Browne is certainly intelligent and articulate, but I wonder just how much the other Lib candidates in other races compare.

I listened to a round table debate of all the candidates running for senate in California (where I live). Gail Lightfoot was the Lib senate candidate, and boy oh boy, what a crackpot. One of her talking points concerned the illegitimate government intrusion in the auto industry regarding seat belts. I am paraphrasing: "I never wear seatbelts because the Cato Institute says that it's not proven that they help save lives." Regardless of what that right wing think tank suggests, it's hard to dispute that seat belts to make riding in a car safer.

She also toed the general Libertarian stuff about the government that governs best governs least. I agree with that, but not in the Libertarian way.

Conversely, I was very impressed with Medea Benjamin, the Green party candidate. Since I hate DiFi, who refused to debate anyone but the Republican Tom Campbell, who's actually more liberal than DiFi, a true Rockefeller Republican, I voted for this amazingly articulate and intelligent Green candidate.

If I was a Libertarian, which at one point I was (when I was younger - MUCH younger, had lots to learn about the way things work), I doubt I would have voted for Lightfoot anyway, because she came off as this nutty old biddy.
------------------------------------------ ---------------
I bent my wookie

Re:what really gets me...

[tewl]

Try telling that to some farmers in Vermont making less than 10 grand a year....

Re:what really gets me...

[nagora]

In this great economy I'm truly amazed...

Ignoring the demented raving that follow this bit, who do you think created that great economy? Bush's dad knackered it, Clinton rebuilt it, Boy George would just run it into the ground again.

If you think that capitalism is the same as meritocracy (sp?) then you need a bit more experience of the real world before shooting your mouth off.

TWW

Re:CNN Reported on the 1,2,3,5 and 6th place parti

[jafac]

Ironically, that was the appeal of the reform party back in Perot's time; Republican fiscal policy without the Christian fundy wackoness.

Then, Buchanan came along and FUCKED everything up.

Don't get me wrong, it was a lot of fun watching Buchanan make that little wussy commie cry on Crossfire, but he's just too way-out to be running MY country.

Florida Votes

[JumpyMonkey]

As I understand it, overseas servicemen's absentee ballots have to be POSTMARKED within 10 days of the election day. At the margins we're looking at now ( 1000 votes) each unvoted overseas Floridian soldier really counts. Will the campaign continue, with each camp trying to woo these voters if the margin remains this close? Will they try to find these people and individually persuade them?

Whoever wins, I think the best outcome would be for the popular winner to lose the electoral collage. I think this would signal an end to this archaic system and finally give a voice to viable third parties and their candidates.

My prediction, however, is that if this occurs the loser's party, (whichever one it is) will join the winner in attempting to maintain the current system, as the status quo is far more important than an individual presidential election for either party.

American election system

[Gery]

First: I dont want to start any flamewars here. This is just an opinion...

What amazes me, is that the majority of the american population voted for Gore and he will (as it seems) not be president. I know, things can still turn around after recounting but it's quite funny that this can happen.

Can anybody tell me why america uses this "statesmen"-system? It seems to me that some states have more power compared to their population!? What is so special with these states?

Again, this is not meant to be a flame war. I dont know that kind of system and I'm just curious.

Gery
------------------------------

Ballots and Usability design

[maxmutt]

he he sounds like somewhere in Florida didn't do enough usability testing on thier ballots, nor put it through a rigorous usability design phase.

Maybe they should hire some Folks that know how to do this. Some web designers from pets.com maybe?

Then we start working towards internet voting from a completely different direction.

;)

Nader and why you're wrong

[Hrothgar The Great]

Everyone who says that Nader cost Gore the election, shut up! Seriously. Think about this logically for a second. If liberals vote for Nader, then Gore is NOT liberal enough for those people. This is really obvious. Nader is the only REAL Democrat in this race; he's not even really a member of the Green Party. If Gore's environmental record wasn't so terrible in comparison; if Gore could actually come through with some of the trash he talks during his campaign, maybe then we would vote for Gore.

Why should I vote for your candidate? Al Gore is not my candidate, and if I cost Al Gore the victory with my vote (which, as I explained above, is not the case) then I guess that's fine with me. My candidate lost either way.

Next time someone tells me Nader cost Gore the election, I'm going to turn around and say, NO! GORE COST NADER THE ELECTION!!!!

Re:The media

[MrScience]

What I couldn't understand was why they gave it to Gore in the first place! After only 20% of the returns, they said that Gore took Florida, WHILE THE RETURNS HAD BUSH LEADING BY 10%! How in the world does the math come out of that? I was doing all sorts of checking on the various sites to find out what the real polls were showing, and there were at least five states that were declared as winning someone (Bush OR Gore) when the popular vote was going a completely different way.

As far as I'm concerned, the media was playing us the whole time. They were rigging the "called" states so that it was a dead heat. Sure, it's kind of turning out that way (260-240, with one state left), but all throughout they were keeping it close on purpose. Oh, and while Gore was "Leading" (something like 160-120), the popular vote showed Bush leading by nearly 1.1 million votes!

Finally, I've been thinking about the electoral college, and I've realized that they way that the electoral and popular votes get out of sync is because of low voter turnout. At an extreme, say only 2 people showed up in Florida, and they voted Bush. Sure, the popular vote in the nation is for Gore, but because of the majority of Florida's voters voted Bush, nearly 10% of the national EC vote would go towards him.

I think that this makes sense, though I believe that it should be based on congressional district, rather than by state. The president should be the person that the majority wants in office, and I feel that the EC meets that need. Ideally, though, we'd have many-votes-per-person/one-vote-per-candidate (Can't find the link, karma whores reply).

Re:GORE wins popularity vote but not the election?

[Bishop282]

:You really have to wonder if this is a really democracy after seeing this.

Well, the USA is not a democracy. Never has been. It is a constitutional republic. The misbelief that America is a democracy needs to be put to rest.

Shit - now I have to emmigrate if Bush wins

[gelfling]

Not being a fat middle aged Christian white guy I guess I'll be urged now to 'relocate to the East.' Shit, I was kinda hoping that didn't happen. Again.

Re:Shit - now I have to emmigrate if Bush wins

[wodelltech]

Score=2 for this tripe?

Re:Gore can win even if Bush takes Florida

[Sodium Attack]

Since Gore won the popular vote, the people who cast the electoral votes might decide to vote for Gore even if Bush won in thier home state.

Very unlikely. Electors are chosen from the party faithful.

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[wiredog]

It's not a democracy, it's a republic. There's a difference.

Re:Gore may loose the in the Electoral College, bu

[Sodium Attack]

FEC commissioner Mick Foley could arrange a title match, to be shown on pay-per-view, in three weeks or so.

The Electoral College

[Thunderstruck]

A quick note in defense of the Electoral College: It serves to prevent the executive office from being dominated by the wills of a few heavily populated states, such that if over 50% of the nation's people lived in say California, that state alone could still NOT decide the outcome because each state has a minimum of 3 votes. Now before flaming about "The Will of the People" remember that the United States was created to ballance power between the States as much as it was to serve the popular will... Thats why we have the Senate.

Re:Please...

[iapetus]

I don't think I can agree with that attitude. Surely the correct approach would be for him not to speak for us all until an arbitrary body that we elect solely for that purpose calls for him to do so? Seems much more in the spirit of things.

Tempted...

[Art_XIV]

Yesterday as I pulled into the local school to vote, I noticed a heavy thrumming bass coming out of the car behind me. This car parks next to me and as the doors on it open gawd-awful rap music bursts out.

Naturally, the listener was a white kid, possibly twenty. Wearing a sweatshirt, baseball cap, a pants that were too large, in accord with current sub-culture fashions.

This was a bit unusuaul here in Bethel Park, Pa, because most of the minorities in this town, and there aren't many, are of the foreign variety.

But I digress...

With this young fellow was a cute young lady, who would prove to be his little sister. As they approached the polls, she inquired about his preferences...

"Who are you going to vote for?"
"Gore. Bush is an asshole."
"Why's Bush an asshole?"
"'Cause he is."
etc...

I found myself waiting behind them in the registration line. The debate continued...

"Bush sucks."
"What so great about Gore?"
"I dunno. I know Bush sucks."
"Why?"
"If my boss likes him, I don't."

As the discourse continued, the young fellow pulled out several (at least four) scratch-and-win lottery tickets. He would scratch merrily, look at the results, mutter expletives, and rip the tickets in half.

I reasoned to myself that, of course, someone who thinks that lottery tickets are a wise investment would vote for Gore.

More debate...
"I think that if I could vote this year, I'd take the time to find out what the candidates are all about."
"Bush is a Republican. Republicans are for rich people."

All this guy needed was a block of government cheese tucked under one arm and he would have been a picture-perfect Democrat.

I was taken aback. I had approached the polls intending to vote for Harry Browne, but suddenly I felt the urge to counter this inarticulate, african-american wannabee who was hell-bent on voting for Gore. I would vote for Bush!

The elderly gentleman who was working the booths let the "rapster" in, and came back. He went to the girl.

"Do you have your stub, miss?"
"No. I'm not voting this year. I missed the voting age by two months. I'm really upset."
"Awww. Sounds like your brother is a Gore man!"
"My brother is an idiot."

And that just about says it all.

Law doesn't require recount

[maraist]

Being one of the many that stayed up last night, apparently it isn't a law to perform a recount if less than .5% difference, but instead it's the default action. If neither party cares (such as if the winner would not be effected), then nobody bothers.

-Michael

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[sid_vicious]

Only an simpering fool would make such a comment.

Great, you've got the word of the week calendar, too. If you're interested in an intelligent discussion, then don't resort to petty name-calling. Since I am interested in an intelligent discussion, here goes...

They wanted to avoid the frightful nature of a dominating majority that might exploit the rights of a strong minority.

I fail to see how this is the case - as it is now, the minority has LESS say in things because of the electoral college. The minority's voice (in this case, Nader's) got "rounded out" -- he received zero electoral votes even though a substantial number of American's supported him.

Perhaps you meant a geographic minority -- e.g., more densely populated areas (Northeast?) get more say in who is elected, trumping the voice of less densely populated areas... I could see merit in that argument...

With the Congress split evenly today and unlikely to change anytime soon given the American attention span for all things political, I think we can agree that change is about as likely as snow in hell.

What difference does it make if Congress is split evenly? Even though this change would, in this case, benefit Democrats, it's a bipartisan issue. I consider myself a pretty firm Repulican, but I would (currently - I'm always willing to entertain intelligent arguments) support elimination of the electoral college.

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[Syberghost]

Why does nearly every country but the US successfully have 3+ major parties?

Because the US has deliberately put laws in place to strengthen the position of the two dominant parties.

BTW, I have an Indian co-worker who believes that the two-party system is one of the great strengths of our system. I disagree with him, but I present his view (which he claims is widely held in Parliamentary-system countries) for discussion.

Who knows, maybe I'll be in the minority next...I'd like to be heard then, too.

You're voting for Phillips, and you think you might be in the minority someday? You guys came in 7th. The entire body of people who voted for Phillips could comfortably fit inside the Superdome. Some of them would have to stand on the field.

What we need to do is get rid of the "winner takes all" system in more states, and introduce Instant Runoff Voting nationwide.

You're talking about an electorate where several thousand people can accidentally vote for Buchanan instead of Gore. You want them to be able to figure out a ballot where they have to cast FIVE votes for President, instead of just one?

-

Re:GORE wins popularity vote but not the election?

[sikboy]

Parti Quebecois? :P

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[ichimunki]

The will of the people is hardly being ignored. The people in America are very closely divided on this particular issue and anyone assuming that a win for either candidate this year is anything more than a close call is mistaken. It's fairly obvious that there is no "will of the people"-- there is significant difference of opinion (insofar as differences are actually allowed by the fearmongering that passes for political activity in this nation). If the people have a serious problem with this, there have been over 200 years in which to rectify the matter through Constitutional amendments, and neither of the two candidates in this election has stated that they care who wins the popular vote and that if elected they will work steadfastly to correct the voting system-- and I guarantee that at no time in the next decade will electoral reform (other than campaign finance) be mentioned by either the Republicans or Democrats. Oddly, the "progressives" like Ralph Nader seem to support abolishing the Electoral College but want to replace it with the just as arcane instant runoff system.

Record Turnout

[ackthpt]

Nader got 2.65 million votes.

Not bad in a year of low turnout, he might have got his 5% to ensure federal campaign funding. Unfortunately, for the Greenies, they don't get beans for 2.6%

Checking the cound now, there's close to 100 million votes cast. Quite impressive considering none of the candidates really captured the national fancy.

So this begs a new question/topic: What roll has the Web played in this turnout? Are people regaining an interest in politics because of the issues or because, now, they have better access to information (oh, yeah, and Slashdot is part of that, ok?) I know I used the Web quite a bit to read more in depth on the candidates. You just don't get that coverage from newspapers, radio and TV.

--

Re:The media

[Jonathan Walls]

European Parliamentary elections take place across all the nations in the EC - so the the time zones issue would crop up. But more than that, votes may take place on different days to take national arrangements/customs/elections into account. We still manage to treat the democratic process with at least a minimal degree of respect. Maybe we just have more patience - you haven't even taken time to read your own post (you include a quote refering to the days of delay) :)

Why the electoral college is PROVABLY better

[malraux]

Gah. Posting this twice because I'm seeing a lot of disinformation. The Electoral College protects us from mob rule. The individual voter has MORE power with an electoral college system. Going to strict "one person one vote" will enable the candidates to complete ignore minorities in favor of large voting blocs. Read this: Math Against Tyranny The only reform that should be made is using Maine and Nebraska's system of splitting the electoral votes by district.


Regards,

Re:Why the electoral college is PROVABLY better

[CritterNYC]

Provably? Isn't it a tad simplistic (and quite inaccurate) to liken the election to a world series?

Some day I hope to have a .plan.

Re:doesn't help

[Sodium Attack]

Anyone that claims they were confused is either a complete moron

You forget that in the U.S., complete morons can and do vote.

The Censored Bush Abortion Story - CNN.com

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, Bush had his girlfriend have an abortion. It was covered up. The hypocrite theme resurfaces -- since he is against abortions (in words, not actions; for us, not him). The story of the abortion and its cover up was also covered up by our own national media.

How CNN censored the Crossfire episode:
http://www.kgoam810.com/viewentry.asp?ID=73474&PT= programsummaries

San Francisco Examiner article about the cover up:
http://www.examiner.com/001030/1030sorensen.html

Here's Larry Flint on the topic:

Well, we've been doing an investigation for a little over eight months to the effect that an abortion took place in 1970 in Houston, Texas. He was working for his father's campaign when he was running for the senate against Lloyd Bentsen, and a fellow by the name of Robert Chandler was the campaign manager. He got a girl pregnant during this period of time, and she had an abortion. We've been able to locate the doctor who preformed the procedure at a hospital in Houston. Not only that but we have the affidavits from four of her friends stating that they knew about the affair, the pregnancy and the subsequent abortion. The only thing we could not have which we needed to break the story was the girl to come out, and she would not come out. Whether she was afraid or whether she was paid off, I don't really want to speculate, because I don't know what the actual reason was. But when I started taking this to the mainstream media, I said you don't have to break the story, just ask the question, you know. You asked the cocaine question, so just ask if he's ever facilitated an abortion or paid for an abortion or if he was the father of a child. Just give him the chance to admit or deny it. No one would touch it.

Re:The Censored Bush Abortion Story - CNN.com

[RobFlynn]

Very interesting. If this did indeed happen, it is still unfair to judge someone on something that happened long ago. We have to also remember that people can change their views over time. While he may have been all for abortion then, it most certainly doesnt mean he would be now. An example could be fighting. As a kid, I was all about fighting when there was a problem. Today, however, I would rather just talk about the problem with whoever and then let everything calm down. That doesnt mean I will hit someone when they stand up to me -- I've changed. The same coudl be said about traffic violations. Simply because I receive one speeding ticket doesn't mean I'm going to speed everytime I go out on the highway. I agree that if this did really happen (from what I read they're not sure. I may be mistaken, though) then it's a shame that it took place. It's even more of a shame that it was covered up. Oh well, we live and learn :) Have a nice day

---
Rob Flynn

Re:The Censored Bush Abortion Story - CNN.com

[evanfarrar]

larry flynt has done more reporting than every talking head combined, he should go work with the drudge report


______

Re:There is nothing wrong with the voting system

[kfg]

Really? You'd have to drag me kicking and screaming into the Whitehouse. There are many people who feel likewise.

There ARE a number of people who I'd vote for though that will never show up on the national radar screen.

Most of THEM would have to be dragged kicking and screaming as well.

It's one of the qualifications for the job. Anyone who seeks it voluntarily isn't fit.

KFG

Pretty entertaining...

[bmacy]

Actually the 200k vote difference should close some more. The precincts at 100% still doesn't mean absentee is counted. Absentee votes are usually from conservatives.

For instance, it is fairly odd that there is a 12% difference in CA... half that makes more sense compared to consistent polling results. If you consider there were 3.2mil absentee ballots requested things make a bit more sense... anyways, I don't know anything for certain.

As I conservative this thing was entirely entertaining no matter how it turns out... Tennessee, Arkansas, and Nader :)

Brian Macy

Putting the latest results on the web

[kakur]

if you want it up on a webpage:

file nph-getvote.cgi:

#!/bin/sh
echo -n 'document.write("Bush winning by '
lynx -dump http://www.cnn.com/ | grep -2 PRESIDENT | perl -e 'while(<>){$n[$i++] = $1.$2.$3 if /\s(\d),(\d{3}),(\d{3})/}print $n[0]-$n[1];'
echo ' votes in Florida.");'

Next:
put it in your cgi directory.
chmod 755 nph-getvote.cgi

then you can put it on a webpage like this:
<script language="JavaScript" src="[URL to script]">Your browser doesnt support Javascript includes. Upgrade.</script>

Re:The fix is in?

[elmegil]

Given that Buchanan's vote totals (roughly equivalent to Harry Browne's) are consistent with the numbers in most other states (where they also were roughly equivalent to Harry Browne's), it seems unlikely that this "master stroke" had much effect. If Buchanan were amazingly ahead in Florida compared to the other states, then there might be reason to suspect that there were a LOT of mistakes. If the race is down to a few hundred, perhaps it could have made a difference, but it seems unlikely that in the end this will be a major factor.

Oh, and one more thing:

[MrScience]

They never did give it back to Bush. Bush called them on the fact that the popular vote in Florida had him winning by 10%, and they backed down, saying it was "Too close to call". That is how it stayed, and is going to, since it really was "Too close to call" (thought not at the time).

Re:GOP?

[i_m_sane]

gop is grand old party its an americanism cause the party is many composed of old people..jk :-)

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[rizzo420]

this may be true, and that article makes good points, but overall, it's not really a good system. if you haven't noticed, the candidates are sure to do their strongest campaigning in the largers states. it's really not a good system, maybe back in the days when there were only 13 states it worked, but now that there are 50 states, and many many many million more people in this country. it doesn't make sense to keep the electoral college just so that they campaign everywhere when every other vote in this "democratic" country is won by majority. the electoral college has worked for a long time, but as has happened with a lot of the constitution, times change and we have to adjust for them, we can't be using 200+ year old ways for everything anymore. it doesn't work. i am sure the founding fathers didn't expect this country to grow as much as it has, not to mention the founding fathers were very elitist and wrote the constitution to protect the rights of the upper-class, white, land-owning males and didn't really care about the other people. and no, it does not take a large attention span to understand the purpose of the electoral college, what it takes is knowledge that it was created over 200 years ago and since then, things have changed quite a bit and it doesn't work anymore. and we can easily see its flaws if george bush is elected president. with gore obviously having the national popular vote (which is what should matter if this is truly a democracy) there is no way that 2000 votes should give bush the presidency.

Re:We know it's not over.

[JCMay]

[SIGH]

As the great philospher, Foghorn Leghorn, once said: "It's a joke, son!"

I was making light of her tendancy to use military-sized force instead of a courtroom to do her work: Waco and Elian's seizure as two examples.

Nader cost Gore what?

[brokeninside]

Nader appears to have cost Gore Oregano, Ohio, and Florida.

CNN's numbers for Ohio
Bush -> 2,294,049
Gore -> 2,117,555
Nader-> 114,474

Bush's margin of victory was 176,494. Nader's supporters did not cost Gore Ohio even if one fallaciously assumes that all of Nader's voters in Ohio would have voted for Gore if Nader hadn't run.

As of this writing Oregon is not declared yet and given the types of numbers we've had in this election it is currently impossible to say whether or not Nader cost Gore Oregon if we make the same fallacious assumption that all Nader supporters would have voted for Gore.

Also of this writing, we don't know for certain that Gore lost Florida. At the end of the first count, Gore carried Florida by 200 votes. A recount is currently underway.

have a day,

-l

Re:Nader, etc

[David Greene]

- President elected by popular mandate (no more electoral college)

Nope. You'll kill the elective power of small states, as has been explained many, many times.

- Proportional Representation. Party X gets y% of the vote, party X gets y% of the seats in the house/legislature. Many European countries have this model.

Nope. Coalition governments are bad (tyranny of the minority).

- Third party inclusion into the debates. One of the biggest barriers to entry for third parties in my opinion. Even if they don't win, they can keep it real by bringing up issues the corporate parties don't want to discuss.

Agreed.

- Campaign Finance limits. Limits on total $ allowed to be spent so it's harder to buy an election like Mark Dayton did in MN. Also soft money limits to curb special interests influence.

Yes, we need campaign finance reform. I don't know if a spending cap is the answer, but something should be done.

--

Do you like your crow well done?

[yankeehack]

Take a look at today's headline of my local newspaper. I think I might have a collector's item here.

Re:Military vote is NOT generally Republican --agr

[Pfhreakaz0id]

I am not suggesting that there is no wasteful spending in the DoD budget but the people who work for DoD are, for the most part, hard working, well educated, and dedicated to the ideals that keep this country free

I forget, when was the last time we were invaded? When you guys fight off an invasion of the mainland U.S., I'll say all that money was well spent. Until then, it's a waste, IMHO.
---

Re:other junk including the Roe vs Wade thing....

[Rogue Jedi]

Are you *really* sure that state control over every aspect of life is a good idea?
Absolutely. Not only can I exert far more control over my state and local governments than I can over the Federal government, but government is far more responsive to people's needs on a local level. State run agencies tend to be far more effective and efficient than Federal agencies.

-Rob

Re:There is nothing wrong with the voting system

[kfg]

No. What Washington was doing was warning against exactly the sort of pure party politics that we have currently devolved into, and that parties themselves seen unable to do anything but foster.

He was against partisanship, against backroom dealings with votes, against PLATFORM politics rather than the politics of ideas.

He simply wanted candidates to run on their own ideas and beliefs, and the people to vote for or agaisnt those ideas, and he wanted congress to work the same way.

A utopian ideal if you will, but then, he'd just won the revolution, hadn't he?

He even admited in the speach that such parties seemed almost inevitable, and beseached that at least they not go TOO far into the politics of parties.

swings both ways

[DrSpoo]

Don't forget that this same arguement swings both ways. I live in Maine, and a vote for Bush just about anywhere in New England is worth squat.

But even tho "my guy" won the race, I still think the electoral vote idea is antiquated and should be replaced by pure popular vote.

Re:Nader

[DoomHaven]

Actually, the "best place to live" isn't just propaganda; the UN routinely places Canada in the top 1-3 countries to live in. I am trying to find this on the website at www.un.org ; but am having problems locating it. Admittedly, the process to determine "the best place to live" may have flaws, but it is the most objective indicator that we have.

As for being a separatist, I can't agree with your opinion (am an evil federalist), but I don't wish to argue it with you. I will ask you to look at previous examples of separations (the Slovekia withdrawth from the Czech Republic, with ended up with the economic colapse of Slovekia), and take a good, hard look at the ramifications of separation (IE: the clothing industry in inner Montreal will crumble without the outrageous Canadian import tariffs that protect it from cheaper, better quality clothes from Europe and the US) before making your mind up.

One last questions, though. If you separate, what will you rename the Montreal Canadiens? The Nordiques (snicker snicker)? ;)

Re:sun_runner, you are an idiot

[SunRunner]

Ah, such words of poetry, not to mention maturity. The point of my comment wasn't who did the polling, but /how/ it's done. Then again, I'm sure you figured that out all on your own, eh? Next time you have to release some type of teenage-esque angst, try to make it somewhat reflective of intelligence instead of ignorance and petty inmaturity.

Re:Nader, etc

[revscat]

coming from someone a little to the right, I can assure you that bush WILL NOT overturn roe vs. wade and neither will the supreme court.

I can assure that this is unequivocably not true. Rhenquist, Scalia, and Thomas are all very, very pro-life. They feel that not only was Roe v. Wade wrong from a moral perspective, they feel it was a bad decision on Constitutional grounds. They have consistently and persistently let it be known these facts, and they haven't changed these views since their appointments. Stare decisis is not held very highly in the Rhenquist court, so I doubt that would prevent them from overturning it, either.

- Rev.

Re:doesn't help

[Sodium Attack]

It is true. Even if the person is someone who would have voted for Gore if Nader were not running, his vote for Nader is only half a vote for Bush. Switching one's vote from Gore to Nader affects the margin of victory by one. Switching one's vote from Gore to Bush changes the margin of victory by two. A vote for Nader is half a vote for Bush.

Re:let's just clarify one thing...

[fean]

actually, Andrew Johnson was NOT impeached... good old slick willy was the first pres to be impeached...

Re:The Nader, Perot Effect

[drew]

it was somewhat different in that case, because Perot, while he had different opinions than either of the candidates, was still fairly close to the center politically. most political scientists believe that perot attracted a roughly equal number of supporters from both parties (recall clinton won in '92 with something like 43% of the popular vote). Given Nader's very liberal views, I think it is safe to say, despite the numerous ranting and raving Nader fans on slashdot saying that there is no difference between Bush and Gore, that a significant majority of people who voted for Nader would have preferred a Gore presidency to a Bush presidency.

That being said, every one of them knew that by voting for Nader, they were contributing to this possibility, and they still voted for him...

Re:Nader Ruined the Economy.

[Millennium]

It's time to strat question the electoral college and it's role here. Blaming Nader is missing the point. The fact is that Gore has the popular vote so if the election goes to Bush then it is the system that is faulty not that NAder stole votes.

Actually, no; if one can win the popular vote based on the outcome of a single state (California) but still lose the election, then the system is working perfectly. Let me explain:

Let's take four states: A, B, C, and D. A has several huge cities in it; its total population is five million people. B has one large city; its total population is two million. C and D are mainly rural, and each has about one million people.

Let's take a direct popular vote, and take an extreme example of that: everyone in A votes for Bush, but everyone in B, C, and D votes for Gore. That's 5 million for Bush and 4 million for Gore, so Bush wins. But only the people in State A actually wanted him; the other three states voted unanimously against them. But because A's population is so large, it unfairly controls the election. B, C, and D have no real voice. This is hardly "the will of the people" that the Constitution mandates be put into office.

Now, let's add an electoral system. The number of electoral votes a state has is equal to its House seats plus its Senate seats. Let's say for the sake of argument that for every million citizens or fraction thereof, a state gets a House seat (states always have two Senators). So A gets a total of seven electoral votes, B gets four, and C and D each get three.

Now, let's look at our scenario again. Bush won the popular vote in A, so he grabs those seven. Because he only won one state, that's all he gets. But Gore, having won three states, gets 3+3+4=10 votes, and takes the election. This is certainly an unusual case, and wouldn't happen often. But this proves that not only did many people vote for Gore, but people from many regions of the country voted for him. Thus, he would seem a better representative of the will of the people, having been chosen by a wider, if not larger, base. And thus, the three "little guys" can still be heard even if the "big guy" tries to drown them out. This is what true freedom means.

This is how the electoral system works. And as you can see from this, the idea is to get a good snapshot of what all the people want, not just those packed into dense areas and therefore more likely to vote as a block.

And yes, occasionally it can come up with a wierd-looking flub, like this election may well turn out to be. But find a map of how the votes went, and look at where Gore won his votes versus where Bush won his. You'll see a situation much like my simpler example: Gore had densely-packed areas (the northeast, northern midwest, and California), but Bush had more of the nation taken as a cross-section. If you in fact put one person from each state for each electoral vote and had them vote as their electors did, keeping in mind that electoral votes are proportional to state size, Bush would win. So this is fair.
----------

Re:Influenced.....bah

[weeeee]

actually, the polls in New York closed at 9 PM as did many other EST states

Re:Summary from hell.

[testpoint]

The ballot has an arrow pointing directly to each hole. It would take a monumental act of stupidity to punch the wrong hole.

How do you know there are 3500 ballots? Obviously, some of those people voted intentionally for Pat B. How would one know who those ballots belong to? There are no names on the ballots. How would one know who to believe? Even if you could determine who the ballots belonged to, how would one know for certain the ballot had been cast in error? Certainly some of the people who think they made a mistake, didn't make a mistake. So tens of thousands of people may show up to make sure they get it right the second time. Of course the morons who got it wrong the first time would probably get it wrong again.

Every state allows you to get a new ballot if you screw one up. But you have to do it before you cast your vote.

Re:do over

[Sodium Attack]

They already have "None of the above" in Nevada. It only got 2% of the vote or something like that.

People won't vote for "none of the above" for the same reason they won't vote for a third-party candidate--fear of "wasting their vote". Regardless of the validity of the "wasted vote" argument (which is much debated here), it applies to "none of the above" just as much as it does to third-party candidates.

Re:Nader

[Anonymous Cowturd]

Finally, if Canadians are fed up with with steerage class, then they should trade UP and become AMERICANS....

That sounds like an invitation for immigration in to the USA. With humble hosts such as you, how could anyone refuse?

Electoral College query.

[maxmutt]

OK they're doing a recount in Florida.

I'm not counting this over until the Electoral College vote.

Although we normally say it's winner take all in EC votes for the person who wins the popular vote in a state, this isn't true. In about 25 states there is no legal requirment for this, it's more a tradition.

The big question is, is Florida one of the states that all the electoral vote aren't required to go to the winner? Is it possible the EC votes in Florida can be split between Busch and Gore? and if so how?

The difference in other states could lead to similar situations, what difference can this make?

nebraska, maine, spoilers?

[ikobi]

If Bush wins Florida he has 271 electoral votes, but what if thats not the end of the story... Nebraska and Maine aren't winner take all states. Winner of the popular gets 2 and each district winner gets 1 each. I don't know if this was factored into the electoral counts or not that are at CNN. Additionally, the electoral college is not obligated by law to follow the popular vote in about half of the states. There is precedent (rare) of delegates switching a vote. It would only take a two delegates to switch to Gore (abassadorships anyone?) and you got a whole new game....

Electoral College Not Completely Bound by Law

[jcoleman]

It might be interesting to note that only 25 states bind their electoral voters to vote with the state's popular vote. The unbound voters are expected to vote along the lines of the popular vote, but not required by law.

Another interesting note is that Maine and Nebraska specifically allow for proportional casting of electoral ballots. Theoretically, the election results could change between now and January 6, when the electoral votes are actually counted.

See http://www.nara.gov/fedreg/elctcoll/faq.html for more details.

Re:doesn't help

[RedX]

Can someone please tell me how folks have figured out that Gore votes went to Buchanan??? It's not like there's some verify screen, so why are people thinking this?

Perhaps after hearing the news reports, people realized they punched the 2nd hole down (Buchanan) rather than the 3rd hole down (Gore) because the holes were so close together. Or perhaps after leaving their voting booth they heard someone complaining about the confusing layout and realized that they could've chosen the wrong hole.

Re:Well, Rob, if you're sick of it...

[The-Bus]

No, but we don't complain when The Register talks excessively about the UK.

Re:A "simple" proposal

[Sodium Attack]

Unfortunately, Maine's electoral votes are not divided by popular percentage. It's not winner-take-all, like most states, but it is also not a system where Maine's four electoral votes are divided percentagewise.

Two of Maine's four electoral votes still go to the overall state-wide winner. Each of the other two votes goes to the candidate receiving the most votes in each of Maine's two congressional districts.

Re:let's just clarify one thing...

[jesser]

Its all well and fine to say that your vote made a difference in the count... "boy, I'm glad that we won/lost by 6342 votes instead of 6341 votes" ...or that you are "doing your part," but I can't believe how few people actually think about the fact that their own personal INDIVIDUAL vote almost never ever ever ever makes THE difference.

I disagree. I think that *too many* people take this into account, and decide not to vote as a result. These people are often ignoring several other factors:

• There are several races, at least several of which are near 50%-50%, giving them a chance of tipping some vote is considerably higher than 1/(#voters).
• The winner of the election is not the only outcome decided by the tally. Choices during the next election cycle will depend on which states were "close". An initiative you like may not pass in your state, but a 47% may encourage people in other states to try to pass similar initiatives or laws, or may get a similar initiative on the ballot in several years.

To be fair, I should note that some East coast voters may have decided not to vote because they figured their vote would be partially offset by potential nader voters choosing their vote after 8pm EST.

--

Your right... your vote doesn't count

[powerlord]

Sure... your vote didn't count unless you live in Florida....

or in Iowa with 6,000 votes keeping Bush from beating Gore

or in New Hampshire with 7,000 votes keeping Gore from beating Bush (Nader took 22,000 BTW)

or in Wisconsin with 6,000 votes keeping Bush from beating Gore

(this being just a listing of those states with less then 10,000 votes separating the two candidates acording to http://www.cnn.com /EL ECTION/2000/results/index.president.html)

In most of those places (and lots others) 3rd party candidates such as Nader played a key roll in depriving one party or the other of beating their opponent.

Interesting election, personally I hate sweeps week stunts where they have cliff-hangers, and 'tune in tomorrow for the exciting conclusion' but I'll make an exception this time ;)

Re:Your right... your vote doesn't count

[powerlord]

Well.. I wasn't actually trying to comment on wether Nader cost Gore the election (personally its a moot point, 'nough said, lets move on). All I was trying to say is that ever vote is important, and point out a few places where a few thousand votes made a difference, and yes, Nader got 22,000 votes. By the same token Browne got 2,703 and Buchanon got 2,603. Putting aside my own preferences (which I've mentioned elsewhere and are irrelivent now, votes over, can't vote till next year), I think its just important for people to realize that their vote can make a difference and to think about the issues and try to excersize it wisely. Heck, its the only thing most of us American Excersize all year :)

Re:Your right... your vote doesn't count

[WhiskeyJack]

By your logic, your vote wouldn't really count in a purely popular election either.

The electoral college system actually enhances your chances of casting the swing vote in any given election; who knows, maybe next time the election will hinge on Wisconsin's electoral votes, and your individual vote will carry the day....

-- WhiskeyJack

Re:Your right... your vote doesn't count

[powerlord]

Actually I'm in favor of the electoral college system, but believe that more states should change from 'Winner Take All' to a split vote system.
The current system is the only reason why some states like Rhode Island are even a blip on the map.

Your exactly right, you never know which state the vote might hinge on, so you should always vote (no matter who you want to vote for).

Slightly O.T. but does anyone know of a non-partisan organization devoted to get people to register/vote (no matter what their affiliation)?

Re:Your right... your vote doesn't count

[WhiskeyJack]

Skimmed your post, missed your point, caught it when I re-read after hastily inserting foot in mouth. My bad.

-- WhiskeyJack, too tired to post today....

Re:Your right... your vote doesn't count

[Rahga]

Please. If anything, the Nader vote got hippies and bums that didn't want Bush to win energized and gave Gore a much bigger boost than he would have gotten. If Gore was ahead of Bush by at least 1 or 2 points in the polls before hand, or if Nader wasn't "taking" 5% of the vote *coughcompletebullshitcough*, the hippie and bleeding heart soccer mom and even the "I'm on the A-list too!!!!" hollywood knownothing vote would have stayed home.

Re:Your right... your vote doesn't count

[GeekOfSpades]

Slightly O.T. but does anyone know of a non-partisan organization devoted to get people to register/vote (no matter what their affiliation)?

Hehe... MTV does. rockthevote.com does. Though I think they both go towards the 18-29's. I'm sure they could tell you though.

Re:NO WE DON'T! GEEZ!

[geosync]

well then, its a damn good thing that we arent a pure democracy otherwise we would have been screwed.

if you payed more attention in your history class you would know why the electoral college exists.

Re:other junk including the Roe vs Wade thing....

[The Toad]

Yeah, they lost, but the south still wants to secede.

With responses like the ones to edremy's post, I'm half inclined to say we should let them. (Of course, I might just be bitter because my recently ex-girlfriend is from NC -- Jesse Helms lovin' bitch :P )

Re:Nader Ruined the Economy.

[Millennium]

If you take the 39 smallest states you can win in the electoral college with 20% of the popular vote.

Yes, and you do so having gained a truly overwhelming cross-section of the people's support. Also note that this particular scenario is extremely unlikely.

If you take the 12 largest states you can win in the electoral college with 30% of the popular vote.

And again, you win having gotten the support of a large segment, if not a large fraction, of the population. Look up those states on a map and you'll see.

The electoral college disenfranchises 50% of the population.

Your math is extremely poor, I'm afraid. You say the twelve largest states hold 60% of the population. You need 51% to win, and no state has as much as 10%, so we can safely knock off one, and more likely two. So we're down to 10 states with over 50% of the population. In a direct-popular vote, these states rule the roost, the the entire populations of eighty percent of the states have basically no voice at all. So we "disenfranchise" half the population of each state with an electoral system, or everyone in 80% of the states with a direct-popular system. Which one looks fairer now? The electoral college was set up to balance out the votes in the states, such that a vote from North Dakota counts as much as a vote from California, in terms of importance to the election.

And one final note: you claim that fifty percent of the population are "disenfranchised," essentially because their candidate doesn't win. However, that's the definition of an election; if we go by majority rule (and a majority is required for a victory; a plurality will not suffice), then in an average election 50% of the population will vote for the loser. So you have lost nothing. All you've done is leveled the playing field by offsetting the effects of varying population density.
----------

Bush and the Supreme Court

[jidar]

I see a lot of people saying Bush is going to be harmless as president, but there is something they are overlooking. Bush is likely to appoint between 2 and 4 supreme court justices to the Supreme Court this term because the justices are going to be retiring.

The Christian Coalition has been backing Bush for president because he promised Pat Robertson that he would put ultra conservative justices on the Supreme Court if the CC gave him their support.
The CC has many reasons for wanting to do this, but it all comes down to the fact that the supreme's have always stomped on the draconian things they try to get passed. Be it overturning Roe VS Wade, brining prayer into public schools, or getting federal funding for private religious schools, the supreme court has always been a huge obstacle.

Regardless of if Bush sits in his office high on cocaine for 4 years or not, if he never does anything else besides those appointments, he will have had a huge impact on the nation for decades.
Remember there is ultimately 1 thing standing between your liberty and the thought policing, zealot, dictators; the justice system that is sworn to uphold the constitution. If they win the justice system it's a sad day.

eBay

[drwiii]

Well that didn't take long...

Re:Military vote is NOT generally Republican --agr

[Ashen]

Sad truth is that gays and lesbians vote mostly for Democratic candidates. It's too bad most Americans are sheep for the top two parties. The news media fails to give much recognition to most third party candidates. They gave Nader some, but alas the Green Party is very niche. Same with the Reform Party and Pat Buchanan. They have limited apeal. But explain this: Harry Browne was the only other candidate besides Bush and Gore to get onto the ballot in ALL 50 STATES. YET, I did not hear him mentioned on any major news station before the election ONCE. NOT A SINGLE TIME. The libertarian party is not a niche party either. They stand on a platform of more freedom from government control. Gay rights are not even an issue in a libertarian government. Other people have no right to tell you who you can and can't choose to be as your domestic partner. No one gets special rights (insurance cover, etc.) because they marry someone of the oppositte sex. Any ways, almost no one voted for Harry Browne. Everyone is bitching about how Nader caused Gore the election. Too fucking bad. People saw Nader as their favorite candidate. For all the Democrats outraged by this, I submit to you 92 and 96 where Perot supposedly cost George Bush Sr. and Bob Dole the election in both races. And Perot got 19% and 8% respectively. Nader only got 2% to 3%.

Re:Nader

[jagapen]

I hope you are prepared to live in a country where our personal freedoms are abridged, our environment is destroyed, and the rich get tax breaks at the expense of the poor.

I'm sorry, but you need to clarify. Which major-party candidate was this supposed to scare us away from?

2000 dumb elderly? Gore camp really being nice now

[twingo_gtx]

Apparently font and layout issues on ballots caused about 2000 seniors in Palm Beach with less then 20/20 vision to vote for Buchanen instead of Gore. They showed the ballots, and it is definitely confusing.

This is rediculous. I heard there were dozens of people complaining about this not 2000. I think this number is wishfull thinking by the Gore camp hoping they can complain and press on even if they lose by a small margin. If you look at the votes for Buchanan he didn't get many votes at all and I sincerely doubt 2000 of the ones he got were from old people that can't read anymore. Maybe there should be a eye test before elections now huh? Please give it up. If you vote for the wrong person you probably shouldn't be voting in first place.

Re:conservative supreme court

[wumingzi]

It might also help to study the history of the 1990s. Clarence Thomas was nominated by Bush, not Clinton.

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[rkent]

So, either the Founding Fathers, who managed to get a couple other things right, were elitist snobs...

Bingo! I don't think there's a whole lot of other ways to analyze them from a contemporary perspective. The founding fathers were the landed gentry of the new US; they weren't exactly "royalty," since we don't have such a thing, but about the closest thing to it: rich white male land owners. NO ONE ELSE had a say in the construction of the constitution! We're fortunate they were as idealistic as they were, but there's a bunch of shabby parts of the constitution (like they wouldn't even abolish slavery immediately).

So, sure there are some benefits to the electoral college, depending on which side you're coming from. But don't think for a second that the founding fathers were men "of the people."

Re:I wish it came down to 1 vote

[Foogle]

Certainly living in a state where the outcome is predictable gives me the ability to vote my true choice. That's very comforting, however I don't feel any more or less drawn towards the third parties than I do towards the two primary parties. And I really don't think it's appropriate for me to cast a vote for a party simple because they 'need' it.

Really, I voted Gore because I felt he had the experience and knowledge to make a better president than anyone else running. Even if he had a snowballs chance, I wouldn't vote for Nader, because he I don't believe he'd make a very good president. I feel similarly towards Brown and Buchanan.

Re:is military vote clear cut?

[Wonko the Sane]

Anyone who is in the military knows that Bush is right. For example, the Navy has a new policy that if any person attached to a ship has been away from home port (on the ship) for more than 250 of the last 365 days, that person gets $100 per day until the 250 day limit is satisfied. However, since no funding for this has been approved, ships are having to bend over backwards to ensure that no one goes over this limit. After our next deployment, most people on my boat be right at 250 days. That's being away from home almost 70% of the year. Don't say the military isn't over extended.

Re:CNN Reported on the 1,2,3,5 and 6th place parti

[1010011010]

Yes, CNN has it out for the Libertarians, but so does the rest of the network media. The company formed a few years back by ABC, NBC, and CBS to report polling information to them came right out and admitted that they wouldn't bother reporting ANY Libertarian votes. The media in general claims that they simply don't report on the "non-viable" third party groups -- but hopefully this blatent example of [b]deliberate suppression[/b] makes it clear how biased almost all the media companies are.


I suppose they considered Reform, Green and Natural Law "more viable" than Libertarian, in spite of the Libs getting more votes and running candidates in more areas. Or perhaps it's because the Libertarians, unlike the "viable" third parties, want to reduce government power rather than increase it. The press likes being the Fourth Branch nd doesn't abide by people who would want to lower the power of the government, and therefore make their job of Making Opinion less important.

________________________________________

Re:Nader

[DoomHaven]

No problem about the nit picking; actually, thank you for being polite about it. Besides, Toronto is a city that should be burned to the ground every 50 or so years anyways, just for good measure (ha ha, only kidding).

As for the rest, it's not just in Ontario; please remember universal health care was created by Blakeny's NDP party in Saskatchewan in the '50s. The public transportation in Ottawa is the best I have ever seen; the person who figured it out has my respect. The ones in Winnipeg and Regina are marginally better than walking, however.

Yes, don't own your own business, good call. What's turn over for small business, isn't it something horrible, like 75% failure rate with 2 years? And GST and PST are horrible, in Saskatchewan, your looking 14-16% sales tax, compared to the State tax of 8.25% in Illinois.

As for city scenery, actually, I would say the prettiest city I have lived in is suburbia Chicago; narrowly beating out Ottawa. Regina isn't that bad, but of what I saw about Winnipeg, I would rather never live there again.

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[Rupert]

In fact, the electoral college makes it so you can win with 31% of the popular vote, even if someone else gets the other 69%. You have to get 51% in each of the 11 biggest states (plus 1 state with 5 votes, e.g. WV) and 0% elsewhere.

In your situation, it looks to me like the candidate with 31% is the winner regardless. It's been a long time (1984?) since a president got over 50% of the popular vote. No single, non-transferable voting scheme for direct election would have 50% as a requirement for winning.

--

Re:Nader, etc

[GreatSwahili]

>If he succeeds in overturning roe vs wade with >possible supreme court appointments (if he even >wants to try), watch the 60's social movements >come back with a vengance. The people won't let >him get away with it. I think you're forgetting that around 50% of those "people" you're referring to voted for him and his policies. I don't doubt in the slightest that there would be protests by portions of the population, but the protesters will not be in the majority.

Re:Isn't it automated?

[Planetes]

In Florida we had a little card which slides into a little book like thing where we flipped the pages and punched the holes down the center (spine)
The actual ballot/card ended up looking like an old-style computer punched card with a bunch of numbers punched out. I'd assume they're running them through old punch card readers.
Except in South Florida where the votes are being validated by the local drug lords...


Planetes
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[Johann]

Yes, that is true and in fact 2 states (Maine and ?) do split Electoral College votes. My point is that to remove the Electoral College from U.S. Constitution would require a herculean effort.

"Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life."

Home to Mickey Mouse?!

[jafac]

I beg to differ but, Florida is *NOT* the home-state of Mickey Mouse.

For proof; visit BOTH Disney World, (in Florida), and Disney Land (in California). The evidence lies in Toontown. In Disney Land, Toontown is known as "Toontown". Mickey Mouse keeps a house there. In Disney World, in the Magic Kingdom, it's known as "Toontown Fair", and it is not actually Toontown. Mickey Mouse also keeps a house there, but if you ask employees, they will tell you, that the house in Florida is his vacation home, and the house he lives in is in California. (If you ask where Mickey IS, since he isn't at home, they'll tell you he's at the other house on that day. How I longed to have agents with camcorders at both houses simultaneously, in my futile bid to disprove the actual existance of Mickey Mouse, but alas, my resources are not infinite.)

Re:"Keeping his word..."

[Millennium]

Why not? While it has never been tested in the case of a presidential election, it is common knowledge that when you forfiet any kind of competition, you lose all rights to whatever you might have won. This has been tested countless times in myriad other competitions; a presidential election is no different.
----------

Re:Nader Ruined the Economy.

[1010011010]

Actually, what would be better is our original form of government -- a republic with minimal, limited federal government and strong, sovreign state governments. Then the "will" of the Californias and Floridas will not be forced onto the rest of the states from above.

The Electoral College was designed to allow the states to elect their common federal government -- the US was the Union of the sovreign states, you know. Rather than allowing popular vote to outright determine who the new leader was, the College system guarantees a minimum vote for sparse states. In this way it was designed to prevent several populous states from infringing easily on the sovreignty of les populous ones.

Unfortunately, FDR turned our Federal Republic in to a democratic welfare nanny state by packing the supreme court and getting his unconstitutional programs approved, and the Feds have been overstepping their limits ever since.


________________________________________

Re:is military vote clear cut?

[AndyL]

Would opening fire have helped the Cole?

I was under the impresion that the boat that hit the Cole didn't show any signs of being hostile until seconds before impact.

You can expect them to enter a port then sink all the boats already there.

-Andy

Re:doesn't help

[Ogre332]

Apparently font and layout issues on ballots caused about 2000 seniors in Palm Beach with less then 20/20 vision to vote for Buchanen instead of Gore. They showed the ballots, and it is definitely confusing.

If this was an issue, why was it not brought up last night when the 2,000 or so seniors were having problems reading the ballots? Just seems kind of whack that no one said anything about it then.

Re:The media

[Sodium Attack]

It's not because Hawaii's small that it's a forgone conclusion. California was called by all the networks the minute the polls closed (a minute or two before, even, if the clocks in my house are accurate, which they're probably not. :)

Re:Nader, etc

[rark]

> Nope. You'll kill the elective power of small
> states, as has been explained many, many times.

And this is a bad thing? All of us are affected by the president -- not the states, and not just people in small states.

> Nope. Coalition governments are bad (tyranny of
> the minority).

A. I'm not sure what tyranny of the minority is. Presumably bills etc would still require half the votes to win and 2/3rds to override veto.

B. as if we don't have tyranny of the minority already (most of the U.S. is middle class or poor, most of the elected officials are well to do. Women make a slight majority of the population, yet are a clear minority in government. Non-whites are not proportionally represented either, though they aren't a majority yet, they will likely be in the next fifty years or so, and this is what I can think of off the top of my head)

> Yes, we need campaign finance reform. I don't
> know if a spending cap is the answer, but
> something should be done.

Agreed, though I also don't know what. I've seen several people rant about 'soft money' ads inparticular -- people and groups who use their own money to endorse a particular candidate without that candidate endorsing their ad -- I don't see a way to control that without evilly stripping the first admendment -- but there are certainly things that could be done with the official campaigns that would help.

Why I like the electoral college.

[Sodium Attack]

There's lots of talk here about the electoral college. I think we should keep it.

Why? I live in Indiana. A bastion of republicanism, at least in presidential elections. There was never any doubt that Indiana would go to Bush.

As a result, Bush and Gore have both done virutally no campaigning in Indiana. They haven't disrupted our lives with their campaign events. I have not seen a single television advertisement for Bush or Gore. (I did see Bush in a campaign ad, supporting the Republican candidate for governor. But that was a rare event.)

I pity my brother, who lives in the Chicago suburbs. He has been subject to an endless stream of Bush and Gore ads. Chicago traffic was severely disrupted last week, as both Bush and Gore came to campaign there.

Let's keep the electoral college, and keep presidential candidates out of Indiana.

Re:Nader Ruined the Economy.

[SmokeSerpent]

A straight-up popular election of the President is a bad, bad idea. For one it would be a nail in the coffin of States Rights, and a step toward erasing possibilities like State-by-State adoption of medical marijuana reforms and such.

What is a more important and better electoral reform is the removal of the inherent support for the current two-party system built into the electoral process. Bush and Gore automatically got on the ballot, everyone else had to have petition drives for the right guaranteed them by the Constitution to run for President.

Re:other junk including the Roe vs Wade thing....

[edremy]

The federal government has far to much control over the states,

< sarcasm >

I know. Why, just a few years ago the federal government stepped in and forced states to let those darkies have civil rights!

The horror, the horror! < /sarcasm >

Are you *really* sure that state control over every aspect of life is a good idea?

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[ChristTrekker]

But a 3rd party will never get to 31% support because so many people are afraid that voting 3rd party is to "throw their vote away". Nobody takes the chance - they vote for the lesser of two evils.

Re:Very strange results

[boinger]

I would imagine that, with the closeness of nearly all of the states, that you'd come up with the same numbers (+/- a few percent). So what does it really matter?

Unless all the "liars" from the 2 big parties said they voted Nader - hehe.

Re:We know it's not over.

[Foogle]

It wasn't a very funny one. But I'll take the hit anyway.

Re:Is this the proper way to determine a president

[Sodium Attack]

Also, the fact that this all has to be basically done on one day (minus absentee and military).

The voting itself, yes. There's nothing which demands that the counting be done in one day, except the media's and people's hunger for information.

24 Hours of Voting

[gkbarr]

Whatever became of the notion to keep the polls open for 24 hours in ALL states, opening and closing them simultaneously? This would have prevented the problem we saw in St. Louis AND would keep people in the west coast "in play" for the duration. It might also keep the networks from calling states prematurely based on exit polls.

--G Barr

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[trollercoaster]

you are correct, the electoral college has nothing to do with race. how could you possibly get so confused over a simple post?

Media Brown-out proves who the real alternative is

[robrob7777777]

I think the media's refusal to cover the Libertarians shows who they (the media) consider to be the real threat to the status quo they are part of.

Re:surprising?

[wishus]

errrr.... justification? I'm all for being enthusiastic about one's "movements" but this seems a little condescending considering Nader got, what, over 5x the votes Browne did?

Yes, but how many Green Party candidates were on the ballot? were elected to a public office?

Overall, the Libertarian Party outshined the Green Party, even though Nader surpassed Browne in the Presidential race. What most third parties don't understand, is you have to start at the bottom - in the communities - and build from there. You can toss alot of money into a presidential candidate, trying for that 5% that will get you federal funding in the next go-around, but building your ideas into the communities will establish them much better.

wish
---

Re:A "simple" proposal

[christrs]

Thank you for the clarification. But I still believe that even under that system, the apportionment of electors is more in line with the popular vote than in winner-take-all.

You don't always have to tear down a building in order to repair a problem within the building, the same can be said for government. You just have to decide what you want.

Chris

News websties....

[bmacy]

I was refreshing frequently the national Presidential maps for CNN, MSNBC, and ABC. Noticed a few issues:

- CNN:
* Most up-to-date results
* Had to make many corrections in precincts reporting several times (watched CA go from 22% reporting to 20%... among other things)
* Turned RI Red for a while
* Would revert to old numbers every once in a while in refreshes
* Site never went down and seemed to handle the load well
* Had triggers set to declare victories at poll close before any votes were in... I hate that
* The most trigger happy of the sites... they called several states before ABC and MSNBC

- MSNBC:
* Down frequently
* Eventually became updated hourly
* Took a while for the map to update

- ABC:
* Broken very frequently
* I think the webmaster was modifying the site live
* Finally added coloring of the states after CA closed... made the actual functionality of the site the best of all (fly over popups for election counts and electoral votes was nice)
* Hate that sky blue color

Brian Macy

Re:News websties....

[David Hume]

- MSNBC:
* Down frequently
* Eventually became updated hourly
* Took a while for the map to update

MSNBC recognizes it has serious problems. The site states:

"Technical problems at MSNBC.com early Wednesday resulted in some users receiving outdated content about the presidential election. In other cases, users saw data and stories that conflicted with other information on the site."

See: Technical problems at MSNBC.com. [ http://www.msnbc.com/news/487256_asp.htm ] They do not know what is causing the problems, but they are working on them.

Re:Bush is a spoiled brat

[Sodium Attack]

Like Gore will be the savior of the world?

Don't blame me, I voted for Browne.

Re:Nader

[vroomfondel]

So in short, the Gore camp is just crying because there are millions of people who think Gore is a worthless sack, but happen to think he's slightly less worthless than Bush. Losers.

Thus, the most worthless candidate wins! Yay! That had to be what everyone wanted, right? Right??? Oops.

Re:Very strange results

[donutello]

The networks putting Florida in the win column for Gore was not based on complete exit poll results. My understanding of Dan Rather's explanation was that they got some bad data from one or two precincts which threw their models off.

Jebb Bush has even less control over the electoral process in Florida than the Secretary of State - who happens to be a Democrat. Note that the Secretary of State doesn't have much control to speak of - but Jebb Bush has even less.

Re:Nader, etc

[rodentia]

You are right, this race was Gore's to win. Nader was nothing more than a distraction and should have played into his hand if he had given it a little thought.

I remain proud to have pulled four votes for Nader in MN, including a former Goldwater republican I like to call my dad.

You analysis is correct and I look forward to Nader actually spiking the election in four years. Gimme seven percent nationally and a Green representative for Vermont!

Nader pulled over 80,000 in Florida, BTW. There are those who will argue that he's responsible, but Al pissed this one away.

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[logicTrAp]

Well speculating that "no winner" is likely is kindof tough since there are no rules for what would happen without an electoral college. It's conceivable that a change like this would not necessitate a majority - and even if it did, it would likely mean that third parties could start to play a larger role to help one candidate obtain a majority. Since we don't have a parliamentary system with the executive elected by them and subject to no-confidence votes, we don't really need to worry about loose party conglomerations. As it is, the electoral college really makes many people's votes more or less valuable than others. Who bothers to campaign here in MA? Nobody because it (almost) always votes Democrat.

I'm not saying I have all the answers but IMO the college is an anachronism which mostly serves to remove a viable choice in politics asides from the Dems and Repubs

Re:The media

[Sodium Attack]

The Western voters are influenced by what they see on the Eastern results.

That's they're problem. are Americans more likely to go out and vote if they think their candidate is winning, or if they think he is losing?

Judging by the voter turnout in this election and recent past elections, I think the answer is neither. They're more likely to go out and vote if they think the election is close, and less likely if they think it's a landslide (regardless of whether the landslide is for or against their candidate).

Re:The real story

[goliard]

My precinct (in Cambridge, MA) had close to 100% voter turn out. I went in at 7:45pm (polls closed at 8:00pm) and almost every name was checked off.

Knowing that my neighborhood is strongly leftish ("People's Republic of Cambridge"), I have a different idea of of what was happening.

(I don't know how to make this tastefully non-partisan, so I won't. Sorry.) From what I've seen here, heard talking to real live Republicans, what I understand to be the case is this:

The Republicans were largely voting for whom they thought would make a better president. They were trying to vote out of optimism. But as conservative presidents go, it's really hard to get enthused about Dubya. He's the only Republican choice, but he's kinda disappointing as Republicans go.

The Democrats, on the other hand (of which I and most of my neighbors are some), were voting for whom they thought would make the less bad president. They were voting not out of a sense of optimism, but of pure, unbridled terror. They weren't asking of their candidate that he demonstrate great talent, character, or policy; they were just looking for someone who seemed to have at least vague concept of civil liberties, and at least a decent sense of shame about abusing them.

For all the conservatives have been whining about "liberal media bias", I think that the media have been astonishingly quiet about what liberals were really thinking and feeling. Bush terrifies them. The media played along with the Republicans in pretending that everything was playing out on the rarified intellectualized plain of abstracted issues. While it was "issues" oriented, it wasn't the abstraction of issues which was the crux.

While Republicans were talking about abstract ideas like "character" and "policy", Democrats were looking down the barrel of a gun. Make no mistake about it, when a presidential candidate presumes to pass judgement on what is or is not a religion and protected by the first amendment (see the case of the Wiccan soldiers), if you don't belong (or think you belong) to a privileged religion, you are looking down the barrel of a gun; you are standing on a slippery slope, the bottom of which rests in concentration camps.

Make no mistake: when a presidential candidate side steps the question "do you think that atheists aren't citizens?", if you are an atheist, or even sufficiently leftist, you are looking down the barrel of a gun. When a presidential candidate opposes abortion, if you are a woman, you are looking down the barrel of a gun.

I live in a state with a Republican govenor, which just defeated in referendum health care reform and just approved a massive income tax cut. I expect lots of people here would have be happy to have voted for someone of Bush's fiscal orientation -- if only he wasn't pointing a gun at them.

(Note to Libertarians: You guys could have all New England in your pockets, but you're basically coming across as extremist Republicans. Maybe you are. I didn't think that's what libertarianism was about. Until you learn to put civil liberties first and fiscal policy second, you will never get anywhere in N.E.)

Republicans worry that Gore will hurt their livelihoods. Democrats are terrified that Bush with destroy their lives. And that is the reason Democratic voters turned out, and the story no media will report.

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[2ndPersonShooter]

Don't forget that between the 1840s, and the 3rd party republicans coming along, was that little thing called the Civil War. Maybe you've heard of it?

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[xanth]

Interesting that it looks like Gore's won the popular vote..

Keep in mind though that not even Gore got a majority of the popular vote. So you can't exactly say he won it.

Re:Confusing Buchanan and Gore

[Leto2]

I'd like to see those ballots.
Did someone take them home and scan them in?
Or are there pics of them online in any form somehow?

Don't forget the absentees

[rkent]

There's a simpler explanation for the difference between the exit polls and the final vote count: absentee voters don't get exit-polled. I guess that most of the absentees in Florida are military, which could mean more republican votes for them (although caveats are scattered throughout slashdot stories today). Also, the exit poll only had 1770 people, and even though that's a decent sample size, it still doesn't predict the population with greater than 96% or 97% accuracy, and the final difference came down to something like .1% or less. So, I don't think fraud is really the thing to watch for here, although those "missing" ballot boxes that keep turning up are a bit strange.

These charges have merit...

[TopShelf]

The issue here is small print and the placing of the holes on the ballot that made it obvious how to vote Republican (the top hole), but not so obvious for Democratic (the third). The Democrats were listed second in the left-side column, but were assigned the third hole on the ballot because Buchanan was listed on the right side (shock-a-roony) above Gore. Check out the ABCnews story for a pic of the ballot - it could be very confusing indeed to seniors with less than great eyesight.

Why they'd list the candidates for a single office in a two-column format is beyond me. Considering that we're talking about Palm Beach, Florida, with a super-heavy concentration of seniors, you'd think they would take these things into account. Ballots are supposed to be extremely simple to avoid just this sort of controversy.

There is nothing wrong with the voting system

[kfg]

There was something VERY wrong with the opposing candidates that a radical outsider like Nader could 'steal' votes from them.

If they don't like it they should look their own house.

America does NOT have a two party system, NEVER had a two party system, and was intended to have NO party system.

Read the Constitution and Washington's farewell speach to congress if you don't believe me.

If you meet the constitutional requirments for holding an office it is your RIGHT to run, and it is my RIGHT to vote for you.

I voted, but I didn't vote for Nader, OR Gore, OR Bush.

I used my right to vote to vote for a candidate *I* wanted to win because I am an American citizen and it is my RIGHT, damn it! I didn't "throw my vote away" because I didn't want any of the people I didn't vote for to have my vote. I didn't want them to win. I wanted Harry Browne to win.

Tell me this, what if, just ONCE, there were NO candidates, and everyone just *wrote in* who they REALLY wanted to be president?

Now THAT would shake up the status quo!

KFG

Re:There is nothing wrong with the voting system

[under_score]

In order for this to work, you would have to make campaigning illegal, and in a country like the USA, that would be pretty much impossible due to freedom of speech concerns. Personally, I think this would be a great system. It works very well in the Baha'i Community.

Re:There is nothing wrong with the voting system

[Squid]

The electoral college exists to protect small states from being bullied by larger more populous states, and it does it very well.

You know what would do the job even better? Doing away with winner-take all. You don't "carry" a state - each candidate gets a proportion of the electors.

Scratch that - divide each vote by the population of the state you voted in, THEN add them up.

Or use existing county, district, and precinct lines to chop it up and still vote proportionally by population. The more itty bitty pieces, the harder it gets to use a few of them to dominate the masses.

The point is there's a million and one math games you can play to come up with a system better than what we have. Think Perl here: there's more than one way to do it.

Remember. Hitler was democratically *elected* to his office and the majority loved him.

And how would an Electoral College type system have fixed this?

Hitler reflects not the ills of democracy, but the ills of humankind. Until we find a way to change what's in people's hearts, another Hitler is ALWAYS a danger.

Who has an answer? Figure out how to solve all these problems, make a system of government that DOESN'T screw up, and you could change the world.

Re:There is nothing wrong with the voting system

[kfg]

It is entirely up to the state itself to decide what to do with its electoral college votes. If your state does it winner take all it decided to do so *internally.*

Not all states do it that way, just most. It is up to them.

The idea of dividing it up by county, etc already exists. Where do you think the members of the electoral college come from?

Sure there are a million and one mathmatical games you come up with improve on the current system. Not neccessarily a BETTER system, just a system that solves some of the current problems but trades them for new problems. Every solution has a problem to go with it.

You seem to make this very point in your closing statement.

Re:Nader, etc

[grappler]

hardly has a mandate??!!!!

What it looks like is that he'll LOSE the popular vote but win the election!

Talk about not having a mandate! People wanted the OTHER GUY :-)

This is awesome - I don't know how a bigger spotlight than this could be thrown on the electoral college.


-------

Re:Ehmz, wasn't it Bush?

[Sodium Attack]

. They can arrive up to 10 days after the election as long as the postmark is on or before November 7.

That varies from state to state. My understanding is that in Florida, they must be received by election day.

The computer counts get it right the first time.

Except that absentee ballots have to be counted by hand. And most of the absentee ballots in Florida have already been counted and are included in the vote totals you're seeing, so those may very well change following a recount. It's only the overseas military absentee ballots that haven't been counted yet.

Nummy! Cheetos crumbs under my nails!

[PowerMacDaddy]

While I'm a registered independant, I cast my vote for Bush. This time. Now, in 2004 when Jesse "The Body" Ventura runs for President I'll vote for him. Especially if he picks Henry Rollins as his running mate, heh heh heh.

Nothing quite like a wrestler and a punk to shake things up on capitol hill. Can we say "tag team mosh pit at a joint session of congress", kiddies? Good. I knew you could.
---

Re:other junk including the Roe vs Wade thing....

[Rahga]

Compared to federal control over every aspect of life? Definitely.

Run-Off Election?

[vortexSurpher]

I hear about run-off elections all the time for state and local elections - even for the US Congress. Is there any precedent for a presidential run-off?

If no, could that be done in this case with it being so close?

If yes, why isn't that option being discussed?

Regardless of precedent, would/could a run-off take place only in Florida? Or, would there have to be a run-off nationwide?

Could someone explain that College stuff?

[floydian]

I'm sure that many /. readers who are not from the US, like myself, are confused by that Electoral College thing. Even though I live in Central America, I am following this election quite closely, since it may well affect even our little country. However, I am confused about how the Electoral College works, a topic that is barely discussed in the media. Could someone give us a short explanation?

California makes the difference

[NetWurkGuy]

Interesting that it looks like Gore's won the popular vote..

it appears that Gore's popular vote majority is due for all practical purposes to his very strong showing in California. The WSJ was reporting by their evening deadline with 75% the vote in, (and California still out), that Bush was leading in the popular vote. Most of the states west of the Mississippi eventually went for Bush.

As of about 4PM EST with data from http://www.sfgate.com/election/returns.html

Nationally
Al Gore (D) : 48,572,136 votes, (48.3%)
George W. Bush (R) : 48,329,891 votes, (48.0%)
Difference : 242,245

California
Al Gore (D) : 5,242,816 votes, (53.6%)
George W. Bush (R) : 4,052,422 votes, (41.5%)
Difference 1,190,394

So for the nation apart from California Bush "won" the popular vote.

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[logicTrAp]

"most" was an overstatement but the sentiment is correct: 24 states require that the elector vote as they were elected.

Re:Influenced.....bah

[tunesmith]

I was one of those "schmoes" because I cared very deeply about my vote and was still trying to decide between Gore and Nader. There's no question that the Florida thing influenced my vote. I live in Oregon and researched this election very deeply.

tune

Justices aren't automatons of the party

[Alley Viper]

Don't automatically assume that Supreme Court justices appointed by Bush will side with him on all issues. Justices have a tendency to be a bit more centrist, because they HAVE to be to get through the approval process.

And once they are installed on the court, they no longer have ANY allegiance to the person who picked them, because the same person has no power to remove them.

Remember, there are only three ways for spot on the bench to change hands: retirement, impeachment, or death. Simply going against the wishes of the prez who nominated you isn't enough.

I think history bears out the "surprise" decisions of the court... however I'm not at work and can't really research examples worth citing presently.

YES WE DO ELECT THE PRESIDENT! SHEESH!

[Chanc_Gorkon]

We do elect the president....in a indirect sort of way. We vote which electors we want to elect our candidate. Popular vote means something in a state by state level, but not national. Yeah. it may be out dated, but there's nothing that can be done about it now. After the vote is decided, they can, if they want to, try to amend the constitution to rid us of the electoral college, but I REALLY don't see that happening! Amending the constitution is something that they SHOULD do. For example, it would be real hard for some of the suggested gun legislation to go thru becase some of their plans are unconstitutional! In my book, all gun laws could possibly be considered unconsitutional including the current ones! ANYWAY, when are the going to get rid of batch processing in this mess and do it in real time with computers? (Not necessarily the internet, but with private networks and computers at the polling places....)

Interface Design

[Microsift]

If you're too stupid to design a ballot that people can read, you shouldn't be designing ballots!

The Ballot in Question

Re:Nader, etc

[MillMan]

You're close to correct, the Nader campaign ended up backfiring, at least structurally. Dubya will probably win, and Nader isn't going to get his 5% for the cashola.

But Nader has forced the democrats to now pay attention to his constituency, if they want these votes back next time. For Nader and his agenda, that is a win.

I think the problem is not the individuals involved, but the structure of our system. This is the point. We need several things to level the playing field, so that all candidates get a decent shot, and votes that don't backfire.

- President elected by popular mandate (no more electoral college)

- Proportional Representation. Party X gets y% of the vote, party X gets y% of the seats in the house/legislature. Many European countries have this model.

- Third party inclusion into the debates. One of the biggest barriers to entry for third parties in my opinion. Even if they don't win, they can keep it real by bringing up issues the corporate parties don't want to discuss.

- Campaign Finance limits. Limits on total $ allowed to be spent so it's harder to buy an election like Mark Dayton did in MN. Also soft money limits to curb special interests influence.

Re:Nader, etc

[Steve B]

Flat income tax.
No "death tax" (inheritance tax).
No "marriage penalty" (normal tax rules for jointly filing couples).
Concealed carry permits nationwide.

Excellent! Too bad it's mixed in with that other bad stuff.
/.

Unfairness of the electorial college

[AxelBoldt]

Look at the number of states won by both major parties. Those states with fewer electorial votes become meaningless when compared to states like CA, NY, PA or FL.

Obviously, smaller states are favored by the current electoral college system because they get more electorial votes than they would deserve on a pure head count (just like smaller states are overrepresented in the Senate). Since smaller states tend to be Republican, the current system favors the GOP. Therefore, it won't be changed anytime soon.

--

Re:Unfairness of the electorial college

[Ronin Developer]

I think you are mistaken about the smaller states being predominantly republican. Only NH went Republican in the North East. Maine, RI, Connecticut, Vermont, Hawaii, DC, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey all went democratic.

Most of the geographically larger states went republican. However, their head count is on par with some of the smaller states.

RD

My Thoughts as a Floridian

[davidMaass]

Although I myself am too young to vote, I had a chance to look at the ballot yesterday and I must say that it was, at the very least, a bit confusing. The sad thing is that this may actually cost Gore the election: the number you mentioned, 1000, is actually far too low. Estimates here put it closer to 3000 or 3500, mainly from seniors who are known as ardent Gore supporters. 3500 is greater than both the Bush advantage and his likely win in the overseas absentee ballot combined. That's right: the entire election of leading nation of the free world rests on the ignorant design of the ballots and fading eyesight of the voting public. God, I hope they change it, and god bless America.

Re:CNN Reported on the 1,2,3,5 and 6th place parti

[afc]

I think you meant Obelix, right?
--

Florida exit poll ... the telling tale

[twingo_gtx]

Vote by Education %(Gore\Bush)

No H.S. Degree 50\47
High School Graduate 58\40
Some College 49\48
College Graduate 39\57
Post-Graduate Degree 46\51

I would make some snide remarks but I'm sure you can already imagine.

Re:Florida exit poll ... the telling tale

[twingo_gtx]

Vote by Religion %(Gore\Bush)
Protestant 45 \ 53
Catholic 45 \ 52
Other 56 \ 39
None 68 \ 24

Re:Nader

[GreatSwahili]

>Even though they have similar agendas it matters >for a rather important reason. The reason being >the number of supreme justices that are >retiring. I believe up to 4 supremes may retire, >which the president appoints. If Bush is in >office, the supremes that he appoints will be >conservative and that will be a very bad thing >for all of us!! Actually, the supreme courts upcoming vacancies is the exact reason why I voted for Bush since I definately want to see conservatives appointed there. Just as a side note, I'm really glad that Nader ran for president :-) I realize that this is definately not the popular view on Slashdot, but I figured I'd share my minority opinion.

Re:Electoral college go bad? possible?

[Sodium Attack]

what prevents this from happening?

The fact that electors are chosen from among a party's faithful. In other words, electors from a state that Gore won are brainwashed zombies who believe that Gore is the savior of the world, and Bush is the anti-christ. Vice versa in a state the Bush wins.

Re:Very strange results

[Signal 11]

Did your Bisexual girlfriend vote in this election?

Count it out loud !!!!!!!!!

[myradnick]

We should have Gore and Bush each go down to Florida and count their own ballots, first one to count to 49 million out loud wins! (1,2, skip a few, 48,999,999 , 49 million).

Re:Nader, etc

[rark]

> Use a condom. Or go to Canada. DUH.

However, if the condom breaks (or if the guy refuses to wear the condom and insists on sex anyway -- this is generally known as rape if the woman protests) and someone gets pregnant, it won't be you.

And you'll never be in the position of not having enough money to go to canada or mexico or a more liberal state within 2 months. And then pay for an abortion on top of that.

> There are many other very important issues out
> there, which the republicans and democrats have
> sold us out on.

agreed.

My take:

[Galvatron]

Bad design? Yes. Reason to revote? No. Even if it were numerically significant, which it doesn't appear to be based on the article (10 Buchanan votes, not all of which are inaccurate, per voting location using the ballots). If they revote, it will turn into an absolute zoo, with absolutely rampant vote fraud. I'm already somewhat worried about overseas citizens sending in votes today that wouldn't otherwise have been cast based on the results (believe me, it's not that hard to postmark something back a day, even without resorting to things like bribing post offices, many businesses can do it).

Re:It has to be said but...

[Webmonger]

When was the last time you saw 700+ comments on a subject? It's pretty clear that Slashdot's audience (including Canucks like me) wants to talk about the election here.

Absentee ballots - not just for GOPs anymore!

[Bersig]

I did the absentee ballot thing this year. I work 12 hrs, which means I get 12 off before I have to be back at work. Last election I stood in line for nearly 3 hours waiting for bozos who waited until reaching the voting booth to decide who/what they wanted to vote for. (Come on people! This is IMPORTANT! Give it at least as much consideration as, say, what you're going to have for dinner tonight. -ahem-) Add time for the commute and 2 or three minutes for a meal in there somewhere and I decided I had to find a better way this time around.

It sure did save time, but I get the feeling I wasted it anyways.. I'm in California and I voted libertarian. Oh well, at least you can't blame me for the next 4 years. :)

Re:More votes than who?

[1010011010]

>Or perhaps it's because the Libertarians, unlike the "viable" third parties, want to reduce government power rather than
increase it.

Or maybe it's because the Constitution Party, unlike the "viable" third parties, wants to make America a Christian nation
again exactly as the Founding Fathers prayed to Jesus Christ it would remain. Which is a much more viable conspiracy
theory, if you ask me.

What on earth does the Constitution Party have to do with the Libertarian Party? And my point still stands: they reported on the Natural Law Party, which got fewer votes than the Libertarians.

________________________________________

There are others besides the military.

[Ndog]

The Washington Post has an excellent article that goes into detail about everything going on in Florida. One thing it mentions is that there are about 1000 Florida voters living in Israel, most of whom would be expected to vote for Gore (if they voted).

They also mention Pat Buchanan getting more than four times the votes in Palm Beach County (the one with different ballots) than he received in a nearby comparable county, Broward, and more than four times the votes compared to a nearby county that is more conservative.

We'll know soon, but there are going to be complaints and allegations no matter who wins.

Re:Military vote is NOT generally Republican --agr

[alprazolam]

at ease, soldier. if you notice, i did not claim that all members of the armed forces do not work hard. however i do question the claim that you are protectings anybody's freedom. this is why gw (among others) wants to bring you home. i personally feel that if corporations need to protect interests abroad, they should do so at their own expense. i also believe that if the current employment trends continue, the american military will lose its competitive edge technology wise in the next generation. i work for a def con so i see exactly how much they are losing out to industry every day. without serious changes to the way they do business they are going to see entire programs end not because of lack of fuding, but because the defense companies can't compete with cisco and the like

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[faqBastard]

Why would the two big parties give up their stranglehold on American politics? And frankly, I think this is why it needs to go.

Well, I agree that a breath of fresh air would do everyone good, since most of people aren't really happy with either party these days.

However, the point from the column is well taken on me; specifically that the 2-party system produces tempered, mostly moderate policies that tend to lead to overall stability. This is a valid aim for the system to try to achieve.

Unless of course, you like more excitement. Didn't one of Michael Moore's Nader columns say something like, "Yeah, if we splintered the 2 parties, we'd have something raucous like the Knesset in Washington, people shouting during other's speeches, etc." It would be more interesting ;-)

"Prejudice is wrong; you should hate everyone the same."

Damn man, your name wouldn't happen to be Eric Harris or Dylan Klebold, would it? ;)

Why abolish the Electorial System?

[SlamboS]

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.

I actually live in Florida

[jimmie_p]

This is great. My vote actually counted. I was voting for Harry Brown, but i swapped my vote with a friend in KY. I voted for Gore here in FL so it would help him, and he voted for Brown in a 70% Bush state, worked great for the both of us! The thing in FL at the moment is the current gov Jeb Bush and the republicans are laying off 25% of state employees. So most of the state workers (like me) voted Gore. Also the absentee votes can take up to 10 days to come in to be counted. So we may not know who the Presedent is for over a week!

Re:The media

[Capt Dan]

This topic was actually discussed on MSNBC last night as it came up after one of the elections carter was involved in. I forget which one.

The point is, an extensive study was done afterwards (by a number of separate academians) and it was found that the eastern results did not really affect the western vote in any significant way.

CNN is reporting a 54 to 42% win for Gore in california, a 12% win. I think this margin is too large for the voter sway you are descirbing.

So maybe winning florida swayed some people. But is was also a lone standout in a sea of red on the "map". Wouldn't that sway people in the other direction? Optically, bush was winning, and he was ahead in the electoral vote for most of the time before the west coast polls closed.

Re:The media

[MonkeyBoy]

guessed it was based entirely on exit polls of 1770 some odd people

Probably 1770 some-odd people who punched Buchanan when they thought they were punching Gore...

Re:is military vote clear cut?

[mweier]

and why are we over-extended? certainly not due to our trying to be global traffic cop instead of minding our own business.

With an election this close ..

[citizenc]

.. why don't they create a dual-presidency? (SP) Whom-ever ends up winning, they won't have won by much, thus throughally pissing off half of the country. So, my suggestion, being the ignorant Canadian that I am, is to allow BOTH candidates to hold office -- let them share responsibility, discuss issues, and help each other out.


------------
CitizenC

Re:With an election this close ..

[swerdloff]

Hey, worked for Rome - just call 'em Consul instead of President and go to an inherited senate and a cursus honorem and tell Dubya to beware the Ides of March.

Re:With an election this close ..

[Hooptie]

Our country used to be, sorta, like that. Originally the Constitution called for the the electors to meet and cast two ballots. The person who receives the most votes in the election to be President, and the person who receives the second most votes to be Vice-President. But that didn't last long. The 12th ammendment, added in 1804 changed the electoral system, whereby each elector votes for a specific President and Vice President.

Hooptie

Re:The real story

[goliard]

You miss the point. From the point of view of plenty of the folks to the South, Bush wasn't sufficiently "comforting", as you put it, to get them excited. He was adequately "comforting", but nothing to write home about.

And you're not getting it in a fundamental way -- the same way most conservatives haven't gotten it all along, and which why this strong showing for Gore surprized them -- and this is the important part of my point: When I say the democrats were "frightened", I'm not using it in the intellectual, abstracted way you use it:

People here are frightened of Wiccans

That's just factually incorrect. The people where you are dislike Wiccans. May indeed loathe them. But they are confident in the dominence of their own religion, and see no reason to believe that Wiccans could manage to pass punitive laws which directly effect them since they know they greatly out number them. They don't largely fear Wiccans, not the way Bush frightens a lot of liberals.

I quite literally mean "frighten", not "cause disgust and contempt".

That's something the right absolutely doesn't want to hear: that some of their positions and candidates inspire a kind of fear which drives its own opposition without any counter-organization what so ever.

I'm not suggesting you change you opinions as to what you think is moral and good. I'm just relating an observation of political reality. If conservatives keep waving political guns at large portions of the population, liberals won't actually have to organize to get out the vote. It's really that simple.

The political spectrum has widened much in the past 50 years -- but not in the past 250. By the McCarthy era, the political spectrum had shrunk to a tiny slice of what it had been.

And, frankly, I'll believe the right supports the Bill of Rights the day I hear a Republican candidate for president publically affirm the citizenship of atheists and suggest that the Pledge of Allegiance be amended to its original form.

Margin of victory

[vandelais]

I just hope George senior doesn't bring up a thousand points of light.

Re:NO WE DON'T! GEEZ!

[TrentC]

well then, its a damn good thing that we arent a pure democracy otherwise we would have been screwed.

So you think that the people's choice should not hold any weight simply because it's a candidate you dislike? Would you be saying the same thing if it was your candidate that had the popular vote but got screwed by the college?

if you payed more attention in your history class you would know why the electoral college exists.

I know why the electoral college exists. I also know how to spell "paid". I also know that you're not likely to be e.e. cummings, so you don't get to get away with using all lower-case letters.

I also know that if you had a point to make, you'd be making it instead of resorting to ad hominem attacks.

Jay (=

Re:Nader Ruined the Economy.

[ichimunki]

Very interesting approach, especially like the hack used to obtain population percentages (very efficient relying on the electoral college for those proportions). This whole idea deserves further exploration, especially with regard to the number of votes cast in those states in the election.

Re:Link to story on ballot problems ...

[Kreeblah]

Why do people talk about this going to court? If anything, it should go to the House and the Senate. If this drags on into January, one could argue that it's Constitutionally bound to (12th and 20th amendments). If that happens, we're likely to wind up with Bush and Cheney winning by default.

Re:Nader

[MrGrendel]

I don't believe that Nader's issues have as much mainstream support as you say, although I would be willing to look at any poll links you might provide.

Here's a poll from BusinessWeek (not a left wing source). It's attached to a larger story about corporate power in general. This is one of Nader's core issues. I think 72% either agreeing or agreeing strongly that corporations have too much power qualifies at least this issue as mainstream.

I would like to point out that the Dems have not been in control the last eight years--they've had the presidency, but not Congress, and I would say that they have been functioning as one of the defenses.

Where were they with the Communications Decency Act? That's right. Democrats voted for it in Congress and Clinton signed it into law. What about the DMCA? Again, this gained wide support from the Democrats (although it has not yet been shown to be unconstitutional). The list goes on. But my original point about the Dems refusing to act as a defense was in reference to the Regan and Bush Sr. administrations when the Democrats did control Congress. They did very little during that time to stop right wing justices from being appointed to the supreme court.

Corporate powermongering does not compare to the civil rights movement--nobody is getting lynched by AT&T.

It isn't the same as the civil rights movement, but I wasn't trying to make that comparison. The civil rights movement was an example of a social movement in which people were risking there lives by giving support. The risks of supporting Nader are extremely small compared to what people have had to go through in the past, so why do we get so much critisism for taking those risks? If it isn't unreasonable to risk your life for civil rights, why is it unreasonable to risk having Bush as president now? There is a risk of abortion rights being overturned and environmental laws being gutted, but I think the abortion issue is overblown (I think the rebublicans know that they will lose congress and the presidency if they really do away with abortion). Many environmental laws have already been gutted and Gore isn't the advocate he used to be.

Just as a side note about corporations and lynching, the Shell Oil company is currently the subject of a lawsuit in California (it could actually be over now - I haven't checked on it in a while) over the murders of labor leaders in Nigeria (I think that's the country). They apparently used a company helicopter to transport members of the Nigerian military to the village where the labor leaders lived and pointed them out. They were then arrested and executed by the military. It doesn't happen here, but it does happen in third world countries and shouldn't be tolerated. I don't think this is a fringe issue, either.

Instant runoff

[Kafir]

In approval voting, the only way I can support Browne over Gore (should I want to) is to vote only for Browne. In which case I am no longer helping Gore beat Bush. Or, if I think Gore and Bush are better than any other candidates by a long shot, I can approve both, but lose my power to choose between them.

So approval voting is problematic to begin with, and only looks worse when you realize different voters will adopt different strategies, some voting for all candidates they approve of, some only for their favorite.
Candidates will have to convince people not only to vote for them, but to refrain from also voting for their serious contenders.

That's not all bad, but instant runoff avoids those problems, and is much more reasonable than the Borda count, which assigns points in a way that is not scaled to voter preference, and allows the confusing possibility of voting against serious contenders and so unreasonably inflating minor candidates' point totals.

I think the flaws of approval voting and Borda count are pretty obvious, and attention to them will tend to hurt any possibility of changing the system, so I'm hoping instant runoff voting draws more attention soon.

Re:Nader, etc

[David Greene]

And this is a bad thing?

Yes, it is. If the Electoral College goes away, the candidates will pander to the large population centers. They do that now, but not to the degree they would with a purely popular vote. The farmers would kiss their representation goodbye. If we abolish the Electoral College, we might was well have population-based representation in the Senate. Why would we want one without the other?

A. I'm not sure what tyranny of the minority is.

With a coalition government, the more radical factions of the ruling coalition can force concessions to their radical agenda without having to compromise their position, because they know if the dominant party doesn't concede, they can form a coalition with the other side. This happens in Isreal, for example.

B. as if we don't have tyranny of the minority already

This doesn't make any sense to me. Women being a minority in government has absolutey nothing to do with women having the power to elect whomever they wish. It's not valid to look at voter breakdown this way, as women/poor/races don't vote in a single block the way political parties do.

Campaign finance is a touchy issue, due to the First Amendment concerns you addressed. But getting more candidates in the debate would go a long way to at least giving information to voters.

--

A vote for Nader is a vote for big oil

[byoon]

How ironic.

My vote doesn't count

[FuzzyHead]

I live in Oregon. Basically any way I voted, it wouldn't have matter.

Re:Who says the "Framers" were wise?

[Bob Uhl]

And yesterday, their legacy put a drooling moron into the Presidency. Some wisdom.

Now, now; Gore hasn't been declared the winner yet...

Re:Military vote is NOT generally Republican --agr

[Ashen]

I guess I was misinformed. :(

Re:Florida

[vortexSurpher]

As of 12:00 EST, Bush has the lead over Gore in Florida. However, different news websites are giving different totals.

Tactical Voting

[GerlingMan]

Hell, I noticed that Iowa was a toss up state and changed my vote. I was going to vote for Nader if Iowa was leaning toward Bush or Gore. Originally Iowa was leaning towards Gore so I was going to vote for Nader. Once Iowa was very close, I decided to instead vote for Gore. I'm sure glad I did. It sure would/will suck to have Reagan in office again.

Re:Supreme Court / reproductive rights

[wnissen]

The joke is that even though Reagan and Bush were in office, abortion stayed legal. --Walt

Keep the campaign going!

[Rupert]

This'll probably drop off the face of /., given there are already some 700 posts, but here's my opinion anyway.

Gore should keep campaigning.

If Gore takes Oregon, and Bush takes Florida, they will have 267 and 271 votes respectively. I am willing to bet that given a month of strong campaigning (and an appropriate amount of subtle bribery), Gore can persuade 3 of those Republican electors to switch on the basis of his win in the popular vote.

This isn't over until after it's over.

--

Re:Keep the campaign going!

[swerdloff]

Highly doubtful - think, in order to be in the electoral college, you're thoroughly a party man. If not, why send you? You _might_ be able to get _one_ electoral college member who isn't a party man, but if that tips the scale for who is president? The backlash would be fast and furious.

Re:The Nader Effect

[Eponymous, Showered]

Note that if Bush does pull off a victory in Florida (which at this point, I suspect is likely), then we will conclusively be able to say that Al Gore cost Ralph Nader the election. Had Gore not been running, most of his 49% in Florida would have gone to Gore, giving the Green Party the presidency.

Re:The real story

[rlwhite]

Comparing the post above to my own experience shows me why politics have come to this point. The political spectrum has widened greatly in the past 50 or so years. The very things that frightened voters in Massachusetts were comforting to voters in this southern pro-Bush state.
People here are frightened of Wiccans, and it's not just a matter of ignorance and such. My best friend was Wiccan, and the things he spoke of would horrify any decent person.
I won't go on about how people here are anti-abortion because we all know it. But are we and our leaders against your civil liberties? People here don't think so, in fact we believe the opposite. Bush supporters are just as much for the Constitution and Bill of Rights as any Gore or Nader supporter. Interpretation does differ. Abortion is viewed as murder.
If the gap between the areas of the country continues to grow over the next century, pray we don't end in civil war. The differences in ideology and the geography of the differences do remind me of the way the war came about before. But we're in the slow simmering stage for now.

Re:It has to be said but[it's your own damn fault]

[Garfunkel]

Do you remember when they first started posting election stuff? They made it clear that all the posting was going to be done under a certain topic and that you can go into your preferences and turn that topic off so you don't have to see it. Rather than complaining about what everybody else wants to hear vs. you, why don't you try turning it off, so YOU do NOT have to see it.

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[mjh]

The electoral college is especially silly given that most states now legislate that electors vote based on how the state's populace votes

Someone correct me if I'm wrong. I thought I heard someone say on the news either last night or more recently that the way that it works is that every party in the state selects a set of electors for the state. When the state votes, they are voting on which party's electors get to submit their vote to congress.

So when the dems win a state, all the democrat selected electors get their votes sent to congress for the electoral vote. If the reps win a state, all the republican selected electors get their votes sent ot congress for the electoral vote.

The outcome is the same, but it's not like the state government is forcing the electors to vote one way or the other. The state gov is simply choosing the majority will of the state to represent the state's electoral votes.

Do I have this wrong?

Re:The fix is in?

[Darksun]

the sec of state in florida is republican...

Like carrying a telephone pole...

[Scratch-O-Matic]

All this b.s. about "my vote didn't count" reminds me of a workout I used to do: 8 or 10 guys running with a telephone pole. Any one man could let go for a moment or two, but somebody had to carry the pole. When the running was over, if you had hefted the pole for a ways, you could say your effort counted, even though you could have just dropped out and someone else would have finished the job without you. If you hadn't hefted the pole, all you could say was that you hadn't helped at all. And the other guys would think you were a wuss.


Scratch-o-Matic

Re:Nader Ruined the Economy.

[|/|/|||]

Hey, don't start blaming Nader voters. I voted for Nader, because he was the person that I chose to elect. Bush would make a really lousy president, but that is the fault of the morons that actually voted for him. Personally, I think Gore would make a lousy president also.

Don't give the election up to Bush, either. Gore won the popular vote. The last time I checked, we still live in a democracy. If anybody tries to give the Presidency to someone that didn't get a majority vote, I'm going to throw a fit.

Re:Shell script to get latest Florida count from C

[kinnunen]

I was surprised that none of the large news sites had text-only versions of the data. You don't lose a lot of information or usability converting small tables to plain text, and you save a whole lot of bandwidth.

I believe they stopped doing that after the 1996 election becaus people were complaining about the ASCII banner ads.

--

irrelevant

[Scudsucker]

The winner take all system is only unfair because its possible to win the popular vote but lose the electoral college. If a 3d party canidate didn't get any electoral votes, it means he didn't get a majoraty in any state. If he can't get a majoraty in any state, he can't very well get elected president, can he?

Voting is idealistic

[AxelBoldt]

Face it: you could have stayed home and the results would have been exactly the same. Voting is an idealistic act, not a political strategic one.

Of course, one has to distinguish between actually voting and telling other people to vote. While the former is an irrational idealistic act, the latter is a rational strategic one.

--

Re:Voting is idealistic

[nevets]

It sounds like we are arguing the same point!

Steven Rostedt

Re:Nader, etc

[G27 Radio]

If Gore wanted those votes, he had to prove he was worthy of them. He did not. They are not his be default, and the dem idea that he deserved them is arrogant beyond description.

Thank you. I'm tired of hearing how I should've voted for Gore instead of Browne. But I voted my conscience. Of course I didn't expect Browne to win. I wanted my vote to show that I was completely dissatisfied with Bush and Gore. If this hurt Gore then that's great.

Maybe this will get the democratic party to start dealing with the issues that independent voters care about.

My point is that if Gore losing my vote to a third party candidate stings him a little, then I'm glad that I and the other independent voters got his attention. BTW, I'm a Florida resident.

numb

Re:First hand from Boca Raton, FL (Palm Beach Coun

[NetWurkGuy]

It is my understanding that the Florida polls in the Eastern timezone closed at 8 PM EST and the Florida polls in the Central timezone closed simultaneously at 7 PM CST.

Re:Nader Ruined the Economy.

[The Creator]

No. When everyone gets exatly one wote regardless of were they live thats super duper fair. Now take your example and move people around randomly to new states: The guy who got most votes still wins, and each and every woter is eqal regardles of where in the land they live. _That's_ fair, i can't belive you missed something so simple!

Re:Nader, etc

[grappler]

I'm not talking about the dictionary definition. The word in this context is used that way in any american history book. It wasn't coined by 'talking heads on tv'.

And besides, Bush's ability to get things through congress would hinge much more on the fact that it's a republican congress than on the election results, which makes the context much different than what were were talking about.

and whooptie doo, the talking heads were wrong about florida. what's your point? Do you think I'm trying to defend the television networks? This little talk we're having about an election mandate really doesn't have anything to do with the tv networks, so whatever.


-------

Abolish the electoral system!

[teatime]

Abolish the electoral system. It's time for a direct deomcracy!

Go HERE and HERE to find out how you can participate and make history

Re:Nader

[TheFrood]

Polls for Nader before the election put him at about five or six percent. The percent of people who actually voted for Nader is two or three percent. That means that a substantial number of people were swayed by the Democratic party's extortion towards voting for Gore.

Which polls were those? I never saw Nader get more than 3% in any national poll. Based on that, the scare tactics didn't have much effect.

TheFrood

Re:CNN Reported on the 1,2,3,5 and 6th place parti

[Sandlund]

Based on incomplete precinct info posted this a.m. on CNN, the totals were:

Gore: 47,099,608
Bush: 46,541,294
Nader: 2,563,242
Buchanan: 420,351
Browne: 369,118
Phillips: 97,039
Hagelin: 80,627

You'd think that content producers for CNN would figure out that this is the way at least *some* voters -- say 3,530,377 -- might be interested in viewing the data.

Re:You misunderstand what's going on

[brokeninside]

States elect the President, not the people. The country is called the United STATES of America, not the United PEOPLE.

So a confederation of states can not have its president selected by a popular vote? That does not make sense to me. The constitution starts out "We the people...." not "We the states...."

I will admit that part of the problem with the electoral college is the current braid-dead winner take all system most states have chosen to implement. Such a system leads to the feeling of not really having a role to play. And this problem is certainly entirely on the shoulders of the states.

However, asserting that the president has to be elected by the states and can not be elected by the people living in the states is absurd. The electoral college needs to be re-thought and disbanded or drastically changed because in its current incarnation it disenfranchises people.

have a day,

-l

Re:Illuminati

[shadrax]

Methinks you don't give the Illuminati enough credit. Do you seriously believe this IMPOSSIBLY close election happened by ACCIDENT?

Less than 2000 votes in one state supposedly separate the two candidates. While a recount (and if you think that's going to be legitimate, I have 5000 shares of drkoop.com stock to sell you) is ALLEGEDLY happening, the mindless herd stays glued to their TV sets, thinking they are seeing "democracy" in action. Fools! And we all know who owns the networks. INCIDENCE or COINCIDENCE? Algore or dubya, it's going to be THEM. I'm moving to New Zealand.

States rights vs. Federal Government

[Modular]

The founders of the United States wanted a balance of power between the states and the federal government and also attempted to balance the power among states. This gave the obvious split of Congress between the Senate, all states equally represented, and the House of Representatives, representation proportional to populatiion. It would also appear that this thought went into the electoral college.

Before the California vote came in, Bush actually held the popular vote by a margin that Gore now appears to hold when California is included. Bush holds, at this point not counting Florida or Oregon, a 29-20 lead among states (this includes the Washington, D.C. so the total is 51 not 50).

Re:A vote for Gore is a vote for Bush.

[Chris Johnson]

Besides, it's a stupid bit of propaganda anyhow. I voted a straight Progressive ticket plus Nader. If we had a re-vote I would vote the same way again. If we had a re-vote with only Democrats and Republicans available I would NOT VOTE! Just like I didn't vote last election.

How difficult can this be to understand? Go on, claim I'm unique- that doesn't scare me and besides it is a lie.

NO WE DON'T! GEEZ!

[TrentC]

We do elect the president....in a indirect sort of way. We vote which electors we want to elect our candidate.

But only in a couple of states are the electors required to follow the mandate set forth by the people who elected them.

Think of this; if Bush wins Florida, he ends up with 271 electoral votes and wins the election. But all it takes is for two or three of those votes to jump ship and Gore is president -- which would be fitting, given that Gore is (at the time of this writing) ahead in the popular vote.

Now there's an interesting paradox:

• Electors vote they way they're pledged, to and we get a president who did not get the majority of the popular vote. "Democracy" is subverted.
• A couple of Bush's potential electors vote for Gore instead, Gore becomes president, but the people who voted for those electors are cheated. "Democracy" is subverted yet again?

Jay (=

Re:Confusing Buchanan and Gore

[joshwa]

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/DailyNews/ ELECTION_WatchdogPart4001107.html

Don't get mad, get even.

[homunq]

Who's throwing away those votes? In my view, it is not the people who cast them, but the people who count them. This result points out more clearly than ever the need for ranked ballots, where nobody's vote would get thrown away.

(The best-known ranked ballot system is IRV, which is indeed far superior to the current plurality system. However, I'm disappointed that more /.ers don't see the geeky reasons why Condorcet voting is even better.)

(As a response to your "I hope you're happy" flamebait: I am happy. Democracy means you don't get to second-guess anybody else's vote, but since you asked, I'll tell you about my vote. I think Gore is better than Bush by a razor-thin margin, although on several issues (encryption, military interventionism) Bush is actually better. But far more important than the tiny differences between Bush and Gore - far more important even than any message my Nader vote may have sent on issues such as fair trade and military spending - is the long-term health of our democracy. If this election leads to electoral reform, it will be easily worth it. I respect your reasons for your vote, I respect the supporters of Bush and Brown and Buchanan, now how about we stop pointing fingers and fix what's broken.)

Re:Shell script to get latest Florida count from C

[rabababoa]

add a:
echo -en "\a"
to the end of the script to make it sound

We need a third party in the middle

[termchimp]

The two party system in the US is definitely flawed. But the last thing we need is more left-wingers like Nader and right-wingers like Buchanan. What the country needs is a candidate or party that actually reflects the views of the middle-ground American.

All I know is that if there were a candidate who was pro gun-control, pro-environment, reasonably anti-abortion, and who supports using the surplus to pay the deficit, then he/she would have my vote hands down.

Re:We need a third party in the middle

[Tiresias_Mons]

There isn't any room in the middle, Gore and Bush are straddling the middle ground closer than a redneck and his sheep on prom night. ok, that was bad, i know....

Re:We need a third party in the middle

[Chris Johnson]

Sorry: much of that's considered uberleftwing now. The gun control thing will fly with the Democrats, but that's it. Gore will lie about being pro-environment but he has not done and will not do a thing about it- he's just not as directly associated with oil barons etc. as Bush. I'm not sure it's possible to be _reasonably_ anything about abortion- it's too hot an issue- anti==fundie in practice and because of the way it would be implemented. And both major parties would rather have their pork, thank you.

Re:Bush wins internet vote???

[superkorn]

Out of the 3 major weekly US news mags, time is the centrist one. It sometimes leans slightly conservative but overall it's pretty middle of the road. Newsweek is the liberal one, and US News and World Report is the conservative one. Time is just considered a liberal rag by conservatives because anything that isn't strictly conservative must be liberal in their view...

Re:Nader Ruined the Economy.

[scotch]

Thanks to Ralph stealing votes, he has thus destroyed the economy by allowing Bush to win. Nader stole votes from Gore and what is a bigger upset is the fact that he never even got the 5% they had hoped for. With Bush in office, we're one chicken bone away from higher unemployment and a rotten economy. I can't believe anyone out there would have voted for a guy that looks like the Queen Mother.

My god, I can't believe all the whining little twits complaining about how Nader stole votes from Gore and may have cost him the election. If you think you or Gore or any other fuckhead out there has any right to my vote just because I don't like Bush either, you are mistaken. If more people voted their hearts like (most) of the Nader supporters did, this country wouldn't be so fucked up with this two-party gridlock bullshit. Instead, the Dems, who haven't even lost yet, are already blaming supporters of Nader for their candidiates inablility to win the hearts and minds of an America split evenenly between tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum.

I think most Nader supporters would have "wasted" their vote on Gore if their was more at stake in this election, but there isn't really all that much at stake. Bush will do nothing over the next four years to turn a country split evenly down the middle away from him. Your opinion might differ, but fuck you for blaming me for your candidate's inabliity to win.

In summary, piss off

Odd ballots

[itachi]

The why isn't relevant, though, is it? The important part is the result. I mean, if you aren't sure which box to check to vote for your candidate, and the poll workers may not tell you, you're just as confused as if they may tell you but will not tell you.

Also, re the military vote, the only large military unit from Florida that potentially might be overseas is in fact at home (the USS JFK, an aircraft carrier based in Mayport, according to the Washington Post). The overseas voters from Florida who migh make a difference apparently include a number of US/Israeli dual citizens (~1000, heavily Democrat, and their votes wont be tallied until as late as the 17th) So there's a lot still up in the air.
Also, I highly recommend taking a look at the questionable ballot (Findlaw's picture)

itachi

Re:Odd ballots

[David Greene]

The ballot is not an issue. It was approved by the state election commissioner. The only relevant item remaining is the Florida recount. We will not have a re-vote or have those ballots discarded. We can't start changing the rules in the middle of the contest. It's the same thing regarding keeping the polls open past ther scheduled hours. That is illegal.

--

Re:Nader

[OriginalGangsterTrol]

Sure... your vote didn't count unless you live in Florida....

or in Iowa with 6,000 votes keeping Bush from beating Gore

or in New Hampshire with 7,000 votes keeping Gore from beating Bush (Nader took 22,000 BTW)

or in Wisconsin with 6,000 votes keeping Bush from beating Gore

(this being just a listing of those states with less then 10,000 votes separating the two candidates acording to http://www.cnn.com /EL ECTION/2000/results/index.president.html)

I mean C'MON! It Gore can't even win hiw home state, something must be wrong.

GORE cost HIMSELF the election.

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[swerdloff]

Ending the electoral college requires a constitutional amendment. This requires 2/3ds of both houses AND 3/4s of the governors of the country.

Your founding fathers checks and balances system at work.

firzt post

[Maurice]

Ha-ha, beat you all. Damn what's wrong with the lameness filter

Re:The media

[peu]

> We're going to see some serious criticism and finger pointing over the use of exit polls and voting results models.
Here in Argentina, the goverment prohibited the exit polls, and we only have one national hour.
BTW, here we have direct voting, but if the 1st runner doesnt have at least 10 point difference, comes the ballotage.

Re:Nader

[CaptainAvatar]

Well, duh. It happens in many elections, it's not a special feature of American ones.

Ok, Bush voter=piece of shit

[MarNuke]

Let me expand:

Bush voter = are the conservitve prices of shits that want the USA to be a super power.

Gore voter = bed wetters who wants the goverment to take care of them and other people

Nader voter = Are commuistist bastards who are blinded by the environment over thier personal freedom who wants the goverment to take care of them and tax them damn rich bastards!!!

Buchanan voter = are just plain nuts

Harry Browne voter = crazy bastards who want to go back to the old way of doing things

Re:other junk including the Roe vs Wade thing....

[edremy]

government is far more responsive to people's needs on a local level.

Yes, witness just how responsive the southern state governments were to the needs of their people. People, of course, defined as "white". Until the feds came in and applied a ClueStick(tm), that is.

Or perhaps you'd prefer schools where evolution is never mentioned and Wiccans get suspended because a teacher claimed that a student cast a spell on him.

Or perhaps you'd like it if a state legalized medical marijuana? Oh, that's right, California did. (I certainly voted for it.) State's rights went out the door fast on that one.

I agree, local control is often better. Despite the comments above, I'm actually for smaller government. But "state's rights" has been the clarion cry for racists and religious bigots for years. The right-wing are for state's rights until one of those gosh-darn liberal states does something they don't like, at which point the feds come down heavy. Why not just admit that the federal government can set basic laws and enforce them?

The Key State

[drivers]

Is that why Florida is called the Key State?

Re:Nader, etc

[grappler]

huh?

A mandate is the term used when a candidate captures over half the vote. So, as in the Clinton-Bush-Perot election, you can get a minority vote and still win, but you have no 'mandate'.

It's pretty certain, now, that Gore will win the popular vote, but they'll both be short of a majority due mostly to nader.

People always knew you could lose the popular vote and still win, but it hasn't happened in the last century, so this is pretty cool.


-------

Re:Nader

[TheFrood]

Goes to show that a vote for Nader was a vote for Bush all along, Nader appears to have cost Gore Oregano, Ohio, and Florida. Sure hope he sleeps well

I saw him speak at the National Press Club today on CNN. He showed absolutely no regret at all. He made a few interesting points in response to questions:

1. According to Nader, Bush has three virtues: He's not very bright, he's lazy, and he dislikes controversy. For that reason, he's unlikely to be as bad for the country as most Democrats think. ("Bad" from the Democrats' point of view.)

2. Gore has no right to people's votes. If he doesn't earn them, he doesn't deserve them.

3. The Democrats in Congress are much likelier to stand up for traditional left-wing issues (labor, environment, etc.) if there's a Republican in the White House. A moderate Democrat President, says Nader, saps the will of the Democrats in Congress.

At any rate, I think Nader will sleep just fine.

TheFrood

More on EC

[Mike Hicks]

Random Electoral College link
--

Re:Very strange results

[ChaoticPup]

That said, this looks really fishy. Gore easily won the exit polls in Florida, which is why the Major networks declared a Gore victory in Florida early on.

Yep, I thought that looked fishy too, but for a different reason.

At the moment Gore was declared a winner due to exit polls in Florida, Bush was leading in the actual tabulated vote count in Florida. Come on networks, this ain't rocket science.

A discrepancy like that should raise some flags. The networks jumped the gun, plain and simple. IMO, they had enough information to do the right thing and leave Florida "too close to call".

--CP

Re:Nader

[Steel Monkey]

I don't think Nader cost Gore Oregano. Gore can put as much of that spice on his food as he wants. Oregon, on the other hand... Seriously, I think he did change the outcome of this election. If Bush wins Florida, it will be because of Nader. However, it is Gore's fault that voters think Nader is better.

Re:But Terribly Fun Results! Better than football.

[HiThere]

Yeah, but football's a lot cheaper.

Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.

"We trust the people"

[mjduff]

Given Gore's lead in the popular vote, isn't it ironic that Bush ran almost solely on the platform that "He trusts the people" of the US to decide things rather the government. If Gore wins the popular vote, I think Bush should stay true to his convictions (at least his purported convictions) and concede the election to Gore regardless of the electoral college results.

Fuzzy Math ;-)

[Mike Hicks]

Just doing some playing with the numbers. Seeing what is apparently current for Gore, Bush, Nader, Buchanan, Browne, Philips, Hagelin, and Harris (this probably excludes any write-ins for those candidates), it is interesting to apply the popular vote numbers to what they could represent in an Electoral College.

If the EC votes were based off of the popular vote across the nation, it would break down like this (I'm not rounding up -- using floor()):

Gore 259, Bush 258, Nader 14, Buchanan 2, Browne 2, with 3 leftovers (ie, each other candidate gets less than one 538th of the vote).

Of course, this would mean that the (House? Senate? I forget) would have to vote for President and VP..
--

WAAAAH! I missed lesbian witches!

[garyrich]

I'll have to watch the Utena movie again to make up for it.

Re:Summary from hell.

[Field Marshall Stack]

Statistically, it's fairly certain that a large portion of those Buchanan votes were intended to be Gore votes, since there were many, many more Buchanan votes in the area with the "butterfly ballots" than there were in nearby districts, which had largely similar political leanings _and_ non-weird ballot sheets.

Does anyone if there's a precedent of a recast being called in situations where ballot sheets were flawed? I can see the (democratic) atty. general of Florida fighting tooth and nail for a recast if there is in fact a precedent...

--
"HORSE."

Re:One Vote *does* Count

[NulDevice]

Sadly, almost all of those are urban legends. Check the faq for alt.folklore.urban. German didn't lose to english by one vote...there *is* no official US language. There's more, too, but I won't list them here. AnnLanders gets balsted for running this story every election. But for examples of really close margin elections: http://www.fec.gov/pages/faqs.htm

----

Also, don't forgot New Hampshire!

[dasunt]

According to some news sources (cnn, etc) the Oregon vote is still too close to call. Now if Gore takes Oregon, he has 267 electoral votes. A candidate needs 270 votes to win. Each state has a minimum of 3 electoral votes (2 senators + 1 (minimum) house member). Looking at the states, New Hampshire was given to Bush with a difference of less then 8000 votes (abcnews). If there are still absentee votes for New Hampshire, or a miscount, then Bush can take Florida and Gore could still win.

Of course, this is all very hypothetical and has almost no chance of happening. But it is an interesting "what-if" game to play.

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[SeanAhern]

Little states are, by definition, insignificant.

That depends on what you think the states are. Most people seem to think that the states don't matter, that we're just a nation of homogeneous states. That's simply not the case.

The founders of the nation wanted the union to look and feel like a loose collection of sovereign states, with them competing with each other for your citizenship. The makup of the two houses of Congress reflects that goal. So does the makeup of the electoral college.

With a population-based count (the number of electors that match the number of representative) and a state-based count (the number of electors that match the number of senators), we have a wonderful compromise that gives us the best of both worlds: It allows the more populous states to have more say in an election, and it gives the small, yet still sovereign, states a foothold where they wouldn't otherwise.

Re:The media

[viralbus]

In Europe, it's regarded as a basic democratic principle that no exit polls or results are published until all the polls are closed.

Depends. At the Euro election in Denmark in September, exit poll results were published continuously throughout the day. It may be outlawed soon, but for the time being, it's legal.

Re:Nader

[mweier]

Nader & his supporters ought to sleep fine.

Why?

Because while his 90,000 voters in Florida would easily have tipped the scales, we're failing to place blame where blame is due. Gore. Loser. Not able to prove himself statesman material to the uneducated or uncaring masses.

Who was backing him? According to MSNBC's list of exit polls (if that link isn't working, find the map of the US for the election on their site, enter Florida, click on exit polls for that state's Presidential Race), the answer to the following question sums it up: Which was more important in your vote for President today? (issues vs. personal qualities)

Nearly 40% of Florida voters chose personal qualities. (approx. 2.3M voters). Of them, 59% chose Bush (approx 1.3M voters). Compare that to a meager 96K Naderites and you see what's wrong with american democracy. At least the Nader voters overwhelmingly (2 to 1) voted the issues at stake.

I personally feel that leaving the decision of policy up to how nice or seemingly honest someone appears to be in their propaganda, er... campaign means that the vote can be decided by folks who either didn't understand or didn't care about the issues at stake. Not to sound elitist, but I don't want my nation's policy decided by these people. I prefer those who understand the issues & vote their opinions on how these issues ought to be approached by whomever ends up running my country.

Disclaimer. I realize these are just numbers. Numbers can do what people want them do. Ask a statistician.

-Matt

Re:CNN Reported on the 1,2,3,5 and 6th place parti

[mojo-raisin]

I stopped trusting CNN long ago. Their reporting throughout the campaign indicated a strong Gore bias. I think they don't want to see the rise of a legitimate 3rd party for smaller government.

I actually wrote them a note as well (about 2 weeks ago) telling them as such.

Re:Media Brown-out proves who the real alternative

[TrentC]

I think the media's refusal to cover the Libertarians shows who they (the media) consider to be the real threat to the status quo they are part of.

You'll only convince me of that if Browne ended up pulling more popular votes than Buchanan.

Jay (=

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[David Greene]

Eh? The Civil War began after Lincoln was elected. Certainly the slavery/states' rights issues played a significant role, but the actual Civil War had nothing to do with it.

--

The best case scenario....

[nicedream]

If Gore won the pop vote, then I really hope Bush wins the election. Nothing could please me more (except having an intelligent candidate (e.g. Browne) win, but that's just wishful thinking).

Yeah I am a big supporter of Browne, and aside form him winning, I would love the electoral / popular vote to be split. Anything to throw a big ol' monkey wrech into this trash we call a political system. However, I wish it could have turned out opposite (Gore winning the electoral and Bush the popular) because Congress is still Republican controlled and I like to see as much gridlock as possible. The less they do in Washington, the better.

Also, I love the fact that (as of now) the vote count in Florida shows a gap of less than 2,000 in favor of Bush, while Nader has about 96,000 votes. Nice to see a third party screw it up for one of the big guys!

This election is turning out better than I thought it would :)

Re:The fix is in?

[Black Parrot]

> All balloting apparatus in Florida is under control of.... drum roll please.... the Sec of State who is a democrat...... DOUBLE drum roll please....

Actually, the SoS is a Republican. It's the AG who is a Democrat.

And since it was the SoS who was loudly saying "hold on a second, here!", it's hard to imagine that this particular act is high-level partisan fraud.

Shirt:Don't blame me, my vote was lost in Florida!

[Anonymous Coward]

You can already get a T-shirt (here) and other items that say, "Don't blame me, my vote was lost in Florida!" Unbelievable. http://www.cafepress.com/vote2000

Re:Nader

[xtheunknown]

Good for you.

I hope you are prepared to live in a country where our personal freedoms are abridged, our environment is destroyed, and the rich get tax breaks at the expense of the poor.

That is what you are about to get.

Politics in this country is all about pragmatics. You can vote for Nader and claim to have voted your conscience, but you have to sleep in the bed you have made.

Only problem is: I have to sleep in that bed as well.

Personally, I will be looking to start an American expatriate colony overseas.

Re:Nader, etc

[ForemastJack]

This is probably too late in the discussion to get moderated at all, but Hear, hear!

I'm so glad to hear someone finally point out the idoicy of Nader's "We're not throwing the election" line. All exit polls of Nader voters show clearly that at least 2/3 of Nader voters would have voted for Gore -- and Nader has to know this: if he means what he's spewing to the media today he's either -- at the very least -- being hopelessly naive or disingenuous. He handed the Presidency to a group that will -- whatever he says -- be markedly worse for everything he stands for. Anyone who says otherwise is either lying to you or to themselves.

And your other point is dead on, as well. American politics is not about falling on your sword: it's about compromise. It's the genius of the National political scene and it's something that Nader seems to believe, in his self-righteous tizzy, is below him.

Don't believe me? See the Federalist papers -- the system was set up for compromise. The Founders had no time for ideologues like Nader. They were (are) destructive and the system is designed to moderate their views. (Feel free to check the source code on this is you don't believe me: try Federalist Paper #47, by Madison, available here.)

You think the Republicans and Democrats were the same party? Tear your eyes away from votenader.com and read some policy statements. Start at the top with abortion, scan through environmental policy, and keep reading through urban issues. Still think it doesn't matter which one is sending legislation to the Hill?

And yes, while the two-party system isn't law, and while they do have a virtual monopoly on decision making, it's been this way since the 1805 or so. Parties change, they evolve -- they do complete reversals on some issues (e.g. the Republicans in the 60s) -- but by compromise within themselves and with each other, they can get something done. Nader, by trying to take his toys and go home, went against the system and managed to worsen the condition of everything he professes to care about. Or did you folks vote for him because to the mystical matching funds? Oh, sorry about that, too.

Voting and electoral problems

[thesparkle]

Gore and Bush had specific strategies for winning the election based upon electoral votes. Another writer contended that the electoral system protected voters from candidates who campaigned only to large voting blocks and ignored the remainder of the population. This is occuring with the current system.

Gore limited his campaigning to a) states with large or significant electoral votes i.e. California, New York, etc. b) that he could win i.e NOT Texas and c) only in large urban populations which traditionally voted for him in '92 and '96 and Democratic i.e. New York City rather than upstate, Pittsburgh rather than rural Pennsylvania, etc. The strategy was to win the large urban areas in high-electoral states and therefore win the election. Gore purposefully avoided most of the middle of America as evident in the returns.

Bush on the other hand based his strategy on the mid-section of America and the rural and suburban voting on the coasts. The Bush strategy stated that if their campaign lost in Florida for instance, they would make it up by picking up Iowa, Wisconsin, Oregon and Missouri. Bush did little or no campaigning in locations not favorable to his election - New York City, Los Angeles, San Fransico, Baltimore, etc.

The problem with the electoral vote for president is outlined above. Already, both major American parties have figured out where their power bases are and will only campaign in those areas and hope that they will win enough in each major, electoral state in their representative areas to take the whole state. This will continue until the system is changed.

WHAT the system will change into rests largely upon the winner of this election. An admirable action by either candidate upon taking office would be to begin the electoral college's demise as their first act. However, winners rarely change the system that put them in place.

Re:Gore still the same

[Black Parrot]

> Can't Gore ever keep his word?

Actually, Bush's claim to victory was just another youthful indiscretion.

Re:The media

[Compay]

The USA spans several time zones, a problem most European countries don't have to deal with in their elections. Television stations at least do not report polls or figures for any time zone until all polls are closed in that time zone. Because the president is elected not by a popular majority or plurality but by a majority of statewide electoral college votes, the 3-hour window west-cost voters have to view the results of the election in east-coast states is close to irrelevant. Some west-coast voters complain that they feel "their vote never counts" but I think that complaint is brought on by ignorance of how the system works.

Of course, if we put an end to the electoral college (as we should), your observation would become very relevant.

Florida, and the current state of the Nation

[dabblah]

As a citizen of Palm Beach County, Fla. and a partisan Democrat, and someone who thought to himself while voting that it would be very easy to punch Buchanan by mistake, I can reach only one conclusion regarding this election. The vote in Palm Beach County is flawed and must be invalidated. The problems here can with little trouble meet the standard that the will of the people was not expressed in this election.

Palm Beach County is also huge. Any irregularity tips this election one way or the other with or without the military vote (which does, actually, split republican but not overwhelmingly so). Therefore, there is one logical consequence of this conclusion. The election of the entire State of Florida must be invalidated.

Therefore, given the current stand of the electoral college, the election should end up in the House of Representatives. And there Bush will win.

It is an unfortunate outcome for the nation that the court system might fall into the hands of whatever religious wackos Bush should choose to nominate, but there is a clear constitutional process that should be followed given the rejection of the vote in the State of Florida. It is also unfortunate that counties in this state still employ such pathetic means of voting when there is far superior technology available (reference the systems used in Leon County Florida as an example).

My main hope is that the electoral college goes away totally. It is a relic of a bygone era.

It is probably too much to ask that the Senate also be abolished (also a relic of a bygone era) and that federal judges and supreme court justices only be appointed for a certain term (say 20 years) rather than for life. Those reforms would certainly give more power to the people and take this country closer to democracy.

Ballots Illegal

[Kenelson]

I just read through some papers in Florida and it seems very likely this election will be over turned. The Associated Press is already reporting that a lawsuit ; has been filed. Further, the lawsuit likely has merit because the ballots are clearly illegal according to Florida law.

For a picture of the ballot see this this site. The statue clearly states (emphasis added)

... then the elector shall, without leaving the polling place, retire alone to a booth or compartment provided, and place an "X" mark after the name of the candidate of his or her choice for each office to be filled, and likewise mark an "X" after the answer he or she desires in case of a constitutional amendment or other question submitted to a vote.

If this isn't enough to call to question the vote I don't know what would be.

--Karl

Re:Those are last night's numbers (PRE-Recount)!

[rotor]

The recount numbers won't be in until tonight (I've heard around 8:00 EST is when they're expected) and even then they won't hold the absentee ballots.

-

Re:Isn't it automated? Yes, but....

[Ndog]

It is automated if you consider punch cards to be automated. How come the US voting system is stuck with technology this old?

Not only that, from my observations voting in Maryland (the last three presidential elections), it seems likely that people can commit a lot of fraud without getting caught. In most elections, it probably isn't close enough for a couple people tampering to make a difference, but it seems like there are few checks for this system.

I walked into my polling place, told them my name, and got my ballots. They didn't check ID or anything. If I had names of other registered voters, I presumably could have come back at a different time and voted as someone else if that person hadn't voted.

When you vote, you punch holes in a card, which must be read later as a punch card. You take your ballot to the front and dump it in a big cardboard box which it would be possible to damage, destroy, replace, or steal. Whatever law enforcement and security is minimal. Would it be that hard to tamper? Not at all. Ballot stuffing seems likely, and any tampering is too much.

Re:art_xiv=republican/microsoft idiot

[Art_XIV]

Thank you for helping me make my case! :)

Don't bother wasting any of your brain power trying to understand why your reply was ironic.

Just pull that "Democrat" lever...

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[faqBastard]

Of course, one reason the EC was formed was that the people were not trusted to be able to make the proper decision.

I wouldn't say it's a case of the people not being trusted; I would say it's more a case of the system being a Republican form of government rather than a Democratic form.

I'm not referring to the political parties here. Instead I'm referring to the fact that it's a representative form of government, where you vote on people to make the decisions for you, rather than on the decisions themselves.

If the US were really a democracy, then new laws would only be passed by popular referendum. In fact, there's a very long, involved process to passing new laws for the lawmakers to carry out, not the people.

This is done, in order to provide a level of stability -- some kind of layer between the popular passion of the momnent, and changing of law -- so that in order to pass a law, you have to make really sure it's well thought out. And in the case of a Consitutional Ammendment -- which I believe would be required to change the EC system -- you really have to work hard.

This may be seen as degrading to the people. I'm planning on reading that book sometime, about "Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds." This is what I think the Framers were trying to guard against.

Re:Nader

[Vermifax]

Yup and CNN has shown how good the exit polls are haven't they?

Vermifax

Re:Nader Ruined the Economy.

[Thug Boy]

Hmmm Time for Civics 101 This is the great myth of politics. Presidents are responsible, good or bad, for the performance of the economy The president has very little direct control over the economy. All money issues, and there for the economy is in the hands of the house and senate.

Re:Well, Rob, if you're sick of it...

[chrischow]

seems a lot more IT news on their webpage instead of politics today, including quite a few things (about world IT issues) slashdot hasn't even mentioned

your complaint is?

Polls Closing early?

[mrfunnypants]

Why haven't I read one news source commenting on the fact that the media announced Gore the winner an HOUR before the polls even closed in Florida. Everyone is talking about the two thousands votes in Palm Dale but no one is mentioning the potential 10,000+ votes that were possibly lost due to premature announcements. In West Florida or the Panhandle, a largly Republican stronghold, many people didn't end up voting because they thought Gore had already won the state. If Gore wins because of accpetance of Two Thousands votes in Florida without the inclusion of voters who were putoff due to the Media, I will be one of the first to join a revolt.

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[isomeme]

We can always hope. The electoral college is especially silly given that most states now legislate that electors vote based on how the state's populace votes. As such, it's mostly a tool to simply hide anyone but the two major parties.

Cynicism aside, there was actually a good design behind the EC. First, and more obviously, 18th-century communication speeds and information processing technology made a direct popular election utterly impractical. Decomposing the problem into an election of electors followed by an election of the president made the process manageable.

More importantly, though, the EC resulted from the same compromise between Federalists and Anti-Federalists which gave us our bicameral legislature. The argument here was between those advocating that the USA should be a loose federation of sovereign states, with the states' rights carefully protected, and those in favor of a stronger central government, a single nation with states as administrative units.

The Federalists wanted a legislative system in which each state had an equal say at the national level; this led to our Senate. The Anti-Federalists wanted representation proportional to population, without regard to states, and the House of Representatives was the result.

Given that each state's electors are the sum of their senators and representatives, it's easy to see that this same compromise is at work. Less populous states get a disproportionate influence by design.

Whether we should change this design now is, of course, a separate question.

But Terribly Fun Results! Better than football...

[weston]

So last night I was sitting down on the couch actually *watching* the interminable stream of mostly drivel coming from the commentators. And I started to think, you know, for all the times I've made fun of rabid sports fans for having to watch every moment, play by play, staying glued to the TV screen for 4 hours, getting so excited or incensed at spectacular leaps ahead or turnovers...

that's irony. :) But boy, I enjoyed last night far more than the NBA finals. If nothing else, this election has been a great show.

And now, for all the times I've made fun of the "average american" for treating politics like football (pick a favorite team, get behind them, become irrationally dedicated, discuss who's likely to win, etc....): I'm sorry. You guys were right.
(well, sortof).

Why Gore?

[JimmT]

What I find interesting is that alot of you are for Gore. This is the same Gore family that wanted and successfully put ratings on Music! Remember the 80's when they brought some of our favorite musicians to the senate claiming they were demoralizing our children with there music. I thought ./ers were against cencership, then why do you want this man in office? Just curious, Jim

Re:Why Gore?

[mbright]

_I_ want Gore. Bush wants to "reevaluate" the space station. Gore supports it. Bush wants to use vouchers. Vouchers will take money away from public schools that are already short on cash. Bush wants to put some of your social security money in your hands so you can lose it and have even less money to retire on. Gore wants to give tax incentives to automakers for producing cars that use less gas and get oil from Mexico. This is a good idea. A tax bill is about the easiest thing to get passed and automakers are bussinessmen and bussiessmen love tax breaks. Bush wants to put oilwells in the everglades etc. Bush thinks that he can solve the morale problem in the military by not spending money on new high tech equipment and instead just giving the soldiers more money to get drunk with. I was in the ARMY. I know from personal experience what makes the morale as bad as it is and money to burn wont help them one bit. I could go on and on...

Conventional election wisdom.....

[Tiresias_Mons]

....states that the winner of California, and generally the popular vote should (and generally does) win the election. Unless of course you've got about 2000 or so seniors down in PullYourWhitePantsUpHigh, Florida that can't read their ballots. And oh yeah, don't forget about the Nader Factor, the Elian Factor, the Senility Factor, and any other countless factors that go into "predicting" a winner when there is only 25% voter turnout anyway. If this election doesn't prove the need for some form of reform (such as getting rid of the damn electoral college and doing it by the popular vote) I don't know what does.

Re:The media

[Black Parrot]

> Finally CNN pulled Florida, then Fox News, then the two networks I was also switching to.

Interestingly, CNN was the last to pull it back from Bush, after being first to pull it back from Gore. Over an hour after the other networks did.

Bias at play? Time-Warner-Bush?

Re:Confusing Buchanan and Gore

[ackthpt]

Dad-gummit! That is confusing looking. At least here in the land of fruits and nuts (take a guess) we have the sense to list one column, vertical.

When are people going to learn? Ballot printing is not a proving ground for creativity.

Hey! Lets tatto them on the backs of cats next time!

--

Re:The media

[scottgfx]

I had a civics class taught by a veteran of WWII. He was a prisoner of war of the Japanese. He took the American flag and brought it before a ROTC kid in the class. He asked him what it was... Of course the student said, "It's the American Flag!". He stopped, and asked him again, "What is it made of?". "Well" the student said "It's a piece of cloth". At that point, the teacher dropped it on the floor. Some gasped at the gesture. "You have to burn it now, you've desecrated the Flag" the student said. The teacher just picked it up, brushed it off and asked the student "What's different about it now?". Nothing was different. He proved to us at that point the importance of the freedom of speech. The flag was just a symbol. But that teacher also showed us just how important that symbol is. You see, he was in the Bataan Death March. He would know more than any of us what the flag stands for. He was also a pilot during the Berlin Air Lift.

I support a person's decision to burn the flag. It's that person's freedom of speech. But it's just my interpretation of the Constitution. It's up to us to vigilant and tell our representatives what we think!

BTW, I'm in Florida and I voted for Bush. :)

Scott
Paint Drone

Re:other junk including the Roe vs Wade thing....

[dietcrack]

Could you kindly explain the contradiction?

Explain significant parallels between:

The putting to death of someone who, it has been decided in a court of law, has committed crimes of a degree that he should be removed from society
-and-

the putting to death of an unborn child who is (arguably) a person, innocent of any crime.

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[Squid]

Ending winner-take-all wouldn't require an amendment, would it? Electors can "vote their conscience" in some states, which hints to me (it's been awhile since I researched this stuff) that it's up to the states to regulate how the EC works, and it's VERY possible for electoral votes to split within a state (it's happened before).

So at the STATE level you can say if a candidate gets 75% of the popular vote, they get a close approximation of 75% of the electoral votes.

To make this work nationwide, the federal government can use the same trick they did to raise the drinking age: threaten to cut off highway funds.

Re:Nader Ruined the Economy.

[blonde rser]

well last time you checked must have been before your state joined the republic because you do not live in a democracy. You live in a constitutional republic. Generally this is considered a fairer distribution of power than a direct democracy because it means that national policy does not fall to the whim of a single state. with out california bush has the popular vote (although only slightly). although I voted gore I can still see how this would be wrong. we have to be careful not to let our allegances cloud our common sence.

Florida ballots are definitely illegal

[RandomPeon]

From the Florida legal code:

(1) In counties where paper ballots are used, each elector shall be given a ballot by the inspector. Before delivering the ballot to the elector, one of the inspectors shall write his or her initials or name on the stub attached to the ballot; then the elector shall, without leaving the polling place, retire alone to a booth or compartment provided, and place an "X" mark after the name of the candidate of his or her choice for each office to be filled, and likewise mark an "X" after the answer he or she desires in case of a constitutional amendment or other question submitted to a vote.

Apparently you have to have the ballot set up so you put an 'x' by the candidate. Punch cards don't cut it.

- sorry, the URL will not work work for some reason, but CNN has the link at the bottom of this page

a choice between ... what?

[roffe]

it must be problematic to be liberal in a republic where the choice of presidents is between an ultraconservative (that would be Gore) and a reactionary (that would be Bush).

but I wonder though - how much impact does the president really have on internal policy? with a 50% attendance, the presidential election cannot have all that much perceived importance to the average US citizen? or?

if, after the recounts are finished, Bush is elected, it's going to be mighty embarrasing to be an American.

Re:The fix is in?

[Field Marshall Stack]

It's not that simple. There's easy ways to tamper with a vote that would be almost impossible to detect after the fact, ex. punching extra holes in ballots which already contain votes for a candidate you don't like, then throwing out those ballots as "spoiled".
--
"HORSE."

Re:The fix is in?

[Field Marshall Stack]

Given that Buchanan's vote totals (roughly equivalent to Harry Browne's) are consistent with the numbers in most other states (where they also were roughly equivalent to Harry Browne's), it seems unlikely that this "master stroke" had much effect. If Buchanan were amazingly ahead in Florida compared to the other states, then there might be reason to suspect that there were a LOT of mistakes. If the race is down to a few hundred, perhaps it could have made a difference, but it seems unlikely that in the end this will be a major factor.

The "butterfly ballots" were only in use in one county. The results for Buchanan in Florida as a whole weren't especially high, but votes for Buchanan in that one county were 3 times as prevalent as votes for Buchanan in nearby counties.
--
"HORSE."

Re:Nader, etc

[rark]

> If the Electoral College goes away, the
> candidates will pander to the large population
> centers.

As you said, they already do this to a certain extent. Because the presendential race is a winner-take-all one person race this is inherently a problem. I don't think an argument can be made that the president should represent farmers (or any other minority population) *over* the majority. Also, the large farming states are not necessarily small population states (i.e. California is a very large farming state, and has a large populace as well) -- individuals who are in the minority get *less* say with the current electoral system because their votes essentially get cancled when the majority takes their state -- only in states where the majority of the people are otherwise a minority is this not true, and in the case of farmers, that would require that state to have a low human-to-land population, therefore it would likely also have fewer electoral votes. It would take doing statistical analysis that I don't have time for to prove or disprove that the EC gives minority populations (i.e. farmers) more power, but at first glance I doubt it.

> more radical factions of the ruling coalition
> can force concessions to their radical agenda

Granted -- this already happens in the U.S. to a certain extant -- and while I can easily see that there would be differences in the concessions, I'm not sure that they would be significantly more negative for the citizens of the U.S. Line item veto and not allowing unrelated items to be voted on at the same time (i.e. the CDA in whatever bill it was squished into) would go a long way in helping this in either our current system or this hypothetical one.

>This happens in Isreal, for example

Isreal is probably a bad country to point to in terms of how a specific type of government would work in the U.S. It has some very specific problems of it's own that aren't applicable here.

Also, the current system (winner-takes-all) in practice leads to a two party system. If the only way to win is to get 50%+1 of the votes (as is the case for senate, house and everything but the pres, basically) then it only makes sense for smaller interests (who might have 10 or 20 or 40% of the vote) to team up with others -- whereas with a multi-winner system you might win with 30 or 40% of the vote (or even 20 or ten, depending on how many candidates there are for how many positions, and how the votes come out)

> Women being a minority in government has
> absolutey nothing to do with women having the
> power to elect whomever they wish.

Assuming whomever they wish is on the ballot (yes, third parties can get on the ballot, but getting more than just local seats is unlikely -- and writeins are nice in theory, but I don't know of any national election where a write in candidate has won). This is less of an issue with women, as a bloc (though I'm not entirely positive of this -- an argument could be made that were there more candidates that effectively represented women, more women would vote based on that, rather than voting for the least evil, but without seeing it in practice, it's a bit hard to prove) than it is for poor and middle class voters. Can you really argue that the majority of poor and middle class voters were happy with their choices this year? Judging from the news and from talking with others I don't think that argument will hold up very well. Whether they vote as a bloc isn't so much the question as whether they are currently represented. Judging from what I see, Americans don't generally feel like they are represented at the national level.

Would a multi-winner system help this? I think so -- first, it would allow people to proportionally represented at a much finer grained level than is now possible (i.e. say you're in a state, and your state has ten reps in the house -- so you have ten districts in your state -- and 20% of the state x way on an issue, 30% feels y way and 50% feels z way -- if these people were evenly distributed and the election were held on just this issue, then you'd get 10 reps for z -- proportionally however, you'd get 2 for x, 3 for y and 5 for z -- obviously, this is way oversimplified, as house reps shouldn't be elected on one issue and distributions don't tend to be *that* even, but this is illustration :) ) and allow for more viable candidates, meaning more diversity to choose from (rather than the pro-corporate rich white guy from tennesee or the pro-corporate rich white guy from texas or maybe the well-off but not so rich white guys from those other two parties that are pretty much protest votes as no one actually thinks they are gonna be president -- though I'll grant that that's not an election that would be affected by this, I doubt you'd recognize it if I tried for the local reps here -- but the amount of choice in house of rep elections is not much better). Second, it would break the hegemony of the current two party system (that is a direct result of a winner take all system) resulting in more parties and more choices for people to choose from.

Especially since, while there are small differences between the two parties, there is a fair amount of truth that the two parties resemble eachother -- much more so than, say, the greens and the libertarians, or the libertarians and the reform (etc)

> But getting more candidates in the debate would
> go a long way to at least giving information to
> voters

Most definetly agreed!

President Bush needs democrats ...

[CgiJobs]

National Review (a conservative magazine for those that might not know) is saying that Bush should appoint some Democrats in his administration in order to avoid being called "His Fraudulency" as Rutherford Hayes was back in 1876.

Related question from a novice European :

[Djaak]

Are the Electoral College votes kept secret ? If they're not, I highly doubt that one of them may switch their vote. Assuming these electors are party members, vote switching equals political death for any elector who'd commit it. Hard to imagine the man being supported by the party he helped losing the presidence in any future election ! The only thing left for him would then be to join the other side, but who likes to have a traitor on his side ? Just my 0.02 euro (not a lot of money these days :-) )

Re:Related question from a novice European :

[Rupert]

Ah, but imagine the welcome he'd receive from the other party. Ambassador to Tahiti? You got it!

--

Re:First hand from Boca Raton, FL (Palm Beach Coun

[TomSawyer]

You've been misled.

The poll hours for us in the eastern time zone in Florida was 0700 to 1900 EST and the panhandle polls were open 0700-1900 CST.

When the media incorrectly announced that Gore took Florida it could have affected Bush voters in the panhandle on their way to the polls if they decided there was no further point to it.

BTW, I found out since I made my first post that the Democratic and Republican parties in Palm Beach both also gave their blessings on the ballot layout before the elections.

Re:Nader, etc

[molyuk]

"While both major parties have been appealing more and more to centrist views..."

That's one way of putting it. "Both parties have become more shameless in their vote-whoring" would be another.

"Politics is compromise, and without compromise, the other side will win."

Once you've each compromised away any principles you may have had, what exactly constitutes "the other side"? Your point about both parties moving toward the center only reinforces this: now that the Demoblicans are tripping over each other in a mad rush to the center, how do you distinguish between them? Yeah, sure - the Democrats in toto are more left than the Republicans - but what does that have to do with any particular candidate? Do you really think Democrat=liberal and Republican=conservative? Tell it to Lloyd Bentsen and Harry Blackmun.

"You have accomplished -nothing- beyond satisfying
your own smug little idealistic worldview."

Smug? Yes, Mr. Pot, my kettle is in fact black. The truth of the matter is that Gore abandoned the left wing of the Democratic Party (as Clinton did before him) in an attempt to pimp more votes from the center. He assumed that they would stick with him because they had no other choice. Well, they did have another choice, and they chose it. Now I suspect you feel guilty that you sold your vote to the quintessential political whore (Gore or Bush - though I believe Gore prefers to be called an Electorally-Directed Courtesan). I have no interest in your tears of remorse, nor your self-righteous indignation at those who vote their consciences. It is YOU (plural), the collective self-satisfied, self-righteous status quo, who have perverted our political system and brought us to a time in which half the eligible voters stay home rather than pretend they have any voice in the process. It's easier to pretend that apathy is the only cause than to face the possibility that as much as 60% of the potential voters don't think either branch of the two-headed monster has anything to offer them.

Re:The fix is in?

[Grand Facade]

How can those 5 ballot boxes be counted at all. If they were left unsecured then they have to be considered tainted and discarded. The votes recorded in those boxes cannot ever be counted as who is to say who's votes are in those boxes unless they can be verified by some means. Such as the individual voter being contacted and their ballot verified.

Re:Nader

[jugglingfencer]

I fail to see how it COULD be Nader's fault. It's not because of Nader that Bush won Tennessee. It's because Gore is an idiot (even though I voted for him) for losing his home state (which would have given him 11, and the election). Nader had NOTHING to do with that, that was all Gore's fault.

The only reason people are blaming Nader is because he's a convenient scapegoat who got some votes in swing states. Had Gore done his job campaigning, those wouldn't have been swing states, and he would have won already. Don't blame Nader for Gore's loss. He has no one to blame but himself.

Re:Nader Ruined the Economy.

[NixterAg]

I don't see how any one person can 'ruin' the economy. Bush proposes an across the board tax cut, enabling EVERYONE who pays taxes to keep more of their own money. I know for sure if I had more of my money, I'd spend it and most others would as well. The economy is *too* good right now to begin with. People are throwing money into companies that haven't turned a profit and never will. I think the economy isn't going to grow as rapidly as it has in the past couple of years. Things are going to level off and maintain some degree of stability. Anything Bush does while in office concerning the economy won't have any effect for 5-10 years minimum anyways. Do you ever think anything you post through or do you just like making blatant and blind accusations?

Re:It has to be said but...

[Black Parrot]

> When that huge fall in tech stocks, something much closer related to nerdy stuff, earlier in the year was "not relevant"?

That's economic news, not tech news. Why is it relevant to /.?

Re:bullshit, nader supporters screwed us all

[V0lk]

Yeah, I'm happy I voted for Nader. It sure as hell beats voting for the Republicrat party. The days of having only TWO main candidates to choose from have got to end. People are too tired of picking the "lesser of two evils". If Nader had been allowed in the debates, and had equal airtime, there would've been even LESS votes for Algore. It's funny too, because Nader is the only candidate whose first instinct is to resist corporatizing of e-commerce and the net.

Re:The fix is in?

[NixterAg]

No...it was the gnomes that did it.

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[Squid]

Not abolishing slavery immediately was a concession to the wisdom of choosing one's battles. You don't have to like that they did it that way. I know I don't.

But take the closest modern equivalent - abortion - and consider what would happen if they passed a Constitutional amendment about it. Roe v Wade had people taking to the streets. Now imagine something similar happening in 1787 - when the 13 states were not a single nation, but basically a bunch of small nations that shared currency and didn't stop people crossing their borders.

What good does it do, then, to pick a side on the subject, alienate some states so horribly that they don't sign the new Constitution and thus don't become part of the new Republic, so you will NEVER be able to influence them down the road? (And though it's a conceptual stretch, the Civil War was basically the North "influencing" the South. Would have been MUCH harder to justify if the southern states had been another country to begin with.)

You don't have to like it, but they did it that way for a reason.

Re:Won't happen

[Nutcase]

Um... maybe its just me, but isn't the popular vote just the total number of votes cast for the candidate? So taking a state in the electoral college really has nothing do do with the popular vote. A raw total of all the votes cast shows that Gore has around 250,000 more votes than Bush. so if Bush "takes" florida, and wins the election via the Electoral College system, he will do so without winning the popular vote.

Politics, Politics ... life goes on.

[ardiri]

fine, you can have your election - and waste a lot of time debating who's got the biggest d*ck in the process.. but, honestly - instead of wasting all this money on "political campaigns" why dont you start feeding the homeless and providing shelter for those who need it most? i give it 18 months before Gore or Bush (i really dont care who wins) do something really stupid. what will we hear next?

• "i did not have sexual relations with the APARNET." .. Al Gore, 2000

politicians are all the same, waste your tax money and get crap from every news agency there is. I think, if any network was going to "die" this week, its a USA based network - in Germany, people are joking about the stupidity of this election. but, its ok. while the americans have wasted a whole week on electorial spasms, the rest of the world have been moving forward.

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[RandomPeon]

It seems that the one thing it does is keep the states with lower populations from becoming completely insignificant, amplifying their votes a bit.

Small states are radically over-represented in the Senate already. Why do they need overrepresentation in both branches of government? Also, it doesn't make sense to campaign in the small states - they naturally vote Republican - they're not "battlegrounds" so neither candidates visits the Great Plains since it's either hopeless or unecessary.

Re:Isn't it automated?

[SloWave]

In Texas we just punch holes in a little card. Took me all of 30 seconds to walk in the door, convince the people at the desk that I really lived in the area, punch the card and get out.

Re:Very strange results

[paeanblack]

The dumb thing here is the networks

Northwest Florida, near Georgia/Alabama is very Republican and is in the Central Time zone

"With the Democrat half of the state, having already reported their results, we're giving this one to Gore"
"er...well, the results from the Republican counties are in, so forget what we originally said..."

Re:But Terribly Fun Results! Better than football.

[Squid]

I LIKE lesbian witches.

CNN Reported on the 1,2,3,5 and 6th place parties

[1010011010]

The Libertarians can in fourth in essentially every state. Yet CNN consistently left them out of the reports. They reported on Democrats, Republicans, Greens, Reform and Natural Law. The Libertarians consistently finished ahead of both Reform and Natural Law, but got no mention from CNN. What the hell is that about? Does Ted Turner have it out for the Libertarians?

________________________________________

Re:The media

[jburroug]

Polls here in Alaska polls close at 8pm, alaska standard time, which is four hours behind EST. I believe that Hawaii is actually has the last polls to close.

GOP?

[rm-r]

I was just looking at the CNN site, they seem to be refering to the republicans as GOP, as a non-americana I have no idea what this means- help?

Re:GOP?

[cloudmaster]

Grand Old Party, HTH

Re:GOP?

[JHromadka]

GOP = Grand Old Party
------
James Hromadka

Re:GOP?

[JCCyC]

I was just looking at the CNN site, they seem to be refering to the republicans as GOP, as a non-americana I have no idea what this means- help?

Gross Old People.

How incredibly prophetic--The Onion had it right!!

[gvonk]

Bush or Gore wins!!!


"The greatest thing a president can do is set an example for the people," Bush or Gore continued. "And as a devoted family man with a wonderful wife and [two or four] wonderful children, I promise to make the White House a place Americans can feel good about."

Re:We know it's not over.

[JCMay]

ABC News is reporting that the Democrats are already claiming voting irregularity. It's as bad as Chicago or New York!

Also, didn't you get the words backwards? Isn't it "General Attorney," not "Attorney General?" :^)

Bye Bye Electoral College?

[theghost]

It's been a while since there's been any race this significant that was this close, and i think it might prompt people to push for political reform.

Everyone knows the electoral college is an outdated affectation that no longer represents the views of the people. It's high time we changed it.

We might even be able to push for things like proportional representation and instant-runoff voting while we're at it. (More info on PR and IRV.) Nader might not have gotten his 5%, but his message on these topics might get heard anyway.

Re:Misprinted ballots

[angelo]

I thought it was .375 a vote...

Florida law on legal challenges to elections

[RandomPeon]

Sorry, this is interesting too. The important stuff is bold.

(1) Except as provided in s. 102.171, the certification of election or nomination of any person to office, or of the result on any question submitted by referendum, may be contested in the circuit court by any unsuccessful candidate for such office or nomination thereto or by any elector qualified to vote in the election related to such candidacy, or by any taxpayer, respectively.

(2) Such contestant shall file a complaint, together with the fees prescribed in chapter 28, with the clerk of the circuit court within 10 days after midnight of the date the last county canvassing board empowered to canvass the returns certifies the results of the election being contested or within 5 days after midnight of the date the last county canvassing board empowered to canvass the returns certifies the results of that particular election following a protest pursuant to s. 102.166(1), whichever occurs later.

(3) The complaint shall set forth the grounds on which the contestant intends to establish his or her right to such office or set aside the result of the election on a submitted referendum. The grounds for contesting an election under this section are:

(a) Misconduct, fraud, or corruption on the part of any election official or any member of the canvassing board sufficient to change or place in doubt the result of the election.

(b) Ineligibility of the successful candidate for the nomination or office in dispute.

(c) Receipt of a number of illegal votes or rejection of a number of legal votes sufficient to change or place in doubt the result of the election.

(d) Proof that any elector, election official, or canvassing board member was given or offered a bribe or reward in money, property, or any other thing of value for the purpose of procuring the successful candidate's nomination or election or determining the result on any question submitted by referendum.

(e) Any other cause or allegation which, if sustained, would show that a person other than the successful candidate was the person duly nominated or elected to the office in question or that the outcome of the election on a question submitted by referendum was contrary to the result declared by the canvassing board or election board.

(4) The canvassing board or election board shall be the proper party defendant, and the successful candidate shall be an indispensable party to any action brought to contest the election or nomination of a candidate.

(5) A statement of the grounds of contest may not be rejected, nor the proceedings dismissed, by the court for any want of form if the grounds of contest provided in the statement are sufficient to clearly inform the defendant of the particular proceeding or cause for which the nomination or election is contested.

(6) A copy of the complaint shall be served upon the defendant and any other person named therein in the same manner as in other civil cases under the laws of this state. Within 10 days after the complaint has been served, the defendant must file an answer admitting or denying the allegations on which the contestant relies or stating that the defendant has no knowledge or information concerning the allegations, which shall be deemed a denial of the allegations, and must state any other defenses, in law or fact, on which the defendant relies. If an answer is not filed within the time prescribed, the defendant may not be granted a hearing in court to assert any claim or objection that is required by this subsection to be stated in an answer.

(7) Any candidate, qualified elector, or taxpayer presenting such a contest to a circuit judge is entitled to an immediate hearing. However, the court in its discretion may limit the time to be consumed in taking testimony, with a view therein to the circumstances of the matter and to the proximity of any succeeding primary or other election.

(8) The circuit judge to whom the contest is presented may fashion such orders as he or she deems necessary to ensure that each allegation in the complaint is investigated, examined, or checked, to prevent or correct any alleged wrong, and to provide any relief appropriate under such circumstances.


So, it looks like a judge could order a re-vote...

Democratic?

[AlXtreme]

Isn't a democracy a way for the people to choose their leaders? If that is true, you american's don't have a democracy! Only in a nation without a democracy can a leader be elected without the majority of the votes!

If the USA is a true democracy the candidate with the most votes should win. You american's remain a strange kind of people..

Re:Democratic?

[Bishop282]

America is not a democracy. The United States of America is a republic.

Bill Press @ CNN, another loser of the election.

[iggly_iguana]

Did anyone read Bill Press's article about the need to remove the electoral college? As anyone who has actually LEARNED anything about the government of our country knows, we were not setup as a true democracy for a reason. Without giving any supporting reasons, or even any disputes as to why our founding fathers set things up in the manner they did, he just calls the electoral college "archaic". Well, Bill, at least CNN could have put a place on the website for people to challenge you. After all, 2 outcomes were possible: 1) you could change my mind, or at least prove me wrong, or 2) I could prove you wrong, or change your mind. If, after all, Al Gore invented the internet, why not use it as a forum for the exchange of ideas and a manner of discussion. In the future, if your not going to "discuss", keep you analysis to yourself... Signed, Someone who no longer has respect for your writings.

connect the BIG FAT DOTS!!!

[jdurkin]

how interesting that the ex-president and ex-head of the CIA's son stands tied with his opponent in a race for the presidency... all resting on the 25 electoral votes of florida, where GB's other son, jeb, is governor. a little history of the bush family for you (albeit unofficial)... http://www.tarpley.net/bush16.htm If you'd rather not read pages and pages of detailed, footnoted history of George Bush, check out this helpful timeline of the Bush family history: http://prorev.com/bush.htm that one really lays out the details of bush's membership in skull and bones. skull and bones was a front for illuminati and freemasonry, and the most powerful and elitist secret organisation in the world, some could argue. yale has ugly secrets... i attended but was not a member of skull and bones... and it's really not quite the same as it used to be (they started letting in women recently...) it will be interesting to watch the outcome of all this.

Re:connect the BIG FAT DOTS!!!

[jdurkin]

sorry i cut and pasted that from an email i sent to a friend... i forgot to actually link my links :) bush family history bush family timeline

DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT?

[Lord Vipor Scorpion]

I've heard that the polls close at the same time all across Florida, but the polling hours are different in the Western part (1 hour earlier). I've been trying to find out if this is correct, although I haven't seen anything official. SO EAT YOUR WORDS IF YOU'RE WRONG, and I'll do the same here.

Dan Rather...our hero?

[mr. mulder]

I'd just like to give my regards to Dan Rather. If anyone else was glued to their television for 5 hours yesterday evening watching CBS and Dan Rather, you know what I'm talking about. It was evident that by 12:30 AM, Dan had run out of creative material and had to resort to some original material. I'll just say that I now know why Dan Rather is not a comedian.

I give him credit however. Not many other people can keep an entire nation interested for over 5 hours. Also, did anyone catch the point where laughter almost exploded on live television after comments regarding the death/tragedy of Missouri's Democratic governor?

Laughing stock

[Bozovision]

From the outside since I'm not an American, and don't live there.

It's not the voting system that counts - almost all voting systems have in-built bias. If you have a fairish *voting* system then you are probably democratic, as long as someone can't manipulate the vote.

However - I don't know how anyone could argue that the best person out of America's 280(?) million citizens to be president is likely to be the son of an ex-president. That's statistically unlikely. Therefore if Bush is elected, your electoral system can be manipulated. I suspect by using money. And if he is elected you will have demonstrated to the world that you do not have a democratic system.

Re:The fix is in?

[Wiggin]

Well if the dead can win a congressional race, why can't they vote?

Influenced.....bah

[TBone]

The call wasn't made until 7:30 EST or so. The only polls still open were those in PST, Alaska (always Republican), and Hawaii (always Democrat).

If some shmoe was sitting around listening to exit polls 30 minutes before the voting closed in the last few states, and got apathetic, that's their fault. The news wires hold those polls until the majority of the US is done and won't be affected

Re:Influenced.....bah

[johndiii]

7:30 EST = 6:30 CST. All of the polls in the Midwest were also still open. In fact, polls in the Florida panhandle were still open (according to the news that I saw last night).

Remember Serbia (slightly OT)

[jwit]

When the 'government to be' decides one candidate has the most votes, all it takes for the situation to be reversed is massive strikes. So all you people from FL: don't like the way the results are coming out? Don't go to work tomorrow!

We'll just have to see whether all upper management stays home - or all factory workers!

Re:Nader Ruined the Economy.

[Hoarke42]

If anybody tries to give the Presidency to someone that didn't get a majority vote, I'm going to throw a fit.

Did you throw a fit in 1992, when Clinton got about 43% of the popular vote? People during his administration kept saying he had a mandate for change because the majority elected him, when in fact it was only a plurality.

I don't remember for sure in 1996 if he had a majority or plurality, it was close though. According to a count I found, he was right at 50% if you only counted the three largest candidates. If 118023 people in the country voted for a third party candidate other than Perot, then Clinton only had a plurality then as well.

"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos"

Wisconsin, though ineffectual

[Mike Hicks]

Something I thought I'd mention about the state of Wisconsin (and this is probably true in other states as well). Many pundits have plastered the effect of Nader all over the place, but in some cases, Nader is not the only effect.

In Wisconsin, the votes are now in favor of Al Gore by 6000, after over 2.5 million have been counted. This brings into effect not only Nader (93000), but Buchanan (11000) as well as Browne (6500).
--

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[Chakotay]

Actually, it's also rather like the system in the Netherlands. We've got basically a quadruple system here.

There's the monarch, who ofcourse isn't chosen.

Then there's the Tweede Kamer (2nd Chamber, Parliament), consisting of 150 seats voted directly by the people. The largest parties form a coalition. The prime minister will be chosen by the largest party out of their own ranks, the ministers and state secretaries (vice ministers) will be chosen by the coalition parties and the prime minister, out of their own ranks, during the formation period.

Every province has a governor, appointed by the monarch.

The provinicial government is chosen like the 2nd Chamber, directly by the people.

Every municipality has a mayor, appointed by the monarch and approved by the provincial governor.

The municipal government is chosen like the 2nd Chamber, directly by the people.

And then there's also the 1st Chamber, consisting of 52 (damn, I'm not even sure about that. gotta check my facts somewhere) seats, chosen by the States General, which is the collection of provincial governments. The 1st Chamber operates alongside the 2nd Chamber. They cross-check the bills that passed through the 2nd Chamber with the constitution and other already existing laws.

National law always precedes over provincial regulations. Provincial regulations always precede over municipal regulations.

So basically there are two systems functioning next to eachother. The ancient top-down system (monarch > governor > mayor) and the modern bottom-up system (municipal government > provincial government > 2nd Chamber) and then there are also strange cross-overs (the prime minister, the 1st Chamber). All this makes the Dutch political system one of the most complicated in the world - but it works. It has worked for hundreds of years, and it's still working as it was originally intended.

)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity

Get rid of Gore and Bush!

[Rho17]

*pulling hair out by this time* What is it with all of you 'nader cost gore the election'-idiots? In my opinion, Bush and Gore should both be disqualified and we should have a new election. There is hardly any difference in these two! Get the other parties to put their candidates back up and let us vote on them. And bar big business and what-not from having anything to do with the election! Give them all a certain amount of money, and two weeks to campaign. Then we vote on who we think would do the best job, having a run-off election between the top two a week or so later! Sounds fair to me!

Re:The media

[blackwizard]

I don't know what people are thinking.

Why vote for the winner?

It's a lot easier to complain if you don't vote for the winner! =)

Indeed...

[Dannon]

Less-than-perfect engineering in a mechanical user interface hardly constitutes voter fraud.

---

Re:Nader

[ScuzzMonkey]

I guess people see what they want to see; I read those results as ambivalent, given that the largest percentage was in "Somewhat Agree" and that the previous question indicates that a similar percentage gives corporations credit for the prosperity gained over the same period. Furthermore, I suspect that a differently phrased question ("What aspects of American life have corporations too much power over?" for instance) would have elicited substantially different results. If you ask anyone if they feel picked on, they're more likely to say yes than if you ask them to provide specific examples.

You're proving my point again by using the CDA and DMCA as examples of where the Dems have failed you. I repeat (for the last time) just because these things are important to you does not mean they are important to the mainstream. Whether they should be or not is another matter. Those issues affected a relatively small segment of the public and there was little popular opposition to them--outside of the geek community, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who can tell you what the acronyms mean. On the other hand, Clinton just vetoed HR4392, which more people came out against because they felt it affected them more. As for the Bush/Reagan years, Robert Bork (denied) and Clarence Thomas (raked over the coals) come to mind. The Senate can't just perpetually refuse to confirm any candidate offered up, you know. Even on that level, compromise is necessary.

I'll skip on an argument about overseas behavior of corporations; it's not really the purview of the US government.

I see what you are saying about civil rights vs voting Nader. I withdraw my criticism. I would say, however, that voting for Nader doesn't really run a risk--it produces a foreseeable outcome, one that we're running into right now. As long as you accept that outcome, more power to you. I think people should vote their conscience--again, it's about which values you hold more dear.

I don't think abortion will get hammered in one fell swoop, but I think a Republican administration and Congress will certainly accelerate the nickel and dime chiseling at it that we've been seeing already. Personally, that's more of a concern for me than corporate power; but everyone is entitled to their views.

If you expect personalized service on every issue you support, you're going to be disappointed--which gets back to my original point, that the left has problems compromising. You sound like you're aware of all these things and have made a solid decision based on your own values--but I think you're an exception in that. And even so, it's still a factor that will favor the right over the left and something I will continue to lament.

The Bush effect

[IO ERROR]

Come on, there aren't any real differences between Republicrats and Demopublicans. For a really good explanation as to why, see: Beware of These Fallacies in Gore-Bush Debates

See also A Vote for Bush Is a Vote for Gore
---

Why haven't the Absentee Ballots been counted yet?

[ElusiveSpoon]

This is my first major election, and I'm wondering why in Florida the Absentee Ballots haven't been counted yet? Does this mean the absentee ballot's in other states haven't been counted yet? Is everything just media speculation at this point, and no numbers have been confirmed yet? This could be very important for Nader since he has not received the 5% of the votes he needs. Since many college students voted for Nader, and many college students voted by absentee ballot.

So what happens to campaigns?

[maddogsparky]

If the electoral college disapeared, how would the candidates campaign? Right now, they seem to base their strategies on capturing states with electoral votes.

Re:Nader

[divec]

Nader appears to have cost Gore Oregano, Ohio, and Florida. Sure hope he sleeps well

People who are blaming Nader for this don't seem to be able to see that it's a problem with the voting system. If they keep blaming Nader they're not helping to fix the system. Sure hope they sleep well.

The U.S. is a republic, not a democracy...

[TomatoMan]

...at least at the presidential level. In a republic, electors choose the leaders; in a democracy, the people choose the leaders. The United States is not a democracy in this sense. (At the state level, it (usually) is, but not in the presidential elections.)

I'm a big fan of democracy, myself, even when the will of the people is to choose a leader they'd like to watch a football game with rather than one whose IQ is close to their weight. We tend to get what we deserve.

But clearly the Electoral College has got to go. There are plenty of well-researched alternatives to this silly voting system, some of them thousands of years old. I think the best thing about this election is that it will bring the whole issue back into the spotlight. As much as I detest dubya, I like the idea of having a president in office who lost the popular vote, inasmuch as we will have to take a look at the whole system again. We have to seize the moment when our short attention spans are focused on it.

TomatoMan

Wisdom from the Canadians

[truffle]

It doesn't matter if the elected candidate does not have the popular vote. We Canadians seen this in one form or another for years. The party that get screws always complains loudly, and a week later everyone forgets. No one tries to change the system.

Both the republicans and the democrates benefit highly from the electoral college system. If you don't have it, you run the risk of the US evolving into a three+ party system. Remember, in 1992 Ross Perot got 19% of the popular vote but little or no (I don't remember) electoral college votes. Neither the republicans or the democrats will throw away the guarantee of the two-party system for years to come over one little election.



Truffle

Re:Wisdom from the Canadians

[pcwhalen]

Isn't that an oxymoron?

Re:The fix is in?

[seeken]

Just like to pint out that Jeb recused himself from the certification group.



Surfing the net and other cliches...

Re:Nader Ruined the Economy.

[1010011010]

If you want to play that game - Lincoln screwed the whole thing up - states did have the *right* to refuse Federal rule, but he sent in an army to strip that right away (Northern textile mills needed that cotton you know).

You're actually right. Lincoln did a lot of unconstitutional things -- like suspend the writ of habeas corpus, issue paper money, replacing the re-united states' constitutional, elected legislatures with appointed ones and denying southerns states representation, and, of course, preventing the withdrawal of states from the Union through use of force.

Now, I'm not a supporter of the South, so don't go there. On moral grounds, they should have gotten their asses kicked, and did. On legal grounds, the North had no right to force them to stay in the Union. Lincoln and Nicolas of Russia kept the Union together (he parked his navy off the shore to prevent the French from helping the south).

Lincoln created a new nation -- one where the Union was to be held above the Constitution. I.e., one where the Federal government was "more sovreign" than the states it was supposed to protect.

And your remark about the North needing the cotton was right on, more or less. Lincoln was a white supremacist who liberated the slaves to cripple the South. It was a good thing to do, but done for the wrong reasons. There were more economic motivations in the Civil War than moral or legal ones.

________________________________________

Re:Why my vote doesn't count.

[crm0922]

I'm in Omaha, NE.... a completely republican state. I voted for Gore. It did NOTHING - the five electoral votes all went to Bush, as we all knew they would

It didn't "do nothing", it added one vote to Gore's total in your state. If everyone sopped thinking like you do, then we wouldn't have the problem we have right now, not enough people voting.

It is not an antiquated system, I for one would not want to see the state of Nebraska reduced to an even smaller influence on the election than it has already. The Founding Fathers were not idiots, they designed the system to protect the less populated states from HUGE states like CA, which had sh*t for population when the system was designed. The system nearly always follows the popular vote, and when it doesn't, it's a near miss. I don't call .4% much of popular victory for Mr. Gore. It's more like the "statistical tie" the news called Mr. Bush's lead in the polls for the past few weeks.

Chris

Re:Nader Ruined the Economy.

[Millennium]

No. When everyone gets exatly one wote regardless of were they live thats super duper fair. Now take your example and move people around randomly to new states: The guy who got most votes still wins, and each and every woter is eqal regardles of where in the land they live. _That's_ fair, i can't belive you missed something so simple!

Except for one little problem: people don't move like that. In almost all cases, people will stay in one area for long periods of time, several elections at least. Further, consider that over periods of time, people in a given area will start to have similar political views; this is why some states are traditionally Republican, others traditionally Democrat. That has to be balanced out, or you get the "ruling party syndrome," where only a single party has any say at all. This is hardly a fair way to do things.
----------

Re:Nader Ruined the Economy.

[Rupert]

Bush did very well in his home state of Texas with the Hispanic vote.

I wasn't aware they could tell your ethnicity from a ballot paper :-)

Even though I am not a Bush supporter, it is obvious that it would be unfair to suddenly overturn his election based on raw popular number.

I agree 100% (popular & electoral)

--

Re:Nader Ruined the Economy.

[Rupert]

the number of electoral votes each state gets is based on its population

plus two. If there were a state with 1 person in it, it would have three electoral college votes. If there were a state with half the population of the whole United States, it would have 221 electoral votes. The electoral college is set up so that 74 people can impose their will on 100 million.

--

Re:Nader Ruined the Economy.

[Millennium]

You're actually right. Lincoln did a lot of unconstitutional things -- like suspend the writ of habeas corpus, issue paper money, replacing the re-united states' constitutional, elected legislatures with appointed ones and denying southerns states representation, and, of course, preventing the withdrawal of states from the Union through use of force.
Actually, some of those things you said were constitutional. For example, habeas corpus can be suspended in "times of rebellion or emergency" (which was certainly the case). Also, the paper money was constitutional because it still had the backing of gold (and, if you wanted, you could actually go to the government and trade the paper money for the gold that was backing it); the paper slips were nothing more than a proxy. The US didn't actually go off the gold standard until the 1960's (breaking an international treaty as well as the Constitution in the process, I might add), and by then Lincoln was long dead.

The rest of your statement I'll give you, but I thought I should point those two out.
----------

Re:Nader, etc

[alprazolam]

i wanna know why the pundits don't think he can pass his 8 gazillion $ tax cut. even if it's a 50/50 split in senate, cheney casts the tiebraking vote. its not like the bigger the tax cut, the bigger majority you need. he'll never need more than a simple majority assuming the vote breaks on party lines, which is by no means a stretch considering the partisanship of the 105th congress. and i don't think talking about mandate in terms of the actual % of popular vote matters when everything he supports passes. regardless of what your history books say, mine never claimed to relate mandate directly to the % of the popular vote.

Another way of looking at it

[Rupert]

I didn't think of this until this morning, unfortunately.

Pro-EC posters have said that electoral college forces candidates to appeal to interests in many states. I had focussed on how little it took to win. If you instead turn it around and point out how much you can get and still lose, it might change some perspectives.

You can get 69% of the popular vote, and carry 38 states, and still not be President. That's not democracy.

[Reply to the inevitable comment that the US is a Republic: so screwing the voters is Republicanism?]

--

Let Bush Go Back To MO & Show 'em He Trusts 'em

[cybrpnk]

The most unbelievable thing to me about this whole fiasco was what happened in Missouri. Bush goes ON and ON about "Gore trusts government, I trust the people..." Then when St. Louis has huge turnout and polling problems, the Republicans swoop in and get a trio of Republican judges to overturn a lower court ruling to keep the polls open. George W and his gestapo slammed the voting booth door on people he thought at the time were voting against him. If he ends up losing Florida, maybe Microsoft will hire him.

Re:other junk including the Roe vs Wade thing....

[Rogue Jedi]

There are times when the Federal government should step in, like when people's Constitutional rights are being violated. But, when state governments are working like they are supposed to, as most are, then there is no need for the Fed to step in. California wants to legalize marijuana? Fine, let 'em. Arkansas wants to deny blacks the right to vote? Go in and put a stop to it. States Rights may have been used as a hiding place by bigots and religous zealots, so what? Does that somehow invalidate them? That's like saying the First Amendment was used as a hiding place for bigots and religous zealots, so it's invalid. I bet the ACLU would disagree with you in that case.

-Rob

Re:We know it's not over.

[MattBaggins]

Is it time for us to take a cue from our Parlimentary brethren? Maybe it is time for us to demand a vote of no confidence? Throw both of the bozos out and demand they start over? An open election and we the people vote Cheney/Lieberman?
Third option is we that drag Nader into a back alley and open up a 50 gallon drum of whoopass on him.

To the moderators

[Rupert]

Troll?

[distant thud]

That would be your karma meeting meta-moderation.

--

Electoral College GOOD

[SL33Z3]

I'm not going to say that I totally agree with the electoral college because it does have it's problems. However, where it does justice is in cases like these when a race is close. You may say that it's in these cases that it shows it shouldn't exist, but I think otherwise. It makes it so that no particular-party populated region can carry a close election. For instance, California is only one part of the country. So why should it's margins be the ones that carry the president to victory? The idea of the electoral college is not so that it can foul things up. It's to make a level playing field to make sure that the entire country get's representation. While THIS particular election is a problem because it's so close EVERYWHERE, in most cases, the electoral college is a good thing.

As a note to honesty in being biased: I voted Bush

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[trollercoaster]

Well, that's how the framers of the constitution wanted it. They were, perhaps rightfully so, trying to protect the American people from "simple-minded majoritarianism." Of course, democracy is a different beast 200 plus years later (democracy, at the time, was intended for white, land owning, males) and it should be time to change the system for electing the president.

is military vote clear cut?

[_|()|\|]

the military vote still has to come in, and that is generally Republican

In the first presidential debate, George Bush criticized our readiness and morale, saying we're over extended. Gore scored points by immediately responding that we have not only the best military in the world, but in the history of the world.

Gore's comments sounded more presidential, like he knew that the little Hitlers of the world were listening.

Re:is military vote clear cut?

[Anonymous Coward]

Though I usually don't agree much with Bush, I think I'd rather have a president who tells it like he believes it is rather than one who tells you what he thinks you want to hear.

Re:is military vote clear cut?

[Anonymous Coward]

"In the first presidential debate, George Bush criticized our readiness and morale, saying we're over extended. Gore scored points by immediately responding that we have not only the best military in the world, but in the history of the world."

Every year at budget time the joint chiefs of staff go before congress to plead their case. At that time they sound a lot more like Bush than Gore ;-)

Gore's words sounds like those of someone prepared to cut the defense budget, not increase it. I doubt he has the support of the majority of U.S. military people.

Re:is military vote clear cut?

[frinkster]

But you see the voters in the military have the advantage of experiencing first-hand the shape of the military. Every one I know that is in the military or recently got out (guess why) would agree with Bush's assesment of our military readiness.

Re:is military vote clear cut?

[gid-foo]

Bush may be right but the answer he provides is wrong. A standing army prepared to fight multiple world war size conflicts with billions of dollars in hardware that cannot be used and is going in to the rust bin is useless. We need a smaller, well trained army that focuses on the assets it needs, not the excess of the Reagan years. The militaries problem is a lack of direction, they are retaining a cold war identity which is no longer viable. We need a president who can help change the focus and direction of the military. Not just "throw money at the problem."
gid-foo

Re:is military vote clear cut?

[haystor]

I never said the military should be fighting just to keep up morale.

And the job of a standing army should be to stand, it shouldn't be to act as an untrained police force in another country.

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[faqBastard]

This may be the end of the electoral college once people realize that the Executive branch of government is not truly representative of the people's will..

Well, that was pretty thoughtful...

So, either the Founding Fathers, who managed to get a couple other things right, were elitist snobs; or perhaps they were a bunch of idiots; OR maybe there's some purpose to having such a system, which takes an attention span longer than a sound bite to comprehend.

Please pardon the inflammatory tone of this post. If you're interested to hear an argument in favor of the electoral college, then here's an article which is more eloquent than I could be:

The Framers' Electoral Wisdom

Re:The fix is in?

[JCMay]

It's better than that!

Each county can have a different ballot; here in Brevard we used a LARGE Scan-Tron type ballot and the ballot was tallied as you slid it into the box! No hole punching for us on the Space Coast!

Re: death penalty....

[Rahga]

Taking the "republican" approach, "conservative" theory that the republican platform is based on means taking what we know and have learned from the past to make the best decisions for the future.
While there are many reasons to support the death penalty, the primary one being that there was once no way in heck people could afford to keep mass murderers alive and in prision, there is definitely a case against it. Rather than taking a bleeding heart liberal approach that most of the opponents take, and it sounds like you might also, I would take a more common sense approach.

The question is "Is the death penalty a deterrent?" The obvious anwser is YES, it can be. For example, if you were to be put to death for stealing a candy bar, 99.999 percent of the people I know would not take a chance on stealing a candy bar. Would the death penalty deter somebody from committing muder. No, it wouldn't. If somebody does not respect the right for someone else to live their life, and has no respect for the life of others, why could we expct such a person to have any respect of fear for the safety of their own life. If it comes to stopping power, for example if they are on a rampage of murder or recklessness (say, behind the wheel driving 160mph), then it would be wise to kill them before they kill anyone else. But I simply don't see the good in putting them to death. I don't necessarilly see good in letting themlive either, and if they do live, it would be nice to see them suffer in prison at least as much as you and I do out here, trying to make a living. But no, the death penalty does not deter murder. It's simply about respect for life, and if one does not respect the lives of others, he/she also will not have respect for his own life. (Combined with guilt, this explains a large number of murder-suicides.)

Re:Nader Ruined the Economy.

[daSpaZZ]

What Crack Pipe have you been smoking, what makes you think that Demi"gawd"crats have any better handle on the economy than the Republicans?

I think you forget, the only reason the Economy is doing as good as it is!! When PreziDum Billy Bob received the country 8 years ago, the economy was in an upturn from the good that had been done by the previous 12 years of Republican rule. The only thing that Bill Bob had to do was not Fewk it up!! It would appear that after 8 years of Billy Bob at the helm, he chose to do what was best for everyone, that being to not intitute policies that would adversely affect the economy and let it grow on its own.

What I wanna know is how can a man with a brain vote to increase goverment, and raise taxes??

Cough, cough **Dunb0crat** , cough, cough!!

I know they both lie, I am not by any means rich!! I do believe that less is more with respect to goverment. I also believe that you can not just give some people a tax break, it must be distributed to all americans. Yes, even the rich!!

Re:Nader, etc

[grappler]

Well, now I have a clearer picture of the mind of a Bush supporter. His success is less of a mystery to me now, assuming there are millions more like you...


-------

Re:Nader, etc

[David Greene]

Actually, they would be if Florida had counted its votes faster.

The great thing about this election is that if we assume Bush wins Florida, then if any state went the other way, it would chage the results. This was truly a national election. If Gore had taken his home state or Clinton's state, the election would no longer be an issue.

--

Re:The media

[Stephen]

After they had given Florida to Gore they took it back. And then they did the same thing with Bush. You can't do that. The Western voters are influenced by what they see on the Eastern results.

In Europe, it's regarded as a basic democratic principle that no exit polls or results are published until all the polls are closed. (And in the case of European parliamentary elections, this is several days after the first countries have voted!) From this side of the Atlantic, it looks as if freedom of speech is valued more highly than fair elections in the US.

Re:Nader, etc

[David Greene]

The point is that each CITIZEN, not each STATE, would have equal representation if we went by a popular vote.

Each citizen does have a voice. Through the states. Every vote counts toward the allocation of votes in the Electoral College.

Do you agree that citizens don't have a voice in the House or the Senate?

THEN, have the states divide their alloted electoral votes percentage-wise by their own popular vote.

Note that this is a state issue, not a federal one. Each state would have to change its practices individually.

One thing to keep in mind with this is now a candidate can win without a supermajority of electors (assuming third parties play a part). We already complain about this in the popular vote.

--

There is a serious power problem due to it........

[Rahga]

Which is why I'm kinda glad that the electoral college is, so far, being upheld.

Because I don't want to demonize Al Gore much more than he has been already (I simply don't agree with a number of his views), I'll use Hitler and a hypothetical not-quite-there-yet version of the European Union.

Imagine if the EU was more like the United States during Hitler's famous rise to power. Come time for federal elections, and guess what? NY and Cali... er... Germany dominated the popular vote of the EU's president elect by several million votes for Hitler. Rather than today's redistribution of wealth issues that Gore supports, it would be Hitler's Nazi supremecy issues that the rest of the EU simply would not agree with. Once hitler becomes head of the EU, he sees that there is precedence to enact forced social change onto the entire populace through good laws such as desegregation, equal oppritunity law, and drug prohibition. Hitler then proposes a moratorium on letting jews live, enacts a military draft for every non-Nazi in the EU, and declares war on Puerto Rico. I really hope you see where I'm driving at.
Many moderates and republicans, and even the better democrats out the (including Clinton, amazingly) see and understand this, and badly written and over-extending liberal laws, while they are good in intent, are often dangerous when it comes to the authority it can give the federal government or take away from people. The government needs to be VERY careful when it tries to force social change on the populace. Usually, if it is forced, that means that much of the general public isn't ready for it (example, "civic unions") or isn't comfortable with the limitation of freedom that such laws can mean. It can also mean that they see it as being unfair (redistributing wealth from the heartland to NYC and Cali, among other places).

Re:other junk including the Roe vs Wade thing....

[Rahga]

I had no idea, I just used Utah to represent typical ultra-right state represented by a really cool senator (Hatch)....

Re:Isn't it automated?

[Smallest]

i didn't press any buttons... i had to draw on a piece of paper.

the choices looked like this:

Gore

My job was to "complete" the arrow next to my choice. it wasn't a circle to fill in, or a box to check, it was an arrow to "complete".

get me out of this state.

-c (in NC)

Bush wins internet vote???

[wunderhorn1]

From CNN:

• 64% of voters were "regular users of the internet"
  • 48% of "regular users of the internet" voted Bush
  • 47% voted Gore
  • 3% voted Nader

• 30% of voters "get political news via the internet"
  • Breakdown same as above
  • Bush wins the internet vote???

• 66% of voters would not want their children to be president
• 57% of voters would be "concerned" or "scared" if Bush won.
• 60% of voters thought "Gore attacked Bush unfairly"
• 60% of voters have an "unfavorable" "opinion of Clinton as a person"
• Gore gets the "cynicism vote" -- 57% of those who voted for Gore think "Both" candidates "would say anything."

For all the "Bush sucks" and "Vote Nader" talk that went on here, these statistics seem rather surprising..

-the wunderhorn

-the wunderhorn
#define OH_YES_INDEED 1

Re:Bush wins internet vote???

[cinchel]

first off look at the source page where that poll was from. possibley more rep. then democrates view and take CNN poll and then remember a little thing that the guys here have at the end of their polls :

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.


maybe also republicans are more likeley to vcte on these polls every day when they get into work or dial up at home. based on that i think that any internet poll stating who is going to win is crap.. and if you want to look a poll look at the one here that has gore and bush tied. and if you say"well thats slashdot, no one votes truthfully on slashdot" well then why would ppl vote truthfully on CNN. cinchel

Re:Bush wins internet vote???

[wemmick]

Silly, silly boy, don't mistake slashdot users as representative of "regular users of the internet".

Don't forget that there are many people out there who get their internet service from AOL or their (non-techie) jobs.

Repeat after me. "Slashdot is not the internet, slashdot is not the internet".
--

Re:Nader, etc

[David Greene]

I don't think an argument can be made that the president should represent farmers (or any other minority population) *over* the majority.

Of course not, but shouldn't the candidate have to listen to their issues? They won't have to if we go to a popular vote system.

individuals who are in the minority get *less* say with the current electoral system because their votes essentially get cancled when the majority takes their state

This is true. I was thinking more of the upper midwest (Iowa, the Dakotas, etc.). This problem wcould be solved with a proportional electoral system in the state. I'm not as clear on whether this is a good idea, though.

Line item veto and not allowing unrelated items to be voted on at the same time (i.e. the CDA in whatever bill it was squished into) would go a long way in helping this in either our current system or this hypothetical one.

Except that the line-item veto has been declared unconstitutional due to the illegal delegation of power from the legislative to the executive.

Also, the current system (winner-takes-all) in practice leads to a two party system.

This is a good thing as it forces candidates to gravitate toward the center.

whereas with a multi-winner system you might win with 30 or 40% of the vote (or even 20 or ten, depending on how many candidates there are for how many positions, and how the votes come out)

I don't think I'd want a president with a 20% mandate.

Can you really argue that the majority of poor and middle class voters were happy with their choices this year?

No, probably not. But voters will never be happy with the candidates because the system requires compromise. No one wants to give up their pet belief. One of the reasons we have such a stable government is that compromise is the center of it. Things do not tilt too far in either direction. Proportional representation would upset this.

--

Re:Nader, etc

[alprazolam]

i am as far from a bush supporter as it gets. i can't stand the man. he is the absolute last candidate i would have voted for. i don't know what makes you think that i am a supporter, all i'm saying is that you don't need a large majority in congress, all you need is a one vote majority. btw i had planned on voting for nader, although i couldn't make it to the polling location early enough to get in line.

Re:NADER WINS!

[evanfarrar]

ralph? ralph nader has a slashdot acc?
George and al make me want a Ralph
Green in 2004!!!!

______

Re:Nader Ruined the Economy.

[1010011010]

Also, the paper money was constitutional because it still had the backing of gold

Actually, greenbacks were not backed by gold. The US suffered enormous inflation in that period. The greenbacks were eventually bought back and retired, but when they were printed, they were pure fiat money.

America's always had a tentative relationship with the Gold Standard. The colonies regularly preinted great gobs of cash, and their economies were unstable and suffered from incredible inflation (2500%/year in Rhode Island, for instance). The USA had a gold/silver standard once the constitution was adopted. Lincoln went off of it during the civil war with greenbacks, which were a parallel currency. In 1934, FDR declared it a crime to own gold, and changed (devalued) the value of the dollar from $20.67 per ounce of gold to $35 per ounce of gold. That same year, the Federal Reserve began issuing Federal REserve Notes, which at best were only fractionally backed by gold that you could not ever collect, because it was declared illegal to own gold. The US was still nominally on a gold standard, though. At Bretton Woods (1944), the US promised to redeem foreign-bank dollars in
gold at $35/ounce, forming a system of fixed foreign exchange rates. Essentially, all world currencies were backed by the dollar (actually Federal Reserve Notes), which was backed by gold (fractionally). The Bretton Woods agreement fell apart in the 60s, partly because continued US inflation made gold convertibility unworkable. There wasn't enough gold to cover the inflated number of dollars. The US has had a 90% devaluation of the dollar since 1950. That means that the government (treasury + fed + commercial banks) created that much more money than could be linked to any value -- a dead giveaway that the US has not actually been on a gold standard since the Fed began issuing fiat money in 1933. In 1971, Richard Nixon ended the gold standard altogether. He kept the gold, though. :)

Interstingly, Jack Kemp advocated a return to the Gold Standard in his 1996 VP campaign. I think i would be a good idea. Opponents always say, "but mining gold will inflate the money supply!" without mentioning that (1), mining is actual productive work, and (2) it wouldn't inflate it as much as simply printing more money has.

________________________________________

Story about Oregon's results so far...

[TrentC]

... is available at OregonLive.com.

For people uninterested in following the link, the standing at the the of the story are:

Gore: 662,155 votes
Bush: 658,153 votes
Nader: 68,255 votes

Jay (=

What a mess

[ModelX]

All this mess with vote recount, absentee ballot, misleading candidate order and small fonts sounds like... election in Serbia under Milosevic. Even if Bush wins, there will be serious doubts for time to come.

Re:Nader

[JWRose]

1. It doesn't matter if Gore or Bush win because they have the same agenda.

Even though they have similar agendas it matters for a rather important reason. The reason being the number of supreme justices that are retiring. I believe up to 4 supremes may retire, which the president appoints. If Bush is in office, the supremes that he appoints will be conservative and that will be a very bad thing for all of us!!

Gore cost Gore the election.

[TomatoMan]

If Gore had been a stronger candidate, he wouldn't have needed Nader's 96,000 votes in Florida. That's all there is to it. Nader polled barely 2% nationwide. If Nader had polled 19% (like Perot did in '92), then you could posit the argument that Nader cost Gore the election. Gore has no-one to blame but himself (for not being more appealing to voters) and the dubya voters (for choosing a football-watching-buddy-kind-of-guy to lead the country).
TomatoMan

Re:Gore cost Gore the election.

[OriginalGangsterTrol]

Exactly, Gore has no one to blame but himself.

Re:Supreme Court / reproductive rights

[paeanblack]

Assuming 4 justices die in the next 4 years. This would only happen under the Gore health plan anyways, so I wouldn't worry

A "simple" proposal

[christrs]

How about the people in the states that have initiative petitions change their state constitutions to allow dividing the electoral delegates by popular percentage. (like Maine) The people in the other states will have to work a bit harder (called lobbying)

Then the Electoral College will more accurately reflect the will of the people instead if the "winner take all" state of affairs we have today.

Of course, there is the possiblity of having more states needing recounts or "voting irregularities".

Chris

Bleep: *WRONG*

[Eric Green]

The actual balloting apparatus in Florida is under the direct control of the county commissioner of elections. The Sec of State certifies the results, but the Sec of State's office has no direct control over the voting apparatus (they are kept in county warehouses between elections, *NOT* in state warehouses).

This is why different counties use different ballots -- the actual counting apparatus is different. Thus Brevard used the one that looks like a Scan-Tron card, while the folks in Palm Beach got the ones that had holes in them.

Still, the Democratic machine is strong in Florida. Thus if the final vote is certified for Gore, I'll be just as suspicious as if it is certified for Bush. Either way, I don't think we'll ever know who really won. It's almost as bad as the election of 1876 (go read your history books, and tell me about the Hayes Compromise that got Rutherford B. Hayes elected president that year despite his not winning the popular vote... interestingly enough, Florida was a party to that one too!).

For more info:

• ABC News Story

-E

Re:Bleep: *WRONG*

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, you have a Slashdot user ID of less than 1000. You have a Linux-related email address. You must be awesome.

What really convinced me how cool you were was the subject of your post, which made the previous poster look like a complete idiot, thereby making yourself look better.

Get a fucking clue, and get off your high horse.

Re:Shell script to get latest Florida count from C

[rebby]

:-)

People wanted the other guy? Not so fast

[sulli]

Don't be sure. Keep in mind that the candidates did their campaigning based on the Electoral College rules, so Gore's popular majority just means that he was way ahead in big states like California.

If a popular majority were required (and I think that this is long overdue) we would have seen very different campaigning styles. Candidates would have been forced to spend more time in heavily populated areas, such as New York, California, and the other major cities, because there would have been more votes available there than in the artificially created "swing states." Get-out-the-vote efforts in these areas would have increased turnout for both candidates by an unknown amount; given the margin of the (Bush or Gore) victory, we cannot know who the victor would have been.

Re:I wish it came down to 1 vote

[angelo]

Well, I voted, and it DIDN'T matter. Big surprise. I'm certian Floridians think otherwise..

Don't blame me...

[exister]

I voted for Nader!

Gore can win even if Bush takes Florida

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

Since Gore won the popular vote, the people who cast the electoral votes might decide to vote for Gore even if Bush won in thier home state. Although the electoral votes for a state are 'supposed' to go to the winner of that state's election (in fact, in 25 states the caster of the electoral vote is legally bound to vote for the winner of the popular election), the states have no power to stop the electoral vote casters from voting any way they want, the states can punish them for not voting for the popular candidate, but they can't stop them.
----------

More info about the winner

[BlowCat]

$ finger nobody
Login: nobody Name: Nobody
Directory: / Shell: /bin/sh
Never logged in.
No mail.
No Plan.

The greatest thing is he has no Plan.
Long live Mr. Nobody, the next President of the United States!

What about the vice president?

[ebcdic]

Could Bush and Lieberman win in Florida?

Re:What about the vice president?

[aardvarkjoe]

No; the vote is for (Bush and Cheney) or (Gore and Lieberman). Way back in the day, when the Pres was the winner and VP was the 2nd place, then it could happen (which, of course, ended up being a little divisive.)

Re:The Nader Effect

[tetrad]

Are you saying there should only be 2 parties?

Um, no, that's not what I said, so don't jump all over me. If you read closer, you'll see that I voted for Nader (via proxy in Texas). I'm just pointing out a "what if": If Nader didn't run (and all other factors remained equal), Gore would have won the election decisively.

Re:Nader, etc

[grappler]

I apologize, that was below the belt. You were giving me a mental image of an ignorant right-winger.

All I'm trying to say is that you have your terms a bit confused. As it is traditionally used in presidential politics, the word "mandate" translates roughly to "message from the american electorate that they are behind the president and that he represents the voice of the people". It is not the expression of his ability to work with congress, but a factor that contributes to his overall influence - his clout. If you win by a landslide, you can announce to congress, "look how many people voted for me. I represent them, so when I speak to you, that's the voice of the people." That's a mandate. If you get 30% of the vote, but win because there were three other candidates that got under 25, congress doesn't really have to respect you as much.

That's all - just a confusion of terms.


-------

Re:Isn't it automated? (redux)

[Smallest]

(apparently

 doesn't mean anything to /.)
 

 i didn't press any buttons... i had to draw on a piece of paper.
 

 the choices looked like this:
 

 Gore &lt=====
 

 Bush &lt=====
 

 My job was to "complete" the arrow next to my choice. it wasn't a circle to fill in, or a box to check, it was an arrow to "complete".
 

 get me out of this state.
 

 -c (in NC)

Re:But Terribly Fun Results! Better than football.

[jafac]

I never said I didn't like lesbian witches - in fact, one of them is bi, so that makes it a chance at least. . . I do admit that I preferred the much more *normal* relationship Willow (the bi witch) had with Oz (the werewolf).

Re:Nader

[Bearpaw]

[shrug] Obviously, blaming Nader is easier than fixing the system. (And it ain't just the voting system that's broke.)

Tie Breaker

[shadowspar]

For some reason, I keep having this recurring thought that with the vote so close, the election should go to a steel cage match as a tie-breaker or something.

Obviously I've been watching too much Monty Python lately.

If you didn't vote, your opinion doesn't count

[wodelltech]

If you vote, and your candidate loses, the post-election anyalysis conducted by each party may well result in more or less $ being thrown at your state/district in future elections. All votes make a difference. If you want to throw stones at our process, consider that the majority of eligable voters sat on their butt yesterday. No amount of process or procedure can fix an individual's lack of effort.

Re:Nader

[mikeee]

>Nader appears to have cost Gore Oregano, Ohio, and Florida.

We also believe that Hagelin cost Gore Parsley, and that Buchanan cost Bush chili pepper.

Re:Nader Ruined the Economy.

[Peeptophe]

Do you understand how the Electoral works? Popular vote menas NOTHING. Even though Gore won the popular vote, if Bush wins the Electoral, Bush will be President. This is basic political knowledge. Don't believe me? Ask anyone.

A vote for Bush is a vote for Morons everywhere.

Re:Bill Press @ CNN, another loser of the election

[tewl]

And him blaming Nader for all of this I found rather uninformed. No one is to blame for Gore's loss (well, soon to be) than Gore himself. I was happy voting for Nader, and do not regret it one bit. Bill Press is trying to put the blame on Nader. That's ridiculous. We don't have a 2 party system in the US, and we can vote for whomever we please.

Re:Nader sucks

[Peeptophe]

Bush pulled so far in this election off of nothing but his name. That is a well known fact. Gore has a proven track record. Under the Clinton Administration, the economy has done nothing but grow, the unemployment rate has decresed, now lower than it has been in over 50 years, and Gore had to do with ALL of that. Simple fact: less than 1% of people executed in Texas are white. Fact: A heinous crime committed by a black toward a black or a white in Texas results in execution. The same crime committed by a white to a white or blac results in Prison, not death. The facts speak for themselves. This is all well documented. In fact, there is a federal investigation going on over this. Bush tries to say he is only following State laws, but Bush just turns away even though the racial facts are so evident. Fact: Texas has the 7th highest unemployment rate in the US. Fact: Texas has the 3rd highest incidence of violent crime (So much for the Death Penalty being a deterrent as Bush likes to say). Fact: Bush was investigated for statutory rape in 1978. Oddly, the investigation was "dropped" before the facts and issues were looked at. Not because of innocence (although he may have been innocent), but rather because of political pressure by Daddy. Lets look at Gore's record. I clearly hate the fact that his wife was the head of the PMRC in the 80s. So I suspect Gore supports some degree of censorship. There is no way possible that his plans of SS reform will ever come to fruition. He lied that it is even remotely possible to reform. Gore has been involved in some shady dealing alone and with the Clintons. The point though, is NOT who is a better person, but rather, who has a TRACK RECORD OF BEING ABLE TO HANDLE THE ISSUES. That is clearly Gore.

A vote for Bush is a vote for Morons everywhere.

Re:We know it's not over.

[Foogle]

Uh, no -- it's Attorney General. Your bio says you're from the US, but I find it amazing that you don't know who Janet Reno is.

Re:Nader, etc

[alprazolam]

ok that's all and good but i still don't think anybody is ever gonna tell me why bush won't get stuff done. regardless of what we mean when either of us say mandate, i still see bush having more 'power' than clinton because he has the majority in congress. the pundits disagree but don't say why. do you agree about bush not getting stuff done assuming congress remains partisan? if not please explain why i am so damn hardheaded i just don't get it.

Re:The Nader, Perot Effect

[cvd6262]

Don't forget about 1992, and 1996....

Wasn't the shoe on the other foot then?

Nader, etc

[MillMan]

A few notes on Nader and how he factored in. It does look like he could have been the difference because of Florida.

It's not his fault. It's Gore's and the Democratic party.

Clinton brought the democratic party to the center in 92, esentially abandoning those on the farther left, that Nader now roughly represents. Times were (and still are) good (or getting there in 92). The typical left wing agenda and programs were seemingly unpopular to the white middle class, and this is who the dems were trying to appeal to. If Gore wanted those votes, he had to prove he was worthy of them. He did not. They are not his be default, and the dem idea that he deserved them is arrogant beyond description.

Keep in mind Buchanan on the FAR right could have done the same thing to Bush. I'm fairly sure Buchanan had even more money than Nader because of Federal funds for Perot's old party. But Bush appealed to voters who might have otherwise went for a bigot like Buchanan. He succeded on this point where Gore failed.

The democrats have been losing their core constituency in recent years. In the limited number of states I saw info on, Gore was only winning about 60% of union households!! If he can't get numbers much, much higher than that, he is going to have a very tough time. So don't blame it all on Nader.

The left wing mags I read are terrified of a Bush presidency. They have also shamefully recommended voting for Gore over Nader (and here I'm talking about mags getting out to the "far left"), mainly because of the possibility of abortion rights being overturned.

But if Bush wins, he hardly has a mandate. In fact, neither candidate can get over 50%. These are not the numbers needed for a "conservative revolution" similar to what Ginerich tried several years ago. We don't need to fear much, the status quo will prevail. Although, the status quo frightens me a bit. If he succeeds in overturning roe vs wade with possible supreme court appointments (if he even wants to try), watch the 60's social movements come back with a vengance. The people won't let him get away with it.

Re:Nader, etc

[grappler]

Did I ever say that bush wouldn't be more able than clinton to get stuff done with congress? um, no, I didn't say that. Clinton, besides facing a congress of the opposite party, has had enough scandal around him that he's lost some clout.

So what's your point?

Anyway, I don't think it's necessarily a good thing when a president and congress are of the same party. Then they'll start imposing their will on everyone else and they'll be much less concerned with what the other party thinks cuz dammit, they have the power...


-------

Re:Nader, etc

[rark]

> They won't have to if we go to a popular vote
> system

It's possible to win in the electoral system without winning votes in states where farmers are in the majority (in fact, if gore gets florida he may have, in practice, done that)

The thing is, with an electoral system candidates are encouraged to campaign to high population centers in high population states. With a popular system at least one of those is migitated (the other, trying to appeal to the most voters, is inherant in any one-and-only-one winner race, which is not a problem changing the EC can solve)

> This problem wcould be solved with a
> proportional electoral system

This is true, and there are a few suggested ones that I (personally) would find to be acceptable compromises.

> Except that the line-item veto has been declared
> unconstitutional due to the illegal delegation
> of power from the legislative to the executive

True (though I never quite understood that one, as it doesn't preclude line-item vetoes being overridden by a 2/3rds vote in congress, just as other vetoes are), but it would take just as much effort to make that constitutional as to abolish (or substantially change) the electoral system -- a constitutional amendment

> This is a good thing as it forces candidates to
> gravitate toward the center.

This is an argument I've seen before, and honestly it would make more sense if there was such a thing as a center on *all* issues combined

instead what happens is that we have two candidates who fiscally are very alike (their plans differ in the details, and while those details significantly effect certain individuals, the overall net effect is the same -- fairness in taxation is still a dream (and I'm not too hard to please in this one, either -- a flat tax with a reasonable cost-of-living exception, or a progressive tax where there weren't a billion loopholes for folks and corporations with lots of money to get out of paying it -- either would make me happy), corporate welfare is still a reality, etc etc), but in terms of the two major issues that many people choose their vote on (sad but true) gun control and abortion, they are diametrically opposed -- dems for nearly all abortion, for nearly all gun control -- reps against both. Rather than any party taking a reasonable, centrist view on these two major issues (want to stop gun deaths: start by educating kids -- eddie eagle is a good thing, but if handgun control inc wants to come up with something similar but not 'tainted' by the NRA that's fine by me; work on stopping violence -- not just gun violence -- ending the war on drugs would help this, actually punishing people for real crimes would help this [in several states the mandatory drug sentence minimums are higher than those for several violent crimes..this is sad] etc etc -- for abortion: sex ed does work, make birth control more available, end the ridiculous adoption system and put something reasonable in it's place and quit penalizing single parents)
Other than that: both candidates are for the death penalty (though gore seemed more likely to look into unfair uses of it than bush, who seems to be in denial) neither is particularly good abotu the environment (gore used to be, but his current record isn't making me think this anymore) etc etc

Instead of being pushed toward some mythical center, both seem to be pro-business *to the exclusion of the rights of individuals* and on the issues on which many people vote are actually quite polarized.

> I don't think I'd want a president with a 20%
> mandate.

It wouldn't happen that way with the president -- that's a winner take all race, and requires a 50%+1 vote

It could happen in house of reps races, assuming that a state had more than one rep and all reps were elected proportionally rather than by district -- which, btw, could give your farmers (and any other largish minority that lives in a state but does not necessarily all reside in the same district) more representation nationally -- if farmers made up 20% of a state, and the state had five reps, then there's a good chance one of them could be 'the farmer's rep' (all of this, of course, is very simplified, but I don't have time to go find a state and do statistical analysis on it's population and voting habits..and I certainly don't have time today to do this for all fifty states!)

Proportional representation only works if you have multiple winners. To use proportional representation to choose the executive branch of the U.S. would require there to be multiple presidents. While there's probably a defendable proposition in there, I haven't previously thought about it, and I'm not going to try to come up with one on the fly, here :)

> Things do not tilt too far in either direction

One could argue that in many cases things have tilted very far away from representation of the majority of people and towards representation of corporations and the few people at the top of them.

Re:Nader, etc

[alprazolam]

your conclusion is exactly what i thought would happen too, but tv newspeople keep saying that because the majority is slim, nothing will get done. which apparently both of us believe is bogus.

Re:Nader, etc

[cduffy]

A disclaimer, first: I didn't vote for Nader. I voted for Browne. I do believe that the two parties, while not the same, ignore a large number of issues which 3rd parties intelligently address.

I frequently see the major parties arguing about issues which the Federal government shouldn't be involved in at all. A libertarian 3rd-party vote (for instance) isn't a vote on abortion, environmental or urban issues -- rather, it's a vote that these issues should be handled not by the federal government but by the states. Does either major party believe this? No -- but it's important to me that my government does. So why should I vote for either major party?

What should be done -- what needs to be done -- is a preferential ballot, so a voter can vote for a 3rd party and also specify a major party their vote can be counted towards if/when the 3rd party is eliminated. This would have permitted those people preferring Gore to Bush but having no say (because they preferred Nader to Gore and said so) to express their full opinion.

Re:Nader, etc

[Kailden]

coming from someone a little to the right, I can assure you that bush WILL NOT overturn roe vs. wade and neither will the supreme court. First of all, it would be political suicide, and secondly, plenty of supreme court justices have been appointed or confirmed by republicans in the past ten appointments. Abortion is a dead issue, unless you are talking RU-486 and partial birth. SO, to some extent, your fears and unjustified.

Re:Nader, etc

[alprazolam]

if the pundits are wrong about florida, who says they can't be wrong about bush's 'mandate'

Re:Misprinted ballots

[angelo]

If "a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush", a vote for Buchannan is a vote for Gore. Seriously.

Re:Very strange results

[tetrad]

The predictions are based on exit polls and not actual vote counts. It really doesn't matter when the actual polls close, as long as the exit polls used have similar demographics to the voting electorate. Having said that, I agree the networks were dumb and arrogant to predict a winner in what turned out to be an extraordinarily close race.

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[Syberghost]

They didn't "accidently" vote for Buchanan instead of Gore. They obviously meant to vote for Buchanan.

Actually, all joking aside, it looks like they probably did exactly that.

In 1996, 30,000 people voted for the Reform party. It doesn't take much of a stretch to assume than 10% of those people could have done so again this year.

As for the 19,000 ballots thrown out for double-voting; in 1996 it was 15,000. Some people don't follow directions.

-

Re:Maybe if Gore had Died in a Plane Crash...

[brian VT]

ironic, isn't it? dead democrats are playing a huge roll in this election. i mean, one got elected to the senate, and a whole bunch showed up to vote for gore in florida. go figure...

Re:The Nader Effect

[Anonymous Coward]

Vote swapping is probably worse that not voting at all.

When you're not voting your concience, what's the point of voting at all...You gave up your Nader vote, for what? So Gore will win? What about the 5% popular vote that Nader need for his party to receive 12.5 million dollars in government funded campaign money?

If Gore can't win, that's his fault -- not Nader's.

The real story

[nigiri]

It seems to me that the real story of this election is the turnout. I had to wait in line for nearly two hours to vote, and there are similar stories from around the country. In my state (Georgia), voter turnout is expected to approach the all time record.

For years now, we've been told that American voters are apathetic. Turnouts have been approaching record lows, and the pundits have chalked this up to our being disenchanted with the process.

How then to explain what happened yesterday? If we're so disenchanted, why did we turn out in droves?

One might be tempted to credit the alternative candidated, Nader, Browne, Buchanan et. al. But in reality, these candidates weren't really a factor in the popular vote. Even Nader, despite a strong showing in some locations will probably not crack the 5 percent he was looking for. (Note: I'm not saying Nader wasn't a factor in the election - he probably had a pretty real effect on the electorial college numbers.)

The answer seems evident to me. What turns people off is not the process, or even lackluster candidates (and I don't think anyone but the most partisan would argue that Gush and Bore are two of the most lackluster candidates in recent memory), but a race that seems like a foregone conclusion.

After all, who can get enthused about voting if they've been told for weeks who's going to win? What drove the turnout in this election was the uncertainty.

In light of this, I think it would be a good thing, from a civic point of view, if the media stopped reporting poll numbers. I don't think this is ever going to happen, and I would be horrified at the thought of outlawing it or something, but it's obvious that lopsided poll results dampen voter turnout.

Anyway, my $0.02.

Re:The real story

[n-baxley]

So you think that 50% voting turnout is good? There are countries that get 80% turnout routinly. I think we should strive to get less than 1/2 of the population sitting at home and not involved.

Nate

Re:Electoral College

[earthpig]

when the electoral college votes, must the representatives for a respective canidate vote for said canidate? whats to keep an electoralits(real word?) from voteing in a different manner?

The Electoral College

[Harlequin Jones]

I do not believe that all of you who are calling for the end of the Electoral College truly understand the nature and benefits of a republic versus a direct democracy.

Ideally, each state would have the same number of votes in determining the president, regardless of population: one.

Of course, ideally, the Federal government would not be so deeply involved in our daily lives in the unconstitutional manner that it currently is. I fear that we are going to lose the concept of independent states entirely -- which would be unfortunate, as one of the strengths of America has always been the competition amongst the states for business and labor. If one did not like the laws where on lived, one could go someplace better -- without having to leave the country entirely.

If a monopoly is dangerous, then how dangerous is it when that same monopoly has the legal right to use violence against its competitors? A government is not fundamentally different than a business, it just sells a different product (the use of force).

HJ

Re:I'm tired.

[JCMay]

Some AC wrote:

A precinct is 10,000 people or more. Most systems use a paper based system somehow; how quickly can you count 10,000 pieces of paper times however many offices were on it (30? 60?)?

Here in Brevard County, FL, we finally entered the Twentieth Century this election. Ballots are cast by darkening bubbles on a Scan-Tron type sheet, and each ballot is scanned and the results tabulated right at the ballot box. A recount means mearly running the ballots through the box again. So sweat!

Even those awful holepunch cards are machine-read and tabulated. Just feed them through again! The only thing that has to be sorted out is the write-in candidates, but that was the case the first time around too!

Chinese Premier to his concubine

[big_groo]

"Those sirry Americans. They waste 5 birrion dorrars on erection. They stir don't know who won erection. Stupid Americans. They shourd be rike China - kirr arr who oppose. Run over with tanks. Probrem sorved."

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[sid_vicious]

An unfortunate side effect of this system is that republicans won't bother campaigning in historically dem states, and vice versa, which is a disservice to the voters, really.

I don't buy that for an instant. On the contrary, a popularly elected president would be forced to visit states during his campaign that he currently ignores. For instance, Maryland is a traditionally Democratic state. It has a strong Repulican base, but a couple of larger districts always swing the state. So, no one bothers campaigning there because everyone knows the Democrats will win Maryland's electoral votes. Under a popular election, the strong Repulican base would come into play and encourage a campaign in MD by both sides.

Can the electoral college members be swayed?

[kisrael]

I remember reading in the Drudge Report (was wondering what they were up to since Monica) and they said that if Bush won the popular vote but lost the college, Republicans might try to persuade individuals in the college to change their votes. Which actually is truer to the original spirit of the college of thinking electors, not ones completely controlled by the intense partisanship that got added later.

If Florida goes to Bush the electoral college will still be very close, I think there have been a few loose cannons in there before... could there be a fight on that level as well?

(Course for liberal-leaners like me it's a bit of a lose-lose situation in terms of the surpreme court... if Gore somehow wins then those teetering old justices are gonna sink their talons in and try to hold on until a republic president is finally elected.)

Re:Florida

[revnight]

i just went and checked myself. bush still listed as being ahead by 1785 votes. (same numbers as of 7:00 this morning...perhaps it's not been updated? who knows.)

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[GreatSwahili]

It's not a democracy, it's a republic, the states elect the president not the people. And that is the way that it should remain, there is no need to take that power away from the states.

baseless speculation

[brokeninside]

To repeat the prior response to your post, Gore cost Gore the election. One can speculate all one wants about how many of Nader voters would have voted for Gore, but all the Nader voters I personally know wouldn't have even voted for the office of president if Nader wasn't running. I'm not going to extrapolate my experience onto the rest of the country. Without speaking to a representative sample of Nader supporters, whether or not Nader cost Gore the presidency is simply groundless speculation.

Secondly, if Gore wanted the support of most Nader supporters all he would have to do is put his money where his mouth is and actually support his own party's platform instead of selling out to special interest.

Thirdly, it is apparent that Gore (and Bush to a lesser extent) cost Nader the election. While Nader certainly had no realistic chance to win the presidency the scare tactics (a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush) used by Gore (and Bush) likely cost Nader much more support than Nader cost either.

Lastly, we have to keep in mind there is no what would have been. There is only what is.

have a day,

-l

Re:Nader

[OriginalGangsterTrol]

As it is, prepare yourself for environmental rapeing and tons of corporate welfare.

Not in my state, Vermont, honestly that is all I really care about. My state will not go to hell environmentally in the next 4 years, that's for damn sure. The local elections were all I really cared about, it's what affects me the most, is the local control. And I god damned happy that Ruth Dwyer did not defeat the incumbent Howard Dean for Governor in Vermont, she's a hate mongering, anti-gay, anti-semitic, vile creature.

Afraid that a vote *does* count

[Anonymous Coward]

Like a poorly worded poll, where you don't feel right answering any of the questions, I'm afraid that my vote might count. This will give power to the one answer I give, even if it's the best one, which I don't want. I disagree with the proposition of the government and presidency in the first place! Where's that option on my ballot box? I don't want a president, who will lord himself over me, even if I was given the option of which one I wanted.

Military vote is NOT generally Republican

[GMontag]

The military absentee vote usually splits close to even.

Granted, many of the folks in the military that talk about politics try to label themselves conservative and support, in spirit, Republican candidates, but the ones that actually vote outside of where they are stationed split about even.

Q. If someone advocated socializing the defense industry, would you consider them a conservative at all?

A. An Academy grad that I was in the Army Aviation Officer Advanced Course with advocated the above, along with many other extreme left economic views, but he was a hardcore Republican.

Not a stat, just an anecdote.

Visit DC2600

Re:The Nader Effect

[theghost]

Gore doesn't own my vote. My vote for Nader didn't take anything away from Gore because Gore never earned it.
I still can't decide which of the dumbass twins i'd prefer in office.

The Moron would at least have the support of congress, so something may be accomplished. Of course, he is a moron, so we may not like what he accomplishes.

On the other hand, the Liar would continue with business as usual, which ain't that impressive, but neither is it debilitating.

I don't think either one of them can do irreperable harm, but neither is likely to do any good either.

Re:Why my vote doesn't count.

[hex15]

I just can't think of a voting system worse than the american one. Why can't the system just work on ratios? If half of the votes go to Republicans and one forth to the Democrat shouldn't the elevttoral votes be split the same way? I mean I just can't see the logic in this system. By the way almost every European politican is hoping for Gore, just so the Euro would start to rise... Oh well you just won't listen...

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[sid_vicious]

Hmmm... I fail to see how it would significantly impact the level of power the President has over Congress.. nor do I see how a popular vote constitues a "mandate" any more than an electoral vote does... can you elaborate?

It was pointed out here the other day that the electoral college was established out of fear that the US population would be unable to educate themselves about the candidates enough to make an informed decision. It's very easy to inform yourself about a candidate via the Internet and TV/Radio in today's US. Plus, we have an educated country today, something the founding fathers couldn't claim when they penned the electoral college.

The electoral college is a dinosaur in desperate need of EXTINCTION! Just cause it's always been that way don't make it RIGHT.. Sid

do over

[peccary]

There should be a rule that if the winner does not have a clear margin - say 5%, that they all candidates go home and we start over with a new bunch.

Re:Nader Ruined the Economy.

[Fishstick]

urgh, preview,preview,preview

meant to say...

a constitutional crisis if Bush takes Florida's electoral votes while Gore 'wins' the popular vote [and everyone goes apeshit about how the electoral college works.]

Choice GOOD

[dietcrack]

Problem with it is it basically limits us to one of the republicrats. Third parties are basically screwed.

I admit, i voted for Bush too, but only as IMHO a lesser of 2 assholes. I would have voted Libertarian, if they'd had an ice cube's chance in hell of winning or a candidate who didn't look like he was about to keel over and die.

Re:Nader

[JackiePatti]

This is a bunch of crap.

I voted Democrat every election - until 1992 when I quit voting in disgust. In 1996, I re-registered to vote as a Libertarian and have voted such since.

The 2, 3 or 4% who voted for Nader didn't take votes from Gore - you have no idea that they'd have voted for Gore! Rather, they might instead have voted with the 50% of the populaiton who didn't bother at all.

The third parties have brought many voices BACK to the political process - voices that preferred not voting to the choice of the two main bozos.

Nader

[rm-r]

Goes to show that a vote for Nader was a vote for Bush all along, Nader appears to have cost Gore Oregano, Ohio, and Florida. Sure hope he sleeps well

Re:Nader

[ScuzzMonkey]

Well, that's an excellent point. I guess the question is, are you willing to give up on the issues you have in common (I'm assuming environment, abortion rights, etc) just because your pet issues aren't up for discussion? The extreme right (religious fanatics, anti-abortion extremists, etc) are willing to table theirs for the moment and throw in behind Bush--and consequently win on the middle issues.

I think it would be great if everyone could have their needs addressed, but I'm afraid it's not too realistic in such a complex society. Everybody's got their pet peeves, but sometimes you have to realize that yours aren't necessarily as important to the rest of the country. I don't have anything against third parties or champions of not widely popular issues, but I tend to think more people will win in the long run if we could pool our resources on topics that everyone can get behind rather than concentrating on the things that everyone can't.

Re:Nader

[Caball]

Anyone remember a little nut called Ross Perot? Did the same thing to Bush (Sr).

Sucks when its your side, eh?

Re:Nader

[Chris Burke]

A vote for Nader was very pragmatic.

Unfortunately, most people in this country - especially policy makers, with their brief terms - think of pragmatism only in the short term. As in, what would be best right now, ignoring completely what that means for tomorrow. Considering that there are many more tomorrows behind that first one, this is just plain dumb.

So you think voting Nader was bad, because it (very dubiously) may have put Bush in office. This, from the short-sighted-pragmatist view, is true. Bush is worse than Gore.

But, the person with foresight observes that both Bush and Gore suck a lot (I mean really... freedoms abridged? Who is it who is for censorship? Hint: Name starts with a G). They are both corporate tools. How likely is it that next time around this will change, or will the candidates only be even more like each other in their worthlessness?

So the person with foresight looks and sees that we need a viable 3rd party candidate, who has a chance to win. Well, that's not possible this election, but a good showing at the polls for a 3rd party would strengthen them for next election, and sometime in the future we may have actual choice at the ballot. Getting Nader into office in the year 2016 is very much worth the damage (only slightly worse than what Gore would do himself) of having Bush in office for 4 years.

Thus, for a pragmatist capable of looking beyond today, Nader was the only rational choice.

Re:Nader

[NumberSyx]

If Nader did in fact cost Gore the election, this is a very good thing. It means in 2004 the Democrates will have to goto Nader and beg him not to run. This of course will be Naders chance to get some of his own platform in to the Democrates platform, or possibly a shot at the Vice President job.

Jesus died for sombodies sins, but not mine.

Re:Nader

[JWW]

Pllleeeaaseee!!!

Did you see the split in the votes last night? Half the country doesn't wan the other guy to be president. For every person who thinks Bush will screw things up there's another person who thinks Gore will.

This election actually shows a problem in american elections. Half of the people who voted will have someone with vastly opposing views to their own in the white house. There is no middle ground, there is only partisanship and gridlock.

Re:Nader

[Anonymous Coward]

1. It doesn't matter if Gore or Bush win because they have the same agenda.

2. Nader will sleep very well because now Bush and Gore will think twice before pissing off the American public. Without other parties they can work together and screw us all.

Re:Nader

[The-Bus]

Actually Florida exit polls showed about 60-70% of Nader votres would've voted for Gore had Nader not been around, with 25% saying they wouldn't have voted, and the rest (less than 20%) saying they would've voted for Bush. So while all 100,000 votes didn't get "lost" to Nader, we can assume a good 50 to 70 thousand were, and that's a lot larger than the slim thousand-or-so margin that the current winner in Fla. enjoys.

Either way, it's "fuzzy math." Maybe next time they should lock the ballot boxes in an iron-clad lockbox, a lockbox.

Re:Nader

[Kailden]

Everytime someone says that "A vote for nader is a vote for bush", it shows how brainwashed they are into a two party system. Show me in the constitution where it says that a democrat or a republican is entitled to a vote...

That makes as much sense as:

Not Voting in a U.S. election is a vote for Canada.

Re:Nader

[Chris Burke]

Sadly, according to exit polls, you don't seem to be in a majority, which seems to lend credence to the claim that Nader cost Gore the election.

But that "The polls say that if Nader hadn't been in the race, they would have voted for Gore" is a bunch of crap anyway.

I mean, why would someone vote for Nader in the first place if they agreed with Gore and wanted him to be the President? They wouldn't. They'd vote for Gore. So what the statistic _should_ be read as is "If there were only two candidates, both of whom had platforms you disagreed with, which one would you have chosen?" Well, the one you disagree with less, obviously, however small that "less" may be.

So yeah, I may have voted for Gore if Nader hadn't run, but so what? If the only candidates were Bush and that nut job Buchanan, I would have voted Bush.

So in short, the Gore camp is just crying because there are millions of people who think Gore is a worthless sack, but happen to think he's slightly less worthless than Bush. Losers.

Re:Nader

[EricWright]

Goes to show that a vote for Nader was a vote for Bush all along, Nader appears to have cost Gore Oregano, Ohio, and Florida. Sure hope he sleeps well.

Whew! At least he didn't cost Gore Thyme and Basil. That would really have screwed him over!!!

Eric

Re:Nader

[tewl]

I'm sure Nader slept just fine, as did I, after voting for him.

If Bush does in fact win, Nader didn't cost Gore the election, GORE cost himself the election.

It's no one's fault but his own.

Goes to show you that your vote DEFINITELY does count....

Re:Nader

[LetterJ]

For some reason, the actual composition of the Supreme Court gets lost in this. 7 of the current 9 justices were appointed by Republicans. And, Souter(sp), one of the most conservative was appointed only after . . . Al Gore cast the deciding vote in his favor. Way more was made of the potential radical change in the Supreme Court to be made by Bush. The simple fact is that Congress needs to approve of all appointments to the Supreme Court.

LetterJ

Re:Nader

[eomir]

What a terribly typical and ignorant comment. I think Nader prefers Gore to Bush, but the difference, to him, is so small that it is completely negligable. Nader knew he wasn't going to win the election. That was not his goal. I'd say he was far more concerned with the elections 4, 8, 12, ..., 4N years down the road. I'm not a huge Nader fan or anything, but I understand where he is coming form.

Re:Nader

[Chris Burke]

Convincing Nader to not run in 2004 would be bad, not good. Getting thrown a bone in terms of platform is insufficient. We need more choices for President, not two choices that wind ever onward to the middle (with an ocassional bump to the left or right).

What the Dems should do is talk to Buchanan and try to get him to be less of an obvious nut job, so that maybe he can score a whole percent in the next election and steal votes from the Republicans.

Though Nader as VP sounds appealing. I bet he'd chafe in that role, though.

Re:Nader

[DoomHaven]

I know; Nader took 100 000 of the Florida vote! That vote could have been Gore's and this whole thing would be over with Gore for President! I was seething when I went to bed last night, after reading that Bush won Florida last night at about 1:30.

The plain goofy thing about this is that I am Canadian, but live/work/breathe in the States. The one thing I wish to say to the rest of my countrymen is that this *should* matter to you. Being a Canadian during an American election is like being steerage passengers on a boat; if the American ship makes it, great. If not, tough, we are so connected with the USA that we go down with them. Either way, there isn't a damn thing we can do to affect the outcome, despite the fact that the outcome with affect us.

And to me, Bush for President means that this time, all Canadians are riding steerage class in a great ship; the Titanic.

Re:Nader

[MrGrendel]

Nader took 100 000 of the Florida vote! That vote could have been Gore's and this whole thing would be over with Gore for President! I was seething when I went to bed last night, after reading that Bush won Florida last night at about 1:30.

Nader didn't take anyone's vote. People voted for Nader because they have been abandoned, ignored, and betrayed by the two major parties. Gore is not entitled to anyone's vote, liberal or otherwise. Just like any other candidate, he has to earn his votes, and in this case he didn't. The Clinton/Gore administration alienated a significant portion of their former supporters, and now Gore is paying the price. Blame him. Don't blame those of us who won't cave into a system that insists on second-best.

I used to support Gore, but the turning point for me was the gross behavior of this administration during the WTO demonstrations here in Seattle. If you still think I should have voted for Gore, then tell me with a straight face why I should support a party that considers my beliefs to be on the fringe. Tell me why I should support the party that violated my first amendment rights by declaring downtown Seattle to be off-limits to political protest. Tell me why I should vote for a party that supported gassing and beating those of us who disagree with their policies. I will not support either faction of the US Corporate Party. I will not support a candidate who's best argument for me to change my vote amounts to nothing more than a scary bedtime story about the Republican monster under my bed.

Bush is worse than Gore; I won't debate that. But we cannot cause change in a corrupt system by continuing to vote for corruption. Those who voted for Gore out of fear did the equivalent of paying off a gangster for 'protection' from the guy across the street. I won't do it and I won't feel guilty on behalf of those who continue to pay.

Re:Nader

[ScuzzMonkey]

I'll take your word for it that you are not giving up on the more mainstream issues--if you happen to value the fringe issues more, that's certainly a valid choice. I don't believe that Nader's issues have as much mainstream support as you say, although I would be willing to look at any poll links you might provide.

I would like to combine two of your points and use them against you: One, that the supreme court is a final defense, not the only defense, and two, the functions of the Democrats over the last eight years. I would like to point out that the Dems have not been in control the last eight years--they've had the presidency, but not Congress, and I would say that they have been functioning as one of the defenses. Although things have gotten worse on the abortion rights front, imagine how much worse they might have been with a Republican president and Congress. That's what you're looking at now, with the added risk of more conservative Supremes (point taken regarding their unpredictability, though).

In general, though, I think you're making my point for me. Corporate powermongering does not compare to the civil rights movement--nobody is getting lynched by AT&T. Yet the far left insists on equating issues in that way and overemphasizing their importance to the mainstream, and that keeps them from compromising and winning.

Re:Nader

[Eccles]

Whew! At least he didn't cost Gore Thyme and Basil.

Nah, he's too seasoned a politician for that.

But it certainly spiced up this election, didn't it?

Re:Nader

[DoomHaven]

>I'm Scots so it's nothing to do with me

Until USA foreign policy is stated, you mean?

>For people who in European terms are on the Left,
>the difference between Gush and Bore is
>vanishingly small

And in Canada, too; our left-wing party generally walks off with 18% of the vote and several seats in Parliament.

>There's no reason to believe
>that the people who voted for Nader would have
>voted for Gore if Nader hadn't stood

Yes, there is, actually. The exit polls from CNN say that 60-70% of Nader's voters would have voted Gore had Nader been absent. 25% would not have voted at all, and the rest would have voted Bush.

As for "tacital voting", one poster said this:
In a landslide state, he would vote Nader so Nader gets the 5% needed for federal funded.
In a "up for grabs" state, he would vote Gore because Gore is the lesser of the two Prime Evils.

Re:Nader

[DoomHaven]

>Finally, if Canadians are fed up with with
>steerage class, then they should trade UP and
>become AMERICANS....

Trade *UP*? *UP*? Let me think ab...NO.

First off, I am proud to be Canadian. I like being a Canadian; you might even call me "patriotic".

Second of all, trade *up*? Why, so I can live a backwards country in which some states prohibit the teaching of *evolution*?

"Trade up" from a true democracy to a mere republic?

Where most *patriots* can't even remember the names of all 50 states, their general location in their own country, or the state capitals, much less any *foreign* geography? Like, uh, the capital city of, say, Canada?

Where 50% of all high school graduate don't know their own capital was burnt to the ground in 1812 (by troops that were British, and stationed in Canada, I might add)?

Where your own countrymen have to put a foreign (Canadian) flag on their backpacks in foreign countries so they are treated as human beings?

From a country that is *consistently* rated as the best place in the world to live to a country that may or may not make the top ten?

Puh-leaze. While I may agree with you about the Nader vote (25% of Nader voters in Florida would not have voted at all), you must seriously be joking about "trading up" to become an American. The main reason I am here is make a shitload of (American) money so I can skip the border home and retire in wealth and luxury. But, though greedy (and how!), I am *still* Canadian.

Re:Nader

[cob2k25]

i agree with you,

with the difference that i'm an "evil" separatist who wants to "destroy" the best country in the world. but anyway, any discussion about quebec separation on topic is always ending up in a flamefest anyway.

anyway. i agree with you that in many ways, canada is better than the usa (the free health system being the most obvious reason that comes to my mind). but please, stop it with that jean chretien propaganda that "we are the best country in the world". i think that whole canadian patriotism is too much exagerated. did you watch the sydney's olympics? we looked like complete fools with our gigantic flags. i always laughed at the americans (or France too) about how chauvinistic (??) they are. i don't think it is a good model to copy.

Please...

[BMazurek]

I think I speak for all non-Americans when I say:

Please let this be over soon...

*Sigh*

Re:Please...

[BMazurek]

I don't speak for everyone else? So, you're saying that you don't want the election to be over yet? Don't equate the desire to see the issue resolved and not caring as being the same thing.

I said nothing about the election being unimportant. I simply said I think everyone (Americans included), want this decided. And quickly.

The election of the US president is very important, because it does have a global impact. It is especially important for Americans everywhere and non-Americans living within the US (as you seem to indicate you are part of).

However, even though something can be extremely important, hearing about it incessantly for months on end becomes tiring. The similarity of the two major candidates certainly doesn't help the situation.

Regardless of how it's resolved, the resolution is what everyone is waiting for. Even you.

Re:Please...

[Trracer]

Word!
Could not agree more.

Re:doesn't help

[kevin42]

to quote CNN.com:

Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth, a Democrat who also is Gore's state campaign chairman, said the recount could be completed by the end of the day.

The state attorney general is in charge of the ballot counting, and he's on Gore's staff! So if there's any suspicion, it should be him, not Jeb.

This is positivly frightening.

[AltGrendel]

Anyone that still says that their vote doesn't count is full of it.

Re:This is positivly frightening.

[RalphSlate]

I live in Massachusetts. When I was in the voting booth at 6pm, I already knew the outcome of the state because it's so heavily Democratic. Therefore my vote didn't count for a single thing regardless of who I voted for. The lesson here is that your votes only count in close elections at the state level, or elections where no polls have been taken ahead of time so you don't know where the state stands. It's really a poor process. Ralph

Re:This is positivly frightening.

[angelo]

My presidental vote in Pennsylvania for Bush counted for shit electorially, but it counted toward the popular vote. It does seem that Bush may win the Electoral vote and not the popular vote. Go figure.

But bush wins :-(

[QuMa]

To quote annathea:

I feel like thirty million people just killed my kitten or something.

Re:Going to be interesting

[Quintin Stone]

No one seems to know what's going on in Palm Beach. Your description doesn't jive with news reports on the subject, which seemed to suggest that it was actually a problem with the visuals of the ballot that confused the elderly, not any kind of mechanical or electronic malfunction.

My own personal belief is that it's merely a last-ditch attempt by Democrats to say to the country, "Well, look, we can still win this." I guess we'll find out what's going on eventually.

It's the Electoral Vote, Stupid!

[Seumas]

You're not stupid -- just using a popular phrase. ;)

I don't see what the hangup is over how many votes are cast for each candidate in Florida. Bush could win by a million votes in Florida and the electoral vote could still be cast for Gore. Electoral votes have been cast against the popular vote of that electoral vote's region nine times in the past -- in a race this tight, it would seem more likely to occur than ever before.
---
seumas.com

Re:It's the Electoral Vote, Stupid!

[Seumas]

Just wanted to clarify:

I mean to state that electoral votes have been cast against the popular vote in the electoral vote's region called into question nine times in the past -- not that it has happened nine times in Florida.

Don't know if I had confused anyone, but I don't want to sound any dumber than I have to. ;)
---
seumas.com

I wish it came down to 1 vote

[paeanblack]

Ballot stuffing and counting difficulties aside, I think a presidential election coming down to 1 vote (or even 100 votes) would get rid of the 'my vote doesn't matter' attitude too many people have

We know it's not over.

[Wingchild]

There's a lot yet undecided. The absentee ballots aren't counted yet, the recount hasn't happened yet, and god only knows how long that will take. Two of the heavily contested counties are Broward and Dade - both have a long history of "voter irregularity", as the media so nicely euphamises. Voter fraud has been rampant there for years. Everyone living in Florida knows it. So we'll send Attorney General, Janet Reno, down to supervise the vote.. flanked by Republican Governor Jeb Bush's staff, no doubt .. so that they can not reach an agreement and argue some more about whether Buchanan voters *meant* to vote for Gore or not.. I expect resolution sometime after the second civil war. ;)

Re:The Nader Effect

[tetrad]

When you're not voting your concience, what's the point of voting at all...

Actually, I voted my concience. I voted for Nader via proxy. I found someone in Texas who would have voted for Gore, and so we arranged that I would use his Gore vote in PA, while he would cast my Nader vote in TX. There's an element of trust involved of course, but if we discount the possibility of cheating, then there's no question that my vote matched my concience.

Maybe if Gore had Died in a Plane Crash...

[Papatoast]

He would have carried the election and not be biting his nails over a runoff in Florida...wow..democracy at work...well, ok..3 billion dollars of marketing at work.

Mistaken vote for Buchanan

[Jeremy Erwin]

Cmdr Taco wrote: Apparently font issue on ballots caused about 2000 seniors with less then 20/20 vision to vote for Buchanen instead of gore.

What's the source of this info? I can't find a single article in the news that suggests this may be a problem? Am I really supposed to believe the word of Slashdot? (I'm a Gore supporter, and am tempted to believe that Gore was denied votes he should have gotten, but citations would be nice.)

Re:Mistaken vote for Buchanan

[bruceg]

-1 for your compasionate conservatism - remember a lot of folks in Florida are elderly, and don't see as well as you and I.

Re:The Nader Effect

[cyber-vandal]

Cost him the election how? By participating in a democratic election? Are you saying there should only be 2 parties? Why not just one then, and then everyone will know who to vote for.
Nader, Browne and whoever else have just as much right to participate in the US election as Tweedledum and Tweedledumber, and if Gore hasn't convinced enough of the electorate to vote for him, then it is him and his campaign staff that cost him the election, through not appealing to the people that would otherwise have voted for him and not Nader.

Re:CNN Reported on the 1,2,3,5 and 6th place parti

[Harlequin Jones]

I believe that those media moguls with socialistic tendencies (like Turner) find the Libertarian Party to be very threatening, as they have all of the Republican's popular causes (low taxes, less regulations) without the religious dogma.

Turner and his ilk are well aware of how many people vote for Democrats out of fear that Republicans will implement a fundamentalist Christian agenda, rather than because of actual agreement with Democratic economic policies.

HJ

Illuminati

[Jace of Fuse!]

Man, I HATE it when the Illuminati can't decide who to appoint as President.

-=-

Re:"Keeping his word..."

[Quikah]

Again, the Constitution does not say that the elected person has to declare himself to be a candidate. so in theory the electors could vote you as president. If you accepted then you are the president.

what madate?

[Blue Weirdo]

I want to continue this discussion, My question is how will the popular vote affect the policies the president can push through? While I can see the sense in the above, would that be prudent of a president to do? If Bush wins without the popular vote and tries to push through largely partisan policies wouldn't that threaten the already thin Republican majority in Congress? Regardless of who ends up with the presidency I don't envy either of one.

Change it, but please not to IRV...

[sab39]

electionmethods.org has a good mathematical analysis of a bunch of different election methods: Plurality (the current system), IRV, Approval and Concordet. They conclude, essentially, that:

• Plurality sucks (fails all but 2 criteria)
• The only thing that sucks worse is IRV (fails ALL criteria, including the basic requirement that voting for a candidate shouldn't hurt them. Yes, that's right, in IRV you can actually make someone lose by giving them your vote!)
• Approval is the best simple/easily-comprehensible system out there, passing 2 criteria that Plurality fails)
• Concordet is the best system out there, passing all the criteria except for one (and I believe it's been proven that you can never meet all of them). However, it may be too complicated for most voters to understand.

PLEASE, if you are going to advocate electoral reform, encorage people to promote Approval, Concordet or Borda (Borda isn't analyzed on that site so I don't know how it fares... but I guarantee it's better than IRV). Please, don't let's make a bad system worse.

Stuart.

Re:Change it, but please not to IRV...

[Sodium Attack]

electionmethods.org is deliberately biased, listing only those criteria which IRV fails.

Here is a more thorough, less biased comparison of several voting methods.

History repeating?

[JurriAlt137n]

Bush is going to win, that's for sure... Harry's bar in Paris voted for Bush and so far they been wrong only once...but seriously. I somehow remember something about the last time an American President won by so close a margin. Didn't he get shot?

Nader sleeps fine, millionaires love Bush

[Hairy_Potter]

Heck, Nader will probably have a fine soiree in his Washington DC mansion for the incoming Bushes.

Could spell end for electoral college..

[sid_vicious]

Interesting that it looks like Gore's won the popular vote..

This may be the end of the electoral college once people realize that the Executive branch of government is not truly representative of the people's will..

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[Didian]

"This may be the end of the electoral college once people realize that the Executive branch of government is not truly representative of the people's will."

Yes, but...

It is not fair to say that without the Electoral College Gore would have won this election.

Things like the EC effect voter turn-out and behavior. If we all knew that the popular vote would determine the presidency, many people who didn't vote would and those who did might vote differently.

Two points:
In a highly Democratic state (like Maryland, for example), Republicans may stay home since they know that a vote for Bush will go ignored in their state. Obviously, the reverse applies in states that are highly slated for the Republicans. I nearly stayed home myself, but we had a close House race.

A third party candidate becomes a much smarter choice for those in the pivotal "swing" states. We've heard here that many Nader supporters wouldn't vote for him because they were in a swing state.

So, until we change the system to make the popular vote mean something, it doesn't.
--
"You despise me, don't you?"

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[Laughing Jackal]

Only an simpering fool would make such a comment. First, the founders established a Democratic Republic and not a democracy for exactly this reason. They wanted to avoid the frightful nature of a dominating majority that might exploit the rights of a strong minority. If you don't believe me, then go pick up a copy of the Federalist Papers and educate yourself on what the Constitution really says.

Second, consider the fact that in order to change the voting process (which benefits small states over large states for reasons that this very election makes so obvious), there would have to be a Constitutional Amendment. Last time I checked that takes a 2/3's majority in the Senate and then a ratifying vote in 2/3's of the State legislatures. With the Congress split evenly today and unlikely to change anytime soon given the American attention span for all things political, I think we can agree that change is about as likely as snow in hell.

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[BentPenguin]

Yeah yeah yeah. I can't remember a presidential election in which one side wasn't cryin' they were burned by the Electoral College. Outrage builds for about 15 minutes and then life goes on and everyone forgets about it until right after the next Prez Election. . .

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[logicTrAp]

We can always hope. The electoral college is especially silly given that most states now legislate that electors vote based on how the state's populace votes. As such, it's mostly a tool to simply hide anyone but the two major parties.

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[Quikah]

Very unlikely. Remember it will take a Constitutional ammendment to abolish the electoral college. That is, 2/3 of the congress must agree that an amendment should be proposed, then 3/4 of the states must agree to it. Considering how close the election is I doubt it will happen, most likely, if Bush wins by electoral, but not popular, the Republicans will vote against an ammendment, the Democrats will vote for.

Besides, remember that the electoral college was created in part to protect us from the tyranny of the people. Considering all the morons that live in this country, I am glad it is there.

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[ChristTrekker]

That's the exception, and not the rule. Why does nearly every country but the US successfully have 3+ major parties?

My point is that it takes a BIG shake-up to make a change currently. The time was ripe for it in 1860 because of other troubles brewing. We don't have that now, so we won't get a 3rd party supplanting either member of the Duopoly. All I want to see is that the smaller voices get heard, because they aren't right now. The system squashes them. Most people don't even realize other choices exist.

I don't like Nader at all, but his views appeal to 10% of the people in some states. They deserve to be heard. Who knows, maybe I'll be in the minority next...I'd like to be heard then, too. It's only fair. What we need to do is get rid of the "winner takes all" system in more states, and introduce Instant Runoff Voting nationwide.

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[radulovich]

Even though I bitch and moan about it, the electoral college is a work of genius. (BTW, we live in a republic, not a democracy.)

The electoral college "winner takes all" forces the country's candidates to gravitate towards the middle. The result is a stronger elected official. Without the elector college, a weak candidate ( i.e. "fringe" candidate) could lead the country.

In times of peace and prosperity, this might not be a problem. But in times of war, you WANT a strong elected official, not someone who only gets 30% of the vote.

An example of a country that suffered from the lack of an electoral college is Pre-war Germany, and we all know what happened there. Current examples include the united Germany, and Israel for just two examples.

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[BlaisePascal]

The place where common sense fails is that not all electors "represent" the same number of people. Each state gets 2 electors for being a state plus one or more based on population. In a small state (like Alaska), the capita per elector is smaller than in a large state (like New York).

And then there's rounding issues, like you said.

Two states follow a system of having each congressional district elect an elector, with two more chosen state-wide. It is possible for those states to have a split electoral vote.

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[JCMay]

You don't give people a lot of credit, do you?

They didn't "accidently" vote for Buchanan instead of Gore. They obviously meant to vote for Buchanan. I'll tell you why:

When we enter the voting booth with our ballot, we are taking part in one of the most amazing processes in history. For most of our collective time here on earth we've either not been numerous to need a government, or had our goverment imposed upon us. It was only a little over two hundred years ago that this great system was carefully pieced together by some very bright and forward thinking men. Here, we take part not only in choosing our leaders, but act as instruments in the fulfillment of God's plan for this country.

Each of us carefully considers what we're doing: we read and re-read each ballot initiative, even if we've looked at voter guides, even if we've examined sample ballots, even if we've already made up our mind exactly what we're going to do. We read and re-read each item, ensuring that we fully understand what is being asked. Questions are directed immediately to poll supervisors, and they are always extremely happy to explain what any item may mean, or reiterate how the ballot works.

After many moments of careful, deliberate thought, we mark our ballot. Sometimes a section is left blank as an abstention when we are not informed enough to make an educated choice. I admit, sometimes mistakes are made. We all know that. That's why we review our ballot after making our choices. If we find that something was done wrong, or we accidently mark more than one choice in a category, we quickly find a poll supervisor and explain that we have soiled our ballot an need a new one. A new ballot is cheerfully provided, and we again, this time even more carefully, mark our choices.

Satisfied with the marked choices on our ballot, we confidently make our way to the ballot box. Another poll supervisor instructs us how to insert the ballot; depending on the ballot type it can matter. We place our ballot in the box and complete our duty and honor as American citizens.

Taking such care in our voting, we never vote for the wrong people; by the time we are at the ballot box we are convinced that our ballot is marked properly. Those people meant to vote for Buchanan. To say anything less is insulting!

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[Rogue Jedi]

It was pointed out here the other day that the electoral college was established out of fear that the US population would be unable to educate themselves about the candidates enough to make an informed decision.

That was one of the reasons the Electoral College was created. The other reason, the one I've come to see during this election and the one that has changed my mind on the issue, is that the EC prevents the smaller, less populous states from being drowned out by the larger states. The EC prevents what Thomas Jefferson (IIRC) called the "tyranny of the majority". Thus, the EC is a good thing.
Look at the Electoral map on FoxNews.com. Gore has the popular majority, but only in approximately 20 states. Bush has the popular majority in the other 28. Without the EC, the political voices of the 28 states that voted the majority to Bush would be ignored in favor of the more populous states. In other words, Americans in less populous states would be shut out of the process. By seriously reducing the number of available votes, and making sure those votes are more or less evenly distributed, it is possible to make sure the voices of smaller states is heard.

-Rob

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[drew]

that's funny. last time i looked at the count (about 3 A.M.) Bush was ahead by about 200,000 votes. Granted 200,000 is chump change considering they both had over 45,000,000.

oops. i just looked at cnn. appears gore is leading after all. nevermind.

Not that it matters. anyone who has taken a high school (or even grade school) level class on american government knows that this wouldn't be the first time apresident has won theelectoral vote without the popular vote. I don't see this spelling an end to the electoral college any time soon. It's been within our power to change it for some time, and I honestly don't see why it would change now over an election decided by less than one state's electoral vote and about 0.3% of the popular vote.

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[Fesh]

Well, it's definitely a powerful argument against the "winner takes all" aspect of choosing electors. We wouldn't have this problem if the Florida electors (or those in the other states for that matter) were chosen by the percentage that the candidates recieved. If there's one thing that really consolidates the grip of the two-party mentality, it's the winner taking all of the electors in the state no matter how close the vote count is.

--Fesh
"Citizens have rights. Consumers only have wallets." - gilroy

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[The Night Watchman]

Well, keep in mind that the founding fathers wrote the Constitution without the ability to gather information from across the country in anything less than a few weeks. I have not yet read your article in favor of the Electoral College, but I plan to. For now, I believe that one consequence of the EC is that it gives people the sense that their votes do not count, as they do not directly elect the President. Of course, one reason the EC was formed was that the people were not trusted to be able to make the proper decision. Maybe that's still the case, I honestly don't know. I'm not a political scientist.

But the way I see it, if Bush wins the election, he will do so by a minority of the popular vote. In an age where the people are more informed (or at least have more opportunity to be informed) than ever, it seems backward to have a system where our votes are sent to a "winner-takes-all" system which allows for something like this to happen. But that's just my opinion, and like I said before, I'll read your article. I could be wrong...

/* Steve */

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[M. Silver]

24 states require that the elector vote as they were elected.

Sort of. They can impose penalties if the elector doesn't, but the penalties may or may not be upheld by the Supreme, and the state law can't actually force the elector to vote the "right" way, or invalidate his vote if he doesn't.

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[Syberghost]

But a 3rd party will never get to 31% support because so many people are afraid that voting 3rd party is to "throw their vote away".

That's what the pundits said about the Democrats and Whigs in the 1840s.

Seen any Whigs lately, since the third-party Republicans came along and swept them out the door?

-

Re:Could spell end for electoral college..

[Syberghost]

No single, non-transferable voting scheme for direct election would have 50% as a requirement for winning.

I know, but he didn't propose a scheme; he just said we should "get rid of" the electoral college.

I was hoping to make him:

a) Think

b) Articulate the thought.

-

doesn't help

[Bad_CRC]

that the ballots were messed up, and they arne't going to fix that.

Buchanan got some of the votes intended for Gore

and that might be enough to swing it. Seems kind of suspicious considering who runs that state...

________

Re:doesn't help

[alanjstr]

that only covers about 3500 ballots (just one area), not the whole state.

Re:doesn't help

[Masem]

But the difference between Gore and Bush is 1,700. BIG Difference.

Re:doesn't help

[SmokeSerpent]

This ballot was not like yours. It had a single row of punch-holes (machine-counted ballot) with candidates lited alternately on either side of the row. If you look at the word "Democrat" on Gore's entry and follow it straight across to the center line, the hole you might mark is the one that really belongs to Buchanan. If you live in a retirement community, this could make a big difference in your vote.

Someone mod this up!

[OriginalGangsterTrol]

Well said :)

Must _every_ thread have highly mod'd CT crap?

[SunRunner]

Conspiracy Theorists: Give It Up Already!!!

Have you ever stopped to review what an exit vote really is? Take CNN's exit votes, for example. They get a bunch of employees together, throw them in a few vans, and then send them to what CNN determines to be the most important poll sites. As voters leave the polls, CNN asks them to share their vote. Think about this for a minute. Hundreds of thousands of people at the major polling sites, voting at all times of the day. Some states have certain laws, that restrict any and all media members from coming within a certain range of their polling sites. Limited access. CNN can only employee so many people, severely limiting the numbers of voters they can reach who are even willing to share their vote in the first place.

Given the number of unknowns in the short example above (we could go on forever with more examples), it still astounds me how the American public can be so easily lured into 'ratings bait' by the major media networks out there. The 'exit vote' was popularized by modern, mass media, to simply get you to do what you've been doing for the last 12 hours: stay glued to the TV/Net, watching the 'smart guys' guess at who's going to be the next President, so they can run ads past your eyes. If they were simply relaying official, closed and verified vote counts, it'd be boring and we'd all be off doing somethin else.

Volatility in the exit vote is inherent in the system. If you're looking for something to base electoral fraud on, looks elsewhere. Otherwise, you're just grasping at straws.

doesn't help

[Bad_CRC]

that the ballots were messed up, and they arne't going to fix that.

Buchanan got some of the votes intended for Gore

and that might be enough to swing it. Seems kind of suspicious considering who runs that state...

________

What about the really cool candidates?

[Darmox]

So, anyone know how many votes went to Frank Zappa this year? he usually seems to get at least a few:)

Misprinted ballots

[yack0]

Word is that one county in Florida had misprinted ballots which counted votes for Gore as Votes for Buchanan/Independent - so those votes might even have to be recast.

Regardless, the popular vote count won't matter too much, since 25 states electorates are not legally bound to follow their state, that leaves a ton of electoral votes that could be against what the news agencies are predicting.

This election won't be won until December when the electoral college votes.

Re:Misprinted ballots

[Sodium Attack]

If you actually take time to think about it, rather than just mindlessly accepting the Gore FUD, you will find that a vote for Nader is only half a vote for Bush.

Re:Misprinted ballots

[kevin42]

I don't know where you got your info. That's not what any of the news organizations I've read (cnn, foxnews, msnbc) are saying.

Well, Rob, if you're sick of it...

[carlfish]

You know, this is being covered by every single other news site out there. Slashdot doesn't _have_ to give us a blow-by-blow of the US elections if it doesn't want to.

Personally, I'm just going to hide my head under a pillow and chant "whoever gets in, it's only four years until the next one", like I do with most local elections.

Charles Miller
--

Re:Well, Rob, if you're sick of it...

[jesser]

I think it's more about keeping the discussion rolling than about giving a "blow-by-blow" list of major happenings.

--

Re:Well, Rob, if you're sick of it...

[um... Lucas]

.org has nothing to do with the internationalness of a website. If you think it does, you can just go to www.slashdot.com and sit back.

Face it, todays only one days worth of tech news. Slashdots been pretty good about avoiding the campaigns thus far, so it seems fine to me that they're covering the results, just because even if you don't live here, the results will affect you, me, the tech industry, and pretty much the world to some extent or another...

Re:Well, Rob, if you're sick of it...

[Sodium Attack]

Yes, but with the major news sites, we only get occasional misinformation, such as the result of a state being projected far earlier than anyone can reliably predict its true outcome.

Here at slashdot, we get loads of misinformation that isn't available anywhere else.

Re:The Nader Effect

[Scooby71]

Not sure about laughing, more somewhat worried 'cos they're not sure if Bush knows anything about the world.

(Apart from the Russians who have said that they always have better relationships with Republican presidents...)

The only good thing that can come from this...

[JoeShmoe]

I actually hope that if one candidate wins the electoral vote, the other candidate wins the popular vote.

Why?

Because then the anger over such a narrow (and "unfair") defeat will mean at least one political party will be fighting for election reform for the next term.

Then again, if that party is the Democrats, and the Republicans control both the House and the Senate then they will face an uphill "why rock the boat and fix what ain't broke" battle.

And if ICANN has taught us anything, even if we were to get trly democratic popular-vote elections, what do you bet the Legislative branch would find some way to foul it up in favor of the pre-ordained, pre-destined two-party system?

- JoeShmoe

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -

Re:The only good thing that can come from this...

[Sodium Attack]

Because then the anger over such a narrow (and "unfair") defeat will mean at least one political party will be fighting for election reform for the next term.

Yes, but any "election reform" devised by the republicrats will be designed to keep the republicrats in power, and to keep third parties out in the cold.

Re:Ehmz, wasn't it Bush?

[Lion-O]

You've never witnessed a vote re-count, have you? They *never* get the same figures twice.

Oh, I'm not stating that the result will be exactly the same as it was now, on the contrary. However; if you take a look at the current marge and the difference which remains (the final 3 states) then the gap is quite wide if you take Florida into consideration. If the final result would indeed differ that much I really wonder if they did a good job from the beginning.

Re:Military vote is NOT generally Republican --agr

[jafac]

oh yeah, I know a gay guy who joined the Navy because of this.

Many reasons - all very rediculously cliche:

"I love a man in a uniform"
"All those men out there on a boat with no women around, for months in close quarters, some of the straight ones are bound to get desperate"
"'cmon, everyone knows that a lot of gay guys join the Navy, it's just a target-rich environment"

He turned out to be a lifer. . . some supply ship. . .

Questioning Fl*rida is rediculous

[heroine]

Fl*rida hasn't voted democratic in 30 years. How can there be any doubt?

Re:Questioning Fl*rida is rediculous

[Armaphine]

Fl*rida hasn't voted democratic in 30 years. How can there be any doubt? Well, because the senior population (Which is the big deal down there, BTW) has been shifting... the older people who used to be staunchly Republican, are starting to be replaced by aging Democrats, splitting them to a point approaching even. After all, if Florida wasn't in serious question, would we be still waiting for this election to be over?

smells fishy

[spectro]

that the ballots were messed up, and they arne't going to fix that.

Buchanan got some of the votes intended for Gore and that might be enough to swing it. Seems kind of suspicious considering who runs that state...

First CNN shows GWB in an hotel room talking about Florida not decided yet, about 10 minutes later the networks changes Florida status back to "too close to call"... about an hour later I see in FOX a reporter from Austin talking about some "computer problem" in Florida. Gore was about 500.000 ahead but when the computer came back Bush is ahead for about 500.000 ... at that minute, I don't know why I started remembering what I readed one day before in the votescam website ...

I kept watching the networks for some time and I think anchor's faces said it all and they were too tired to hide it...

... I think I am going to buy that votescam book

---

Re:"Keeping his word..."

[will_v_2000]

Is a concession speech / phone call legally binding???? I'm not sure if this has ever been tested before...

If so, why would anyone concede the election before the electoral college meets. In this case, all you need is one elctroate to change her/his mind and the result would be different. My guess is the concession/recession is just a bunch of BS words with no legal meaning...

Re:YES WE DO ELECT THE PRESIDENT! SHEESH!

[drsoran]

Exactly. Remember, this is the *United States* of America. IMHO the federal government has been grabbint way too much power for itself from the states in the last hundred years and I think we need to turn that around. States should be where major issues are decided and it only need to be brought to a Federal level when it requires interstate interaction. Health, welfware, and education for example should be a state issue. The military defense of the nation is a federal issue. Interstate highways are a federal issue, airtraffic control regulations are interstate and are a federal issue, etc.

Re:Supreme Court / reproductive rights

[Dahan]

Bush is an alcoholic/cocaine addict party boy that will stack the supreme court with nazi judges against abortion and other freedom issues.

Awesome! :) That's the main reason I voted for him :)

To quote from that highly regarded work, Cartman's Mom Is Still A Dirty Slut :

Mrs. Cartman: Don't you see Governor; I should have a right to have an abortion if I want one.

Governor: Mra, I don't know, I, I might need some more convincing.

Mrs. Cartman: I mean, what right do I have bringing another child into this overpopulated world? Then again, I should have thought of that before having sex.

Re:Very strange results

[locutus074]

Take a look at Yahoo! News' coverage. They're reporting that Gore has a lead in the popular vote of nearly 200,000 votes, with 99% of the nation's precincts reporting. I don't think you could get 99% without Florida.

--

Re:Supreme Court / reproductive rights

[Oztun]

Yeah like when reagen and bush were president and abortion was illegal????

The fix is in?

[Eric Green]

Now the question becomes: What happened to those 5 ballot boxes that were mysteriously lost and found in Dade County? And when those ballot boxes are recounted, will we find that they're mostly Gore votes, or mostly Bush votes? Were Daddy and Brother Bush's operatives able to out-war the Dade County Machine's operatives when it comes to rigging an election? Did Jeb's master stroke, putting two holes by Gore/Lieberman (if you punched the wrong hole, you voted for Buchanon), turn the tide?

I think it's sad that we'll probably never know who the people of Florida *REALLY* wanted for President :-(.

-E

Re:The fix is in?

[ostiguy]

Jeb's master stroke for two holes by Gore's name? All balloting apparatus in Florida is under control of.... drum roll please....

the Sec of State who is a democrat...... DOUBLE drum roll please....

who just so happened to be Gore's State Campaign Chief.

No vast right wing conspiracy here.

matt

Re:The fix is in?

[rotor]

I just read a little further down on cnn.com and found this quote on the page "Overlooked Florida ballot box filled with supplies, not votes" Unfortunately, the link only contains the original story of the lost and found box... It doesn't mention the supplies again.

-

Required reading for today

[mister7]

This weeks The Onion hit the nail on the head. Far too funny to be described here, so follow this link to the story

Why my vote doesn't count.

[Rift]

I'm in Omaha, NE.... a completely republican state. I voted for Gore. It did NOTHING - the five electoral votes all went to Bush, as we all knew they would.

Now, had I lived in Florida, my vote may have counted... may even have helped decide the election. Is this fair? no. Does this inspire me to get out there and vote? No. Is this simply the dumbest system ever? Yes.

Hopefully this election will get people to finally abolish this antiquated and pointless system- I'd bet that voter turnout would be much higher.

The real fun will be on inaguration day

[georgeha]

When Dubya will have to fistfight his dad to get to the Bible.

"No dad, they elected me!"

"It's a vindication for my Presidency, son, they all really like me."

George

uh huh

[fjordboy]

This is an interesting turn of events, Last night, I went to bed after reloading CNN about a million times. I saw it the EV go from bush to gore to bush to gore and then stayed at Bush....I was knew that they had to recount Florida, but I figured it would be done by the morning..I woke up, loaded CNN again, and was shocked that it still hadn't come up. I was surprised at the number of voters this year though..I knew voter apathy was pretty high, but this is a far higher turnout than anyone had expected. Especially in Florida. In my rural village of Trout Run in PA, we had more voters this year than the last 10 years or so...more than 300! anyways..this is all pretty exciting and tense...I am thinking that Bush will win Florida (and therefore the election) due to the absentee ballots from military people that are abroad. I don't know...i guess we will see by the end of the day though.

Isn't it automated?

[andrew cooke]

If the counting is automated, with people pressing buttons to vote, then how do they recount?

Curious (and in the UK, so possibly ill-informed ;-), Andrew

Re:Isn't it automated?

[edgrale]

"If the counting is automated, with people pressing buttons to vote, then how do they recount? "

Well now that's simple, it's been done from time to time. You press them again, that way it will be even more exciting :)

Ouch

[rjamestaylor]

Not the way I wanted to wake up this morning!

"May you live in interesting times" -- Chinese curse.

Now hiring experienced client- & server-side developers

The media

[Nidhogg]

I think the biggest story to come is what happened with the TV media and their handling of Florida. With it's 25 electoral votes it's a major prize.

Personally I watched the results come in on CNN. I was stunned when after they had given Florida to Gore they took it back. And then they did the same thing with Bush.

You can't do that. The Western voters are influenced by what they see on the Eastern results. I don't care what you say they have to be. Gore having Florida (momentarily) was hugely influential especially considering that they were already projecting that he was going to get California's 54.

We're going to see some serious criticism and finger pointing over the use of exit polls and voting results models.

And I'm gonna enjoy every damned minute of it. =)

Re:The media

[jesser]

Are west-coasters who wait until 7:30 to decide whether to vote for Gore or Nader idiots? I don't think so, but I do think that the fact that they can do so is not especially fair.

--

Re:The media

[shren]

In Europe, it's regarded as a basic democratic principle that no exit polls or results are published until all the polls are closed. (And in the case of European parliamentary elections, this is several days after the first countries have voted!) From this side of the Atlantic, it looks as if freedom of speech is valued more highly than fair elections in the US.

Oh, come on.

Is there any European nation that crosses four time zones? Wait, I forgot Alaska and Hawaii, more than four time zones. Many more.

Re:The media

[Chops]

I particularly liked the electorate committee's (or whatever it's called) commentary on CNN... every member that I saw, the commentary went basically like this:

CNN newsdroid: So we see that although the popular vote is clearly in favor of Gore, the electoral college race actually comes down to only a few thousand Florida voters. We'll go now to Joe Whatsis for some further commentary.

Committee member: Well, first let me point out that you guys have been completely and unforgivably irresponsible with your coverage thus far.

CNN newsdroid: Well, we made it clear that these projections blah blah blah.

Committee member: Bullshit. You said Gore won Florida, and then you told everybody that Bush won the election, and you fucked up a couple other states, too. You shouldn't even pretend to be a respectable news organization. You might well have botched the whole election.

CNN Newsdroid: But--

Committee member: Look, I can listen to an eighty-watt college radio station for days on end and never have to hear, "Oops, we lied" even once. You guys knew that half the country was watching, and you lied twice about the same state. If people knew enough not to trust you, it would have been fine, but you had a responsibility to provide accurate election coverage, and you displayed all the maturity and judgement of a pornographic website. If you could have popped up another TV full of advertising every time someone changed the channel, you would have. This president will be appointing supreme court justices, and your ratings were more important to you than the Nader supporters in western states who were voting based on what you said. You have just defined a new low for television respectibility. The callous self-interest you displayed tonight is worse than professional wrestling, worse than Howard Stern, and worse than Jerry Springer. It's worse than subliminal advertising. It physically disgusts me.

CNN Newsdroid: Well--

Committee member: But enough about that. The electoral college...

Re:The media

[ConceptJunkie]

It was requested that the media refrain from divulging exit poll results until _ALL_ polls closed. They declined, but the major news networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, CNN (IIRC)) all agreed to not give out exit poll results for each state until that state's polls closed, which I believe is what they've normally done over the years. Drudge promised to give them out as soon as he got them, but his site was so hammered it was unreachable all day.

Just remember, no matter what happens, vote early and often.

Re:The media

[Ronin Developer]

This is the way it should be. In my state, even as election results were being tablulated and displayed, there were still a large percentage of votes in 1.5 hour lines to vote. While this probably didn't cost Bush our state (he lost by a 6% margin), it probably had an impact on local elections as they were being publicized as well.

Regarding the western vote, I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment. People may think that their vote is not important or may cause the "I want to vote for a winner" effect like we saw in the 1992 election simply because of how the other states are voting or upon seeing the "projected" winners.

In general, I have a real problem with the way electorial votes are allocated. Consider the fact that it is assumed that, CA, NY, DC and a few others are democratic states and, CA and NY contain many electorial votes, giving the Republicans a 100 electorial vote deficit from the onset.

I realize that this system was created at a time when most people could not read or write (let alone understand politics), but the population was much smaller and more diffuse geographically rather than having very high concentrations in major cities.

I'd like to see something like a fixed number of votes per state and thus give each state a equal voice to the number of political parties on the ballet rather than basing on a particular demographic (race, religion, working class, etc.). The votes should be allocated based on percentage of popular vote in that particular state). The delegates can then vote the whatever way they feel is best.

Why do I say this? Look at the number of states won by both major parties. Those states with fewer electorial votes become meaningless when compared to states like CA, NY, PA or FL.

Well, we'll all have to see how this plays out. Regardless of who wins, this is one for the history books.

RD

Re:The media

[powerlord]

Funny, it looks idiotic and something that the media should be refrained from doing (notice, I said they should be refrained, I don't believe the media has in its capacity the ability to sit on it s own hands).

They shouldn't be allowed to publish or reveal any election results, or exit polling results, untill after the last polling place has closed (Alaska?).

The polls close somewhere around midnight in Alaska I think, if they want they could do a half hour lead in, coverring the issues (federal/local), and then do a recap of the voting across the country. That would be fine. This, "We have been here for 6 hours and we're still getting it wrong" is just ridiculous.

Oh... and slightly O.T. The New York Post had a headline of "BUSH WINS!!!" it's already been pulled, but if Gore manages to squeak in, its going to make one heck of a collectors item :)

Re:The media

[babbage]

it looks as if freedom of speech is valued more highly than fair elections in the US

Well maybe, but it's worth noting that it has never been this much of a problem before now... :)

Wow!

[_rootshell]

Wow, this is one election! Just shows the US is almost equally split between the two candidates. I'm betting on Bush!

Re:"Keeping his word..."

[Millennium]

While you are correct in that the elected person doesn't have to declare himself a candidate, it's also true that a person can decline the offer (much as the President can resign). No judge would dispute that withdrawing from any sort of competition also implies declining anything one might otherwise win.
----------

A vote for Gore is a vote for Bush.

[Anonymous Coward]

And a vote for Bush is a vote for Gore.

I'm sick of hearing people spread bullshit along the lines of "a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush", or "a vote for a third party is a wasted vote". With that kind of attitude, we'll never break out of the cycle.

Wake up, people. The Dems and Reps have a monopoly on politics. They are the ones who started this kind of propaganda, and you are the ones eating it for lunch.

Elian Gonzalez

[hex1848]

less then 2000 votes currently seperate gore and bush in the state of florida. i bet Al wishes his party had not pissed off the cuban american democrates now. I was a florida democrat until 4/22/00 (the day they seized elian) and would have given my vote to gore.

Re:Bush to thank Nader for the presidency.

[ekidder]

One of the people on CBS(?) said that if Bush wins, he owes Nader at least a cabinet position :)

Canadian worries.

[Forkenhoppen]

You're not the only person who seems to think so. Check out this arti cle that was in the Ottawa Citizen.

It has to be said but...

[Richy_T]

News for Nerds?

When that huge fall in tech stocks, something much closer related to nerdy stuff, earlier in the year was "not relevant"?

What next? "Grain harvest in Alabama hit by dry weather"?

Also, I wonder if Slashdot will be paying as much interest to the UK elections next year? France, Germany or Italy? I think not.

I know that Slashdot is run according to the editors' whims and that's fine but really, I do wish they'd try and keep within their stated remit. If they're going to mainly be a link to technology stories on other news websites that's fine but if they're going to cover every irelevant bit of news that's out there, may as well go to cnn.com and cut out the middleman.

Rich

Re:It has to be said but...

[duggy_92127]

The next President of the United States is always "Stuff that matters." End of story.

Doug

Re:It has to be said but...

[Greg@RageNet]

Go to fuckedcompany and count the number of tech's that have been put out of work; then tell me why that sector of the economy is not relevant to slashdot.

-- Greg

Re:It has to be said but...

[penfold5]

While you make an interesting point about how slashdot editors probably wont cover various European elections and their lack of coverage about tech stocks, I would say that the election is News for Nerds. I am only going to offer one piece of evidence for this. This evidence is: the number of comments! At the time of this post there are 1235 user comments. The two 'wrap ups' of the U.S. election before this have over 1700 user comments. I think its pretty obvious that people are interested in this, and if you believe the hype, the people looking at it are nerds, so I would say that its 'news' for them, i.e. News for Nerds.

The real winners

[Paul Neubauer]

The real winners would at first appear to be the media. Now they get to talk about this election for even longer.

But maybe the people did win over the media. Media and pollsters got a lesson: the people make the decisions, maybe indirectly, but they do.

It was so very amusing this morning to hear a couple announcers on the radio and one ask the other to predict something and get a reply that she'd learned NOT to go predicting things. Now if the rest of the lot will learn.. and remember.

Hey, I can dream, can't I?

I'm tired.

[eastMike]

I was up till 4:30 waiting for the outcome.

1- I wish tv stations and news websites would be more careful with their predictions
2- Why does it take so freaking long to count the votes cast at precints? (not-absentees)
3- A recount...ugh...the suspense is killing me!

"It is well that war is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it."

Re:Very strange results

[upshift]

From what I understand the exit polls where based on the South Florida area, the counties of Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade. When the results from the northern part of the state started coming in, that's when things started to change. I'm not suprised at this (I live in Palm Beach county), the Northern part of the state is a different country from the South East part of Florida.

Going to be interesting

[Sorklin]

From what I've heard on the news, the 3,500 (estimated) votes that were bungled in West Palm (did I get the right location) - where it punched Buchanan when you tried to vote for gore, might throw the balance toward gore. Or not. Then there is the Absentee ballot (from overseas) which could decide this one way or the other. I think its going to stretch out for a couple of days. That is unless they decide to throw out those 3500 votes.

Re:Going to be interesting

[Compuser]

They ought to either count them for Buchanan
or throw them out (the mangled votes that is).
You can't have people come to some office and
redefine their vote after election. A mistake
in marking the ballot can only invalidate it.
If they count those votes for Gore, expect
long court challenges, all the way to Supreme
Court.
I am more troubled by Jesse Jackson's allegation
that some people (esp. immigrants) were
pressured to vote for Bush. I don't think it'll
be proven, but if it is, could it invalidate
Bush's candidacy altogether?
Lastly, could anyone from Florida comment on the
two contradictions I have heard:
1. People who were still in line to vote at 7 pm
were allowed to vote after 7 pm. Some said it is
state law, others claim Jeb Bush ordered it.
Which is true?
2. How many votes were Buchananized? I've seen
figures ranging from 2,000 to 10,000.

the people don't decide

[JRiddell]

Ug, how can anybody consider voting for George Weeny Bush?

What I was wondering is the part about the people not voting for the president. Who does and doesn't this somewhat contradict with those American democratic ideas you all go on about?

America politics confuses me

Re:the people don't decide

[angelo]

Because this was a highly partisan (and I think that's a stupid word for it) election, people voted in one or the other philosophy. However, the philosophies are like ying and yang (and maybe a little wong(wrong)) but it turns out that 50/50 is the national split.

Re:Florida

[donny]

I'm not 100% sure what you've been smoking, but the CNN data has been reporting:

Bush 2,909,136 49%
Gore 2,907,331 49%

with 100% of precincts reporting since about 5:30 AM (EST) this morning, and the numbers haven't changed since then.

Actually, Florida (at least according to some offical-looking person who spoke on TV this morning) actually will accept mail-in ballots from foreign U.S. citizens (e.g. military personnel) postmarked yesterday for up to 10 days after the election, so I don't know what's up with this *being* there stuff...

The only thing I can presume (to account for your claim that Gore is 200 votes ahead) is that you either mistook a 7 for a 9 or vice versa, and only subtracted the last couple of digits.

At least you were right about nothing meaning anything until after the recount. (How did you get rated 5 anyways? Oh well.)

Donny

p.s. Wow, I hope Slashdot gives the Canadian elections this much coverage in three weeks' time...

If Bush wins...

[Kneht]

That will be three Presidential elections in a row where the winner got less than a majority (Clinton won with 43% and 49%).

What does that say about the American public's view of candidates?

Does that mean we are ready for a 3rd party or independant like Ventura? Or are people just sick of politics as usual?

Wow

[AntiPasto]

I can't believe I'm actually interested 'cause it is so close... not really too much about the polotics, and while you might judge my character as such, it was rather rare for me to listen to Howard Stern on the radio this morning talking about it. It was the usual dribble, but entertaining none-the-less.

Anyone have any good links as to the benefit of the electoral system????

----

Turnout was only up 1%

[T.Hobbes]

Last I heart (when ~99% of the vote had been counted), the turnout was only projected to be up ~1%, from 49% to 50%. Apparently, there was an early rush but it tapered off later on...

surprising?

[wishus]

Is it surprising that it was this close? I mean, really, it's not a 2 party system anymore - it's just 2 heads on a 1 party system. Sure, they claim to be "Republicans" and "Democrats," but really they're both for big government - they just disagree where to spend the money. I am proud to have voted for the only candidate for small government; the only candidate who wants you to be free to run your own life: the Libertarian Harry Browne.

You can read more about the Libertarian Party here, or check out Browne's website. The voting is done for this year, but the Libertarian Party is a movement, not a single-shot candidate like Nader or Perot. We are growing, and we will fill the void, returning smaller government and freedom to the nation.

wish
---

Re:Florida

[kramer]

I'm not sure why you'd make up something like this.

For the record he did say CNN, not CNN.com. It may well be that CNN is reporting it and CNN.com hasn't updated yet.

Re:Nader Ruined the Economy.

[bigchief]

well, I'm sorry to inform you, but that precise thing has happened twice already in our history, 1876 and 1888. So go ahead and throw that fit.

So much for Voter Apathy

[ackthpt]

Estimates I've heard this morning are around 65% of the electorate got out and did their patriotic duty. This after years of the media whinging about how we just don't care. This after people saying so much about how little appeal the candidates have. According to ABC News 97 Million people voted. Not bad. I'm happy to have done my part, too.

--

"Keeping his word..."

[Millennium]

The point is, what the hell was Gore doing conceding the election in the first place, before the hard data was in? Particularly when it was made clear in no uncertain terms that the media were bungling their estimates of Florida the whole night?

Either Gore is monumentally stupid for prematurely conceding the election (even Bush wouldn't have been that dumb), or he's classless for rolling the dice, losing, and then trying to grab them back.

Frankly, I do agree that he should technically be allowed to retract the concession, classless though it may be, since the winner was never formally announced. However, that doesn't make him less of an imbecile for going on baseless conjecture, and someone else's conjecture to boot, before actually getting the hard numbers.
----------

Why pick anyone?

[11thangel]

A little quote from "red heat" that i especially liked:

Arnold: We solved crime in russia by taking all drug lords into an alley and shooting them in the head.
Cop: Sounds good, but the politicians would never go for it.
Arnold: We shot them first...

Bush to thank Nader for the presidency.

[no_op]

So it seems that the fears of Democrats and lefties has come true, Nader got 96,000 votes in Florida, easily covering the spread between Bush and Gore. Of course, some of the Nader votes could have gone to Bush, but the majority would have gone to Gore.

Just like back in '92 when Bush (senior) and Perot split the rightward leaning voters and Clinton easily got the majority. Of course, I didn't mind it as much since I voted for Clinton!

But now, it seems, we will be stuck with a less-than-stunning prez who wasn't even picked by the majority of americans.

Unless the Florida recount proves me wrong (knock on wood).

Oy Vey...

[HappyHead]

At this rate, the Canadian elections will be over, and we'll know who our new Prime Minister is before the Americans know who their new president is. And we haven't even started voting yet!

It's a simple case of numbers

[Phloighd]

Bullshit. Out of 96,000 votes that Nader received, five percent of those -- 4,800 votes -- would have voted for Gore if only to keep Bush from winning. Five percent. That would've saved Florida and thus the election.

Precincts

[nahtanoj]

Would it be fair to say that 1-2 votes could have been lost in each district of Florida? If so, then with about 50-100 precincts per county (for a moderately populous area) and 67 counties in Florida, that comes to 3350-13400 votes that are possibly not counted. Cool, huh?

Ciao

nahtanoj

Re:Corp?

[haus]

Damned spelling nazi

all persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental. - Kurt Vonnegut

perhaps we should think twice about that...

[GodOfHellfire]

when i called my mother last night and started complaining about the electoral college, she replied "after working as a poll watcher, i'm now completely FOR the electoral college"

apparantly, most people are too stupid to be allowed to vote. a few of her stories about people wanting to take ballots home and bring them back were pretty funny.

Popular Votes and Mandates

[MegaGremlin]

I still find it interesting that whoever wins will still have gotten more of the popular vote than President Clinton ever did.

I believe that in '96 Clinton was elected with 42% of the popular vote. This means that most of the people in the US did NOT want him to be President.

No matter which way this race ends, the people are a lot closer to having their will served. I personally am a Republican, but I think that Bush should concede due to the popular vote. It would take him from being a Politician, and make him a Statesman. True election and Campaign reform would be so easy with a gesture that grand.

Re:Very strange results

[istartedi]

There were approx. 1 million absentee ballots, which were likely to favor Bush. An "exit poll" is not going to include people who voted absentee.

I think the irregularities in the election process are there more than we would like to believe. The fact that it was so close in Florida has simply caused us to take more notice.

The Proof is in the Pandering

[Mr. Jackson]

The next President of the United States will be decided by the Miami relatives of Elion Gonzales.

Re:The Proof is in the Pandering

[Tiresias_Mons]

And that measn 8 more months of people talking about that damn little kid again. Oh well, I really miss news broadcasts where they only talk abotu one topic, and bulletin boards with one topic....oh wait, no I don't....Indecision 2000 indeed.

Did Gore invent the Internet?

[mangu]

...Gore's claims that he was responsible for making sure the Internet was funded and created.

Let me see, the Internet was invented in 1969, when Gore was, what, 21 years old? Really, a big responsibility for a guy of that age!

Re:Did Gore invent the Internet?

[Eccles]

Let me see, the Internet was invented in 1969, when Gore was, what, 21 years old? Really, a big responsibility for a guy of that age!

In June 1986, back when there were fewer than 5,000 network host sites (there are tens of millions today) available to a comparative handful of knowledgeable users, Gore, then a senator from Tennessee, introduced the Supercomputer Network Study Act in response to fears in the research community that the U.S. was dangerously lagging in this area.

Then in October 1988, Gore introduced the National High-Performance Computer Technology Act. After it died, he reintroduced it in May of the following year. It called for more ambitious funding to improve and expand the connections between universities, libraries and other institutions. Both before and after the act passed in 1991, Gore spoke frequently of "the information superhighway," a phrase he is widely credited with coining and that recalled the key role his late father, also a U.S. senator, played in building (figuratively, of course!) the interstate highway system.

Computer scientist Vinton Cerf, sometimes called "The Father of the Internet," was co-designer of the communications protocol that forms the backbone of the Internet and a pioneer in the academic/military computer networks from which the Internet sprung. In a statement sent to me Monday by MCI WorldCom, where he is now senior vice president of Internet Architecture and Technology, Cerf wrote:

"Gore's support for the research agencies ... helped to shape the development of the NSFNET--a national network with international connections that took up where its predecessor, the ARPANET, left off. ... By the mid-late 1980s, then-Senator Gore had become a visible proponent of NSFNET, which enthusiasm and insight continued and grew with his election to the Vice Presidency. For having seen the potential in these technologies, and for having pursued and argued for legislation and administration support for research in these areas ... I think it is entirely fitting that the Vice President take some credit for helping to create an environment in which [the] Internet could thrive."

Ehmz, wasn't it Bush?

[Lion-O]

Please correct me if I'm wrong but what I've heard is that Florida went to Bush in the first place but due to a state rule saying that if the difference between the votes were within a certain percentage they needed to re-count the votes.

I really doubt that a re-count of allready counted votes would suddenly turn out completely different. I'd say Bush won.

Re:Ehmz, wasn't it Bush?

[Chris Mattern]

> I really doubt that a re-count of allready
> counted votes would suddenly turn out
> completely different. I'd say Bush won.

You've never witnessed a vote re-count, have you?
They *never* get the same figures twice. No,
I'm not kidding. No, that doesn't fill me with
confidence about our electoral officials.

Chris Mattern

Very strange results

[maynard]

OK, I'm not a Gore supporter. Frankly, I voted Nader, but don't think that my vote for Nader translates to a vote for Gore by default. It doesn't.

That said, this looks really fishy. Gore easily won the exit polls in Florida, which is why the Major networks declared a Gore victory in Florida early on. Bush then gave a short press conference refusing to concede Florida and then the networks placed the state back in the unknown column.

I've never seen anything like it. Given Jebb Bush, George's brother, as governor in Florida and the disparity between exit polls and the ballot count I really do suspect electoral fraud. It's happened before... many suspect that Kennedy stole the election from Nixon in 1960 because of some strange returns in Chicago... so I'm not saying this to denounce Republicans (as Democrats have been accused of this as well in the past).

The really big irony here is that Gore has won the popular vote, so if Bush does win Florida we'll have an electoral/popular vote split just as the pundits predicated might happen. Though I know of no pundits that predicted a Gore popular win, Bush electoral win. Very weird.

Re:Very strange results

[dublin]

... many suspect that Kennedy stole the election from Nixon in 1960 because of some strange returns in Chicago...

This isn't suspicion, it's fact. The missing ballot boxes from Cook county were actually found some time later. The ballots they contained made Nixon the winner of Cook County, and therefore Illinois, and therefore the nation.

Regardless of which party you tend to affiliate with, election history shows that the Democrats are far more likely to "fix" an election than Republicans. (Or is that just because they're just less competent in general, and so get caught far more often?) :-)

Re:Very strange results

[Sodium Attack]

Mike Royko (may he rest in peace) always recommended lying to the exit pollsters.

Nobody Wins! America Cheers!

[broody]

Thank the gods "Nobody" won the election! I thought that I was stuck with tweedle-dee and tweedle-dumb.

• Nobody talks about ending the fiction of a corperation being a person and having as many rights as a real human being.
• Nobody talks about making all parties collect the same number of signatures to get on the ballot and make them collect them via volunteers.
• Nobody talks about saving the small percentage ofnative plants and animalsthat are left in the US.
• Nobody talks about making the Federal Reserve Board accountable to the people.
• Nobody talks about abolishing that damn electoral college and public funding of elections.
• Nobody talks about ending the insane war on drugs and drunk drivers.
• Nobody makes the ACLU look oppressive.

Do what thou whilt shall be the whole of the law.

The Nader Effect

[tetrad]

Note that if Bush does pull off a victory in Florida (which at this point, I suspect is likely), then we will conclusively be able to say that Ralph Nader cost Gore the election. Had Nader not been running, most of his 3% in Florida would have gone to Gore, giving the veep the presidency.

I can't decide whether I'm pleased or upset by this potential outcome. I live in Pennsylvania and swapped my Nader vote for a Texas Gore vote, so it's not my fault. :)

Re:The Nader Effect

[cyber-vandal]

But I still say that if Gore does lose, then it is his own fault for not addressing the issues that caused people like yourself to vote Nader. No blame should be attached to the Green Party for his incompetence.

Re:The Nader Effect

[jesser]

Had Nader not been running, most of his 3% in Florida would have gone to Gore, giving the veep the presidency.

Had Nader not been running, Gore and Bush would have used different campaign strategies than they did. Heck, another party might have taken the Greens' place as the "left of the dems" party. Assuming there was no other party in the place of the Greens, though, perhaps the dems would moved a few millimeters right and grabbed some centrist voters. Whether that would have been a good thing is debatable.

--

Gore still the same

[osgeek]

Late last night I watched the proceedings with much excitement. Finally, Gore called Bush to concede the election. A little while later, the Florida issue came to light and Gore called Bush back to recant the concession.

All I have to say is this:

Can't Gore ever keep his word?

Maybe just this once?

what should a popular/EC split result in?

[pergamon]

[this is all based on the assumption that what currently is most likely to happen does indeed happen.]

So it looks like the best that could happen for GWB is that he is elected to the office of President on a technicality (calling the Electoral College a technicality might be a *bit* harsh, but...). This would be because despite the fact that more voting Americans want AG to be the next President than GWB, GWB will actually win because of the Electoral College vote.

This is not an attack on the Electoral College system, as if the current situation plays out, many other people will do that for me (as I suggest below). Instead, I'm worried about what GWB *should* do.

GWB is 100% constitutionally/legally entitled to the office, and he would not be the first to be elected in such a manner.

However, GWB has run *most* of his campaign on the "character issue" in one form or another. Issues were discussed, but too often those discussions ended with him evoking the cry of electing someone who is not a "Washington insider" (though I'm not sure the son of a former VP and President who spent as many years as his father did in Washington can be considered an outsider, but that's another story).

What kind of character does a person have if they take the office as 100% theirs and theirs alone if more people wanted someone else to have it? A poor one. A decent person would keep the office (because they have legally been appointed to it), but spend a great deal of time making ammends to RESPECT the decisions indicated by the citizens of the United States.

So I'm curious: what do you think that he could do in this reguard? Any historians who know if those who were elected under similar circumstances did anything of the sort?

On NBC this morning (early morning) someone suggested that one way would be for GWB to appoint a primarily Democratic cabinet, which would be especially appropriate given his battle cry of bipartisan cooperation. One thing he would have to do to have any of my respect would be to do all he could do, as President and notible member of the majority party in the House and Senate, to get an ammendment that would eliminate the role of the Electoral College.

[of course, all this is moot if somehow a few hundred thousand national votes are found to be in GWB favor or the Florida recount results in a AG win there. also, if i've made any *mistakes* above, i welcome corrections.]

Voting Oversight

[jeffry_smith]

I know in my town, the Town Moderator & Selectmen oversee the process. At the start of the voting, the Moderator has one each Democrat & Republican look in & confirm no ballots are in the box, then he locks it. At least two of the above are at the box at all times.

At the end of the voting, the box is opened in the presence of the Moderator, Selectmen, and representative of each of the parties. Then, these folks all sit down and each count the vote, until everyone (Moderator, Selectmen, and party reps) agree on the count.

Not in the least!

[TheDullBlade]

"Concede" actually means to acknowledge a truth, in this case that your opponent has won. When this takes place in a friendly contest, such as a fencer saying "touche", it ends the match, as the loser has admitted that he has been beaten (he has not just given up because he thinks he'll lose!) would certainly not lie and is in the best position to determine that he has lost. It's the sportsmanlike thing to do when you've been fairly beaten.

To withdraw before the victory is established is not properly called a concession, but a surrender, or simply a withdrawal.

At any rate, this is not a friendly match, but a very serious matter. The "rulebook" in this case doesn't consider the loser the best judge of his own defeat. A concession has no legal force, Gore did not withdraw from the running, but rather (mistakenly or not) concurred with Bush's belief that Bush had won.

--------

What if Florida were a draw?

[qts]

Here in the UK, constituency elections which end in a draw are settled by luck (drawing straws or tossing a coin), but what happens if the votes in Florida are tied?

qts

Critique of Electoral College - bibliography

[__aanekd3853]

At some point it seemed that a likely - or at least possible - outcome in terms of electoral votes would be 271/269. This reminded me of a little paperback I read years ago: "Presidential Lottery: The Reckless Gamble in Our Electoral System" by James A. Michener. I found it quite fascinating at the time (and I am not American), I wonder how popular it will become now. Ironically, I could not find it on Amazon (or elsewhere, hence no URL), but in the process I came across a couple of other titles that look relevant. Michener's book is the only one I read, and I would recommend it to anyone interested in the topic.

Re:CNN Reported on the 1,2,3,5 and 6th place parti

[babbage]

Well, Greens were being cited as the spoiler against Gore (whether or not this is true -- I'm skeptical), and the Reform party (with Natural Law & Hegelin as a sort of splinter of it) have the federal matching funds on their side.

You've got a good point, but it isn't necessarily a conspiracy...

Re:Nader Ruined the Economy.

[SquadBoy]

There will be no "constitutional crisis" This is what is supposed to happen. The popular vote has always meant nothing. Now you are right on the other point. I've been saying for years that we need to do away with the electoral college and I think, from the talk around the office this morning, that more and more people are finally starting to agree. I think that with the way it is now we will have the best of all possible worlds for the next 4 years basically complete gridlock. The governemnt will leave us alone and we will continue to work and play and maybe in that time we will be able to get rid of the electoral college and really have our vote count next time around. Go Venture in 2004

the role of Nader, and vote-swapping, in florida

[abde]

While it's true that the entire election hinges on Florida right now, it's incredibly interesting to note the role that Nader played in the margins. these states below were considered "swing states" that really could make a difference. consider how thin the margin was in each, compared to the total votes Nader drew:

(# electoral votes - State - Gore's margin of victory/loss - Nader's total vote)

=== Gore Wins ===
23 - Pennsylvania (PN) - 196,000 - 102,000
11 - Wisconsin (WI) - 5,000 - 28,000
7 - Iowa (IA) - 4,000 - 28,000
11 - Washington (WA) - 89,000 - 69,000
18 - Michigan (MI) - 204,000 - 81,000

=== Gore loses ===
11 - Tennessee (TN) - (-79,000) - 20,000
6 - Arkansas (AR) - (-40,000) - 12,500
11 - Missouri (MO) - (-79,000) - 38,000

=== in play ===
7 - Oregon (OR) - (-21,000) - 54,000
25 - Florida (FL) - (-1800) - 97,000

main points:

1. Nader wasn't a real threat in Pennsylvania, which was a critical state for Gore. Gore won a decisive victory.
2. Nader almost cost Gore Wisconsin and Iowa - Gore's margins were so thin there that he probably won only by "Green Guilt" (Nader voters thankfully convinced that their vote for Nader was indeed a vote for Bush). Also, it is VERY likely that "vote swapping" played a KEY role in the results from these states, because the various swapping sites on the internet report a combined total of ~10 - 15,000 participants.
3. Gore grabbed Washington and Michigan despite the Nader threat, a large enough margin that Nader probably wasn't a real threat.
4. The three states that Gore lost which he had been counting on (TN, AR, MO) were lost by large enough margins that even Nader's votes woudln't have helped. Had Gore managed to win these states he woudl have not needed Florida.
5. Oregon is being slightly spoiled, according to latest results. But Oregon isn't as critical now since WA and MI went to Gore.
6. Florida is being HUGELY spoiled! look at the tiny margin - less than 2,000 votes - and compare it to Nader. This is also exactly how WI and IA could have gone, except that even taken together they only have 18 votes and FL has 25.

Assume that 40% of Nader votes were spoiled from Gore and 60% were not going to vote for Gore anyway (these estimates are conservative, based on some exit polling info on TV). Then in Florida, that means Gore could have had (Nader votes x 40%) = (97,000 x .40) = ~35,000 votes. That's nearly *20 times* as many votes as the margin.

What does this all mean? It shows how close the election hinged. Gore could have easily lost WI and IA as well, which would have cost him the election right there. It's very possible that vote-swapping is what saved WI and IA for Gore. Florida is still in play by the thinnest margin in history, because of SEVERE Nader spoiling.

So, if Gore loses, it's because of Nader (who publicly promised to not campaign in swing states, but broke his word). If Gore wins, it's quite likely that it was won in WI and IA for him by vote-swappers :)

(data from MSNBC. conclusions and analysis from mybutt.com)

ooh, another cool article from New York Times:

Asleep at the wheel

[fendel]

From the New York Times:
We tracked citizen knowledge about the candidates' positions on 12 issues. Last weekend, in the campaign's closing days, there was only one position -- Al Gore's stand on prescription drugs -- on which half or more of the respondents could accurately identify a candidate's stand.

As I type this, some of my coworkers are having a pleasant "isn't this interesting" discussion about the election--not that they're discussing the above factoid, of course: who reads newspapers? Much more entertaining to watch Dan Rather spout corny homespun similes all night on the idiot box. At any rate, I don't dare open my mouth; flames would come out. I probably shouldn't even be posting. I'm beyond the point where I can be calm and civil about this.

The candidates' positions were readily available to anyone who paid attention. I am absolutely livid that the next president of the US is being chosen by an electorate that is largely asleep at the wheel.

I've said this before, but: in a society where we believe that voting is both a duty and a right, why do so many people feel they have no responsibility to actually understand the issues they're voting on? No matter which way this election goes, I'm disgusted.

Re:Nader Ruined the Economy.

[Sodium Attack]

Ruined the economy? The person with the most control over the economy is not the president, but the chairman of the federal reserve board. Since both Bush and Gore would reappoing Greenspan to that post, this election makes little difference to the economy.

Why Your Vote Doesn't Count ... As Much

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a lot of us who didn't vote and our vote still didn't count simply because we live outside of Florida. Most people who don't vote because they feel their vote doesn't count are well justified in feeling so.

We all know how it works, but I'll go over it quickly for those who haven't taken a US civics course. It is ridiculously silly how we elect a president, and hard for many who don't live here to imagine. In the US, we DON'T elect a president. Each state votes for 'electors' who comprise an electoral college. In January, the electoral college gets together to decide who is president. Each state gets to send a number of electors equal to their number of senators (always two) plus their number of Congressional representatives (based on the population of your state in the last census). The city of Washington DC is not in a state, and they get to send a signle elector.

Now the weird part. States can decide to send electors however they want. All but a couple of states have adopted a 'winner take all' system, so winning the popular vote in the state (even by 1 vote) means that you win that entire state's slice of the electoral college. This is why Florida is so critical. If the electors in the state of Florida were split along the lines of the popular vote in the state, Gore would probably win. This is also why a vote for Gore in a state like Texas was a wasted vote: the votes of your neighbors would all be for Bush and all of your electoral power would go to him anyway.

In addition to diluting the power of the popular vote, the electoral college also reinforces the status quo of the two party system. In 1992 Perot won very large precentages of most states' popular vote. In some cases he actually beat Bush (if I remember correctly). But it didn't matter in any case because the plurality winner in most of these contests was Clinton, who then took the whole of the respective state's electoral vote. This is why a vote for Nader, while a respectable protest vote, was a waste. Everybody knew Nader had no chance of getting more than one electoral vote. The system keeps third parties effectively locked out of the presidency.

Finally, the electoral college system makes it much easier to run a campaign that doesn't address the population as a whole, but rather panders to the needs of a few key areas. As many have commented, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and a couple other states were really the key in this election. The candidates spent a disproportional amount of time in these states compared to larger states California and New York because those states were already sealed up for Gore. Candidates make promises to regional issues, ignoring national issues, in attempts to steal voters. It is much easier for special interest groups to make a huge difference, especially if there is a local ballot issue that caters to their interests. Ohio apparently turned on the issue of gun control, with most of the voters in that state going for Bush because of Gore's stance on gun control, even though gun owners are a minority in Ohio and a minority in the nation. As a result, the battleground states make "voting irregularities" not only more likely, but also more pronounced.

Finally, remember we aren't voting for presidents, or even 'shares' of the presidential vote. Electors are real people and have been known to defect when time comes for them to actually cast votes. In an election this close, it could take only one defection to make a tie and two to steal the vote. You can bet that there will be intense lobbying to encourage electors to vote. Many lobbying efforts will appeal to the fact that the electoral vote doesn't accurately reflect the popular vote and that could serve as a good excuse to make the whole system seem far more worthless than it already is.

So, to sum things up, my vote still didn't count, at least it didn't count as much as it would have had I been in Ohio or Florida or Pennsylvania. More importantly, if I had voted for a "third party" candidate like Nader, it never would have counted for me.

In the end my president will be decided not by me, but a a bunch of back room politicians that I don't really know, who can have entirely different agendas than I.

The Elian Factor

[CarterUSM]

I've been thinking about it all day and I've finally figured out the root of the election problems in Florida: The Elian Factor. By my count* Elain recieved over 500,000 write in votes for President, despite being 6 years old. His underground campaign rallied around the slogan "Disneyworld for everyone!" Apparently some of the same far-sighted seniors that voted Buchanan instead of Gore also voted Celine Dion instead of Elian.

* Count verified by My-Uncle-Herb-Who-Heard-It-From-Gladys-Down-The-St reet, inc.

Florida

[nerpdawg]

In florida as of 9:13 AM EST according to CNN Gore is actually ahead in florida with 100% of precincts reporting. That means write-ins, too. Florida is not one of the states that allows write-ins to be just postmarked on the day of the election. It has to *be* there. And it was in that tally. Gore is ahead, though, by 200 votes. Meaning absolutely nothing until after a recount.

Check Out the Picture of the Florida Ballot

[bearclaw]

If you want to see what the ballot looked like in Florida, check out the pictures here (http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/Daily News/ELECTION_WatchdogPart4001107.html)& lt; /A>.

Personally, they don't look to confusing to me. The "second hole" (ha, ha) appears to be equidistant from both Gore's ticket and Bush's ticket. I really don't see how you could have misunderstood it.

I think /. messed up my hyperlink, so you might need to type it in manually.

And so we wait...

[WhiskeyJack]

...to find out who the next President will be.

Welcome to Indecision 2000!

-- WhiskeyJack

Re:And so we wait...

[Dannon]

Welcome to Indecision 2000!

Never before has the Daily Show been so prophetic. One friend of mine has called this Schroedinger's Election.

So, if I don't actually look at the polls in Florida, does that mean neither of these schmucks is the next President? Or, nightmare of nightmares, does that mean that both of them are?

---

sad

[Evro]

It's sad that whoever wins, 49.x% of the people hated him. Not exactly a mandate from the people.

Also, if bush wins, we'll see the republicans controlling the Legislative, Executive, and soon the Judicial branches -- the definition of tyranny as laid out by the founders. But I somehow doubt that all the NRA folks are planning a revolution anytime soon. Sorry to see the constitution fail us here.

__________________________________________________ ___

on behalf of florida

[unformed]

i apologize for whatever the results are
--------------

Electoral College

[giberti]

It's time that states start spliting their electoral college votes. That would give a much more accurate count for future elections. The electoral college seems to a good job at keeping things fair and of avoiding a hyper-democracy. But it would be nice if Florida could split its votes accordingly to the way the population voted.

I heard on wmal a DC area talk radio station last night, if a canditate wins a district, they will get the electoral vote for that district (the vote granted by the house rep.) And if the candidate wins the state, they will get the other two votes (from the sentators) so a state like Florida may pass some votes to each party.

Currently only two states are doing this. I think if we moved towards this, we would be able to keep the checks and balances in place and still move towards a vote which although the popular vote may lean in one direction, the electoral college votes someone else in!

It's confirmed -- Nader cost Gore the election

[Phloighd]

So it's all come down to Florida, with a gap of less than two thousand votes.

Nader garnered more than 96,000 votes. Okay, maybe not all those folks would have automatically voted for Gore, but certainly more than a few thousand of them.

There's your direct evidence right there. None of this makes me happy. But it's obvious.

In Virginia...

[jocknerd]

I'm buying stock in Smithfield Packing and then taking my earnings and starting a bottled water business. This is because George (bratty fratboy) Allen won a senate seat. As governor, he continually let Smithfield Meat Packing off the hook after they violated EPA regulations. The river there is one of the most polluted in the country. Plus as governor, he made Virginia the 3rd most imported state for trash. What a legacy!

And the rednecks of Virginia love him. I can say that. I've lived here all my life.

Early post... ;-)

[hades]

(it seems 'first post' is filtered by the 'lameness filter'...)

BTW: Being a non-US citizen, I prefer Al Gore; he seems less chauvinistic and more open-minded...

Now that the president of the US is more and more becoming 'president of the world', it is not a comfortable feeling that the faith of the rest of the world is in the hands of the American people... (or should I say: in the hands of the Florida voters...)

... my two cents ...

Re:Shell script to get latest Florida count from C

[Anonymous Coward]

To see it updated every minute, use the watch command:

watch -n 60 script.pl

I suppose someone could modify the script to ring a bell when the tally changes.

way to go Nader

[Scudsucker]

Didn't get your five percent.
Pissed off the democrats, so even if you were to get elected as say, a senator, you will have virtually zip in the way of allies.

Got just enough to be a spoiler, nice job.

Re:Nader Ruined the Economy.

[Rupert]

You say:

That's 5 million for Bush and 4 million for Gore, so Bush wins. But only the people in State A actually wanted him; the other three states voted unanimously against them. But because A's population is so large, it unfairly controls the election. B, C, and D have no real voice. This is hardly "the will of the people" that the Constitution mandates be put into office.

is not fair, so you add an electoral college to get:

Bush won the popular vote in A, so he grabs those seven. Because he only won one state, that's all he gets. But Gore, having won three states, gets 3+3+4=10 votes, and takes the election.

Now the "will of the 4 million people" has triumphed over the "will of the 5 million people" and that is supposed to be better?

I did the math again this morning. If you take the 39 smallest states you can win in the electoral college with 20% of the popular vote. If you take the 12 largest states you can win in the electoral college with 30% of the popular vote. The electoral college disenfranchises 50% of the population.


--

The "Gore/Buchannan" ballot!

[b1t r0t]

http://a802.g.akamai.net/7/802/2068/973704293/www. rushlimbaugh.com/ home/today/PALMBALLOT.Par.0001.ImageFile.gif

I'd make it a live link, but /. keeps wanting to put blanks in a link that long. Sorry, guys, some URL re-assembly required.

Re:The "Gore/Buchannan" ballot!

[b1t r0t]

I gave a "deep link" because the page was loading slow, but I think someone was just hogging the pipe here at work. Here's the real page:

http://rushlimbaugh.com/home/today/PALMBALLOT.html

conservative supreme court

[alprazolam]

you forgot to mention the conservative supreme court as the democrats fault also. if clinton hadn't nominated the second most conservative member (thomas) we wouldn't have to worry about it. so liberals are actually hurting themselves by voting for another democrat who could have ended up doing the same thing. i used to be a democrat, but i recently decided that the political system is corrupt and the only way to begin dismantling it is support libertarians.

Re:FL decided by young voters?????

[Sodium Attack]

The press is not saying that all absentee ballots are military. What they are saying (if you bothered to pay attention to the reports) is that all the absentee ballots except overseas military have already been counted and are included in the vote totals that you're seeing.

they said I was wasting my vote....

[kauai_geek]

During a late-nite drug binge, the man in my television told me that a vote for Nader was a vote for Bush. I thought to my self, "Wow! That's like getting to vote twice! I'd be a total sucker to pass that one up!"

Surfing is religion

you are silly

Re:NADER WINS!

[xmedar]

Well not quite but in a strange sort of way yes. Given the huge amounts of money thrown at the campaign, the media calling Florida for one candidate then another the farce that has happened may actually be a really good thing, because people will start asking more questions of the system rather than just passively listening to whatever the politicians / media is saying. This could be a turning point in how the whole corporate media is perceived by the American public, and that to my mind is good thing.

I'm tickled pink

[Sloppy]

If Gore won the pop vote, then I really hope Bush wins the election. Nothing could please me more (except having an intelligent candidate (e.g. Browne) win, but that's just wishful thinking). I hope there's a lot of whining over this, maybe even some reform like instant-runoffs (whoops, there I go with the wishful thinking again).

I love how it seems to all come down to Florida, the patron state of alt.tasteless.

---

Re:Shell script to get latest Florida count from C

[ibanix]

Awesome. Thanks!

other junk including the Roe vs Wade thing....

[Rahga]

I may never agree with the roe versus wade decision, as I consider it to be an area where people want to be "damn wrong, dammit!", because I don't see how it could not violate the constitutionally aknowledged right of life (the one followed by liberty and pursuit of happiness). But probably the thing that I can't believe the public doesn't realize most is that if it was overturned, it simply becomes a matter goverened by state law (just as any other issue, such as sales tax and the more commonly accepted forms of murder.) If Utah wanted to say "We do not want abortion on demand in our state!", the people have NO power to pass such a law. I see big problems with that. The federal government has far to much control over the states, and I can see why many states simply see how allowing abortion will help turn their communities south. If I wanted to live in a bastion of sin, I'd go to California and New York and probably vote for Nader and Gore too (I admit that Bush isn't wonderful either, but his cabinet and policies blow the other two away. We've seen republican economic policy for most of the last 20 years, and nobody recognizes that. Greenspan what? :) ).
If Gore was really for the people and not the powerful, he'd give them more local control over government and weaken the federal government. The powerful is the federal government. Nader, if you really want the corruption and power injected by the corporations to go away, then make the federal government a non-target for them. Your real agenda is to make the federal government more powerful, which would make for more corruption and abuse through politicians working the system. More potential for damage there than what any corporation will ever be able to bring.

Re: Wellington

[bwz]

Arthur Wellesley was the 1st Duke of Wellington, he was the general who defeated (well, commanded the soldiers that :-) ) Napoleon at Waterloo.

Don't know about the quote though.

Erik

Has it ever occurred to you that God might be a committee?

I just want to say

[arkham6]

All you idiots who say that your vote does not count, I hope that you are learning from this. I'm sure there are a lot of people in florida who are kicking themselves in the rear right now for not voting.

On a side note, I just heard on the radio that there is some confusion going on in West Palm Beach. Seems that around 3000, people who wanted to vote for Gore accidentaly voted for Buchanan due to a problem with the voting booths. Hmmmmmm. I hear the conspiracy theorists going to town now.

Nader supported by Republicans

[haus]

It appears that the Republican plan of supporting Nader faniacally has paid off he has done just enough to take the edge of in several hotly contested races [including Florida Now we just have to wait and see if we are going to get the cocaine using millitary deserter, or the stiff guy.

all persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental. - Kurt Vonnegut

Re:Military vote is NOT generally Republican --agr

[alprazolam]

the military is the governments largest social program. army administrative pay is probably the biggest waste of taxpayer money their is.

Re:the role of Nader, and vote-swapping, in florid

[elomire]

No he didn't you idiot. Some of Nader's votes would've gone to Bush as well, about 25% of them. Gore would've gotten 40% of them. The others wouldn't have voted. Also if you add the Buchanan votes (who would've voted for Bush). Then you still get a Bush victory. So shove it.

Focus now on battleground states

[edremy]

After all, who would campaign in Rhode Island otherwise?

Then again, who would campaign in a "safe" state otherwise? I live in Virginia, a "safe" state for Bush. Did either candidate visit Virginia much? No. Didn't see a single TV or print ad for either candidate. (Not that I'm complaining ;^)

Personlly, I say switch to the Aussie system: rank all candidates. Popular vote majority wins. If no candidate gets a majority, remove the candidate with the lowest number of votes and give them to the person ranked #2 on each ballot. Continue eliminating candidates and redistributing until one candidate has a majority.

Eric

Florida Results Link

[jon_adair]

I didn't see it in the comments, so here's the direct link to the F lorida election results from their Department of State.

It's currently slash-nationed, I think, but it worked earlier this morning and it's what the trigger-happy media outlets were quoting as their official source at times.

I notice it's an ASP page. I hope they had installed the IIS patch for the "Web Server Folder Traversal" vulnerability.

Re:Live by the media. Die by the media.

[testpoint]

Al Gore has spent his entire adult life working towards the presidency. Yet within 30 minutes of Dan, Peter, and Tom saying that Bush had won Florida he called to concede. Earlier, when the same trio claimed Florida for Gore, Bush said, "Let's see what the people actually counting the ballots have to say." Who would you rather have for President, someone who listens to the network anchors or someone who listens to the people?

Shell script to get latest Florida count from CNN

[divec]

#!/bin/sh

echo -n 'Bush winning by '

lynx -dump http://www.cnn.com/ | grep -2 PRESIDENT | perl -e '

while(<>){$n[$i++] = $1.$2.$3 if /\s(\d),(\d{3}),(\d{3})/}print $n[0]-$n[1];'

echo ' votes in Florida.'

Confusing Buchanan and Gore

[ackthpt]

Sample taken from a Palm Beach ballot:

<FONT SIZE="-3">Patrick Buchanan, not</FONT>AL GORE

I swear I am not making this up!

©Dave Barry, Miami Herald

--

Link to story on ballot problems ...

[Pfhreakaz0id]

on ABCnews.com

This seems fairly serious. I think the Florida thing will end up in court on several things. Just too damn close to call. Regardless, whoever ultimately "wins" the presidency, they will have no mandate, face a highly split House and Senate (both still have Republican majorities, but closer than before), and, if it's Bush, can't even claim he got the most popular votes!
---

Re:Link to story on ballot problems ...

[CarbonCopy]

No see what you've done!
You've slashdotted abcnews.com!
You should've known that such a small site like abcnews can't handle all this /. traffic. :)

Seriously tho', can anyone paste the text of the abc site?


"I do not go believe comes out therefrom that I will concentrate on always more special zones."

Its a machine generated default score

[gelfling]

Nobody moderated anything, Einstein.

Re:Bush won. Gore conceded. Just accept it, mmkay?

[LineNoize]

According to a story on MSNBC, one woman who was a poll monitor in that county said that some people were asking questions but that the poll monitors were not allowed to say anything... Sounds strange if you ask me...

And if you wanted Bush

[gelfling]

Just drive drunk to the next militia meeting.

Voting FOR a candidate instead of AGAINST one

[d.valued]

I have been, and will continue to be, a vocal advocate of Ralph. So, if you want to give me a "Flamebait" point, at least read this first.

Ralph Nader, if anything, got more people interested in this election. The kinds of people who would vote for Ralph are people who found The Battle Of The Juniors (Bore Jr. and Gush Jr.) too comfy for those who gave them insane amounts of cash. (Enough to run NT well. That's scary.)

The people who voted for Ralph wanted their vote to count towards something. This time around, and with all probability next time as well, it was to get 5% of the popular vote and get federal funds in 2k4.

Too many of the people I talked to while I politicked (excuse the misspelling if any: I mean "the act of shamelessly promoting my candidate by passing out literature near a polling place") said the same lies that I had heard over and over again from people I knew, and who I converted to Nader from Gore.

x "Roe v. Wade": Bush Jr. and the Republicans ain't stupid. They may not like it, but women, a significant part of the voting population, do. They have said time and again that overthrowing Roe v. Wade would be tantamount to political suicide.

x "It's the Supreme Court, stupid.": A case of history for you. The postwar period had Republicans nominate a few judges for The Big Promotion to the Supreme Court. You might know them: Warren, Brennan, Stevens, Blackmun, and Souter. These guys were pretty damned liberal: they went for civil rights and against the conservative ebb of the Repos. Recently, the Democratic Senate in the early 90's allowed two drek judges, Scalia (who was put in 98-0 with Gore Jr. voting Aye) and Thomas (52-48, again a Gore Jr. Aye). Now, we have a nearly-even division of both houses, and that means (AFA the Senate) that the Dems can filibuster whatever, whenever. (You'll see a few newspapers under the arms of Dems to give time-killer filler.) So, assuming Bush Jr. wins, he's got to pick moderates with no paper (case history) on abortion.

x "A Vote For Nader is a Vote For Bush": The people who voted for Ralph ain't hardcore loyal Dems. They are technically classified as independant, but they lean towards the border between liberal and radical, in the fuzzy zone of progressive. They want change because there are ungodly numbers of poor and starving people in this country. They want change because the rich are building their fortunes, their mansions, their portfolios on the backs of people unable to get a simple checking account. They want change because no one else will talk about the dirty side of life in America where 1/4 of the families of Texas and California live in poverty, with another 1/4 damned near it.
Also, had Nader not ran, Gore wouldn't have switched tactics. He sounded like "Nader-lite" with his ripping on the rich. (They knew it was tactics: after all, they gave him his $125+M war chest.) He won people by sounding like a man for change, though we all know that at least the 107th Congress shalt do naught (good)

But the reason people turned out so much in this election was not so much to vote for a candidate. (Most of those people are either lifelong party members or Naderites.) They came out to vote AGAINST a candidate. They fell into the trap of two evils.

When you go for the lesser of two evils, you end up with.. two evils.

Here ends the lesson.

PS: I'm going to change the sig to "You voted Republocrat? Now we ALL suffer!"

Re:CNN Reported on the 1,2,3,5 and 6th place parti

[mttlg]

According to CNN, Browne came in third in 2 states, fourth in 20, fifth in 22, sixth in 6, and was not on the ballot in 1. In several of the states that placed him third or fourth, Nader and/or Buchanan were not on the ballot. Browne beat Buchanan in 16 states and was on two ballots that Buchanan was not on. Unfortunately, CNN does not show the national total for Browne.

Re:Nader gave USA to Republican Nazis

[Rombuu]

Nader's failure to work with the democrats made sure that the country will be run by Republican Nazis for at least the next four years. I hope you don't need to get an abortion, Bush will make sure it is outlawed.

Heh, in this moron's fantasy world the president passes legislation...

Re:I must have misread!!!!!

[MSHNR]

Educated? ROFLMAO!!! "Gee, I wonder why Al Gore's arrow is pointing to the third hole and not the second. Oh well, I'll punch the second."

Shady Reporting by CNN

[Eric Berg]

Did anyone else notice that CNN completely ignored Harry Browne in their live coverage last night? Even though he did almost as well as Buchanan, they didn't list him with the state presidential election results. However, they did list the Natural Law candidate John Hagelin, who got less than a quarter of the votes Browne did. Further, on their web site, they didn't list the total popular votes Browne got, but did list Buchanan. Given that Harry was on the ballot in 49 states and placed fifth, I find this highly suspect. I can't fathom why they'd ignore him, yet report diligently on a minor third party contender like Hagelin. Any thoughts?

Eric Christian Berg

I know how to choose the winner...

[Macdude]

Put them both in ThunderDome! [chants] Two men enter, one man leaves. Two men enter, one man leaves. Two men enter, one man leaves. [/chants]

Oh I'll remember all right....

[flimflam]

I particularly look forward to watching Bush back off of his campaign promises one by one as their contradictory nature becomes clear.

Re:One Vote *does* Count

[Sodium Attack]

In 1868, *one vote* saved President Andrew Johnson from impeachment.

Nothing saved Andrew Johnson from impeachment. He was impeached. He was not convicted.

While one or two of your examples have merit, most are cases where one vote in a legislature, electoral college, or similar body made a difference--not the vote of one average person.

Perhaps your posts could use a little more critical thought, and a little less cut-and-paste.

Who says the "Framers" were wise?

[Deskpoet]

So, either the Founding Fathers, who managed to get a couple other things right, were elitist snobs; or perhaps they were a bunch of idiots; OR maybe there's some purpose to having such a system, which takes an attention span longer than a sound bite to comprehend.

This presupposes that the Founding Fathers were acting in any interest other than there own. I suppose it *is* wise to cover one's ass, but that activity hardly qualifies as wisdom in the Platonic sense. The Framers were acting to maintain their position of power, just as the landed gentry ALWAYS have done. (It's not surprising your link points to that prostitute-to-power Will: he speaks for the very people the Framers' passed their money down to.)

Please don't elevate slave owners to god status. The whole lot of them were every bit as greedy as today's San Francisco VC boys (with the possible exception of Paine, who was not really consulted when it came time to create the "republic".)

Jefferson may have been a bright man, as was Hamilton. However, that doesn't mean they weren't classist, statist apologists for a system of control that ulitmately wiped out the native population, maintained slavery as a viable form of employee relationship, while at the same time silencing the voices of most of "the People".

And yesterday, their legacy put a drooling moron into the Presidency. Some wisdom.

GORE wins popularity vote but not the election?

[johnnnyboy]

This has happenned here during my porvinces election. The liberal party won a convincing majority vote but not enough seats (electoral votes). Instead a fascist/seperation party won. yeah no joke!
You really have to wonder if this is a really democracy after seeing this.

What I'd like to see is...

[Skinny Rob]

...the final votecount in Florida to be absolutely dead even for Bush and Gore. Not a single vote in it. Then they'll have to wheel out some faintly comical tiebreaking procedure such as

• The toss of a coin
• A clam-eating contest
• A boxing match
• Alligator wrestling: the guy who gets eaten first loses

Nader Factor

[drsoran]

I'm sorry for the democrats out there. There is a very slim chance they might win a recount but from what I've read of the history, recounts RARELY ever affect the turnout of an election. For all intents and purposes, the recount is just an exercise to satisfy the democrats out there. Bush won the state fair and square and won the 271 electoral votes needed to become President of the United States. I would probably be bitching too if the roles were reversed and Al Gore was up by 1700 votes though too. It's wishful thinking but I wouldn't keep your hopes up. This will go down in the history books folks.

I think this has to be the closest election in American history if we judge it on the fact that we're relying on 1700 votes in Florida as the deciding factor and not the popular vote (~250k with Gore leading in that case.. still, that's only .27% of the voting population.. a VERY slim statistical lead if anything). It all basically comes down to Nader though. He got what he wanted and made a name for himself. He also cost the democratic party the ticket to the Whitehouse.

If Nader had not run Gore would have given his victory speech early last night and we'd be looking at another 4 years of the same old bullshit.. Republican congress, Democratic President, nothing gets done and it's politics and partisan bickering as usual. Now we have a very interesting ordeal. The senate is VERY close now and a moderate Republican or Democrat here or there could swing issues back and forth.

I think you'll find the government under Bush to take a much more moderate stance than we can ever remember in recent memory. There aren't going to be any blatantly anti-abortion justices that get appointed to the supreme court because they'll never get through the Senate confirmation so don't worry about it pro-choice people. Bush isn't going to take the chances of doing that either because he'll be wanting to gain popular support amongst moderates so he will not try to have Roe-Vs.-Wade overturned.. at least, not unless he wins in 2004 as well. A lame duck Republican President with a Republican congress can be a liberal's worst nightmare. :-)

Re:bullshit, nader supporters screwed us all

[PotPieMan]

You have to remember that Gore, as vice president, didn't really have much power. Any promises he made as vice president (or as a candidate for vice president) were primarily to help Clinton out.

The election is coming down to my state, Florida, where the difference between Bush and Gore is 2000 votes. This is where the difference is really going to hurt (am I the only person who sees differences between Bush and Gore on the issues of education and reproductive rights?), and one reason why the vote swapping sites seemed like a really good idea.

Re:FL decided by young voters?????

[DarkShard]

1) See above reply 2) Being a firm believer in the Bill of rights, I don't and neither should anyone holding personal liberties near and dear to their heart. If there was anything going on it will be found out by Gore's interests and brought to light, bringing a major public trail of all involved, directly or otherwise. 3) questioning the wisdom of our elders is in everyway our responcebility if we like it or not. If this system has failed us, I personally believe it has given to much faith in the american people including and not limited to myself. How else are we arguing over bush vs gore and not laughing our poorly informed asses off. Becareful what you wish for, since popular majority in this election is meaningless.

Nader Ruined the Economy.

[Peeptophe]

Thanks to Ralph stealing votes, he has thus destroyed the economy by allowing Bush to win. Nader stole votes from Gore and what is a bigger upset is the fact that he never even got the 5% they had hoped for. With Bush in office, we're one chicken bone away from higher unemployment and a rotten economy. I can't believe anyone out there would have voted for a guy that looks like the Queen Mother.

A vote for Bush is a vote for Morons everywhere.

Holier than thou Democrats

[gruntvald]

What a bunch of sore losers. Your absurd claim that folks who voted Nader would have voted Gore smacks of the arrogance that is rampant in the Democrat party. All the folks I know who voted Nader did so because they believed in his campaign. For them it was a choice between Bush or Nader, they would never have voted Gore, in fact, they despise him. Hey - progressive votes are not your god given right (or Buddhist given right, or coporate given right). I voted Nader 'cos I loathe the sell out democrats more than anything. They talk the talk, but sell out to China, and big money at the drop of a hat. Gore dropped the ball. Why can't you democrat dung funnels accept that?

One small comment about Nadar vote

[dsfox]

The difference between Bush and Gore is far less than the Nadar vote in quite a few states, without a Nadar candidacy Gore would have won the electoral college by a wide margin even without Florida.