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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.
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.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
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.
No relation to Happy Monkey
Not really. Most will vote for who ever seems more likely to favor giving us a raise, which is usually republician.
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.
Is this a joke? And I don't get it..
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
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.
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
are they selling that bumper sticker yet?
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
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.
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.
Have you read my journal today?
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
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.
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
-knewter
Eric
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
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.
I do not have a signature
heh, they're both the antichrist as far as I'm concerned.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
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.
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
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.
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
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.
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
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.
"Don't mind me cutting myself on Occam's Razor"
www.eFax.com are spammers
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.
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E_NOSIG
Here's the Florida Election Commision Website. It's slashdotted.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
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.
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
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.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
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.
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E_NOSIG
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.
Prospecting Stinks. Stop Wasting Time on Cold Calling.
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.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
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
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.
GPL'd web-based tradewars themed space game
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!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
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.
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.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
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.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
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.
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Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
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.)
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
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
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.
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
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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.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
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?
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
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.
t
link: Florida Exit Polls by CNN.
Although imho exit polls are bogus.
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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).
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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.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
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. ;-)
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.
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.
illegitimii non ingravare
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.
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.
Bitcoin pyramid: Join here: http://www.bitcoinpyramid.com/r/1427 it's FREE!
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."
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
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.
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share and enjoy
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.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
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.
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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.
-=Best Viewed Using [INLINE]=-
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.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
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!
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
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.
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.
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.
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
print "CNN declares " . ("Bush", "Gore")[rand 2];
print " the winner of Florida\n";
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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...
t_t_b
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I think not; therefore I ain't®
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
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.
Whoa! 1770 people got to punch Buchanan? I want to punch him too!
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Obfuscated e-mail addresses won't stop sadistic 12-year-old ACs.
Win dain a lotica, en vai tu ri silota
Here are the facts:
A good picture (not just a diagram) can be found here.
things. take. time.
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 :)
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
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.
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A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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.
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
Let's make that a link:
/ ELECTION_WatchdogPart4001107.html
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/DailyNews
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.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
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...
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...
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
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A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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.
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.
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.
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There is no premature anti-fascism. -Ernest Hemingway
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!
GPL Deconstructed
>I'm going to throw a fit
.4% -- maybe they should settle it with fists)
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
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
Yes, but see-sawing back and forth was good for viewing figures and advertising dollars, which is obviously more important.
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.
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There is no premature anti-fascism. -Ernest Hemingway
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.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
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
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.
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
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
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
To err is human, to moo bovine
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
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.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
Here's a fun little thing to tide you over in the meantime: Bush and Gore rap!
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Zardoz has spoken!
Oper on the Nightstar
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
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.
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.
We need him more than you 'cos we're way more screwed up than you :P doneventhinkaboutit!
Maybe he'll settle for 500.001 points of light :)
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".
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.
~ radiographite: art by john shepard
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.
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.
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...
Surfing the net and other cliches...
(Who Meta-Meta-Moderates the Meta-Moderators?)
Every one I know that is in the military or recently got out (guess why)
They weren't asked but still told?
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.
"The things we wizards have to put up with."--Jethro Bodine
Who says that they even did their exit polls properly and scientifically? Personally, I always give a wrong answer to those people.
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.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
>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!)
--
___
Cognitive Overflow
more than yo
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
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
To err is human, to moo bovine
A vote for Nader was only half a vote for Bush. Do the math.
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
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.
If Bush is in office, the supremes that retire will also be conservative. No change in the court's ideology.
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
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
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
To err is human, to moo bovine
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
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.
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
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.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
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.
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.
AdFuel
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
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
I'm not sure why you'd make up something like this.
"Prejudice is wrong; you should hate everyone the same."
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.
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.
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.
"It's overkill, of course. But you can never have too much overkill." - Anonymous Slashdot Coward
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.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
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.
h ahahahahah!
Like you? Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
You crack me up.
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Buffy the Vampire Slayer wasn't even very good last night.
Lesbian Witches. How cliche.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
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.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
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.
--
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
That's what the pundits said about Jesse Ventura.
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
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. :-)
Babar
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.
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
"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)
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
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?
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.
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
Gore? A liberal? Oh please. Do not confuse "slightly less conservative than Bush" with "liberal".
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
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)
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
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.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
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.
Preferential Voting: easy as 1-2-3
Please educate yourself on the structure of U.S. government before presuming to educate others on it.
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
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
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
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.
-
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
-------------
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
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.
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.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
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.
Very unlikely. Electors are chosen from the party faithful.
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
FEC commissioner Mick Foley could arrange a title match, to be shown on pay-per-view, in three weeks or so.
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
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
-Michael
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?
-
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.
I do not have a signature
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.
--
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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,
Regards,
-scott
You forget that in the U.S., complete morons can and do vote.
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
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.
= programsummaries
How CNN censored the Crossfire episode:
http://www.kgoam810.com/viewentry.asp?ID=73474&PT
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.
Take a look at today's headline of my local newspaper. I think I might have a collector's item here.
This is another view of the world.
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.
---
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
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)?
"Don't mind me cutting myself on Occam's Razor"
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.
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Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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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.--
The shareholder is always right.
Sure... your vote didn't count unless you live in Florida....
/EL ECTION/2000/results/index.president.html)
;)
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
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
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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.
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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.
Sigs are awesome huh?
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."
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.
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.
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.
"Don't mind me cutting myself on Occam's Razor"
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.
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E_NOSIG
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.)
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
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.
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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).
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
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.
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Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
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. :)
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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.
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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?
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
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.
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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
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Don't blame me, I voted for Browne.
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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.
Mmmm.. Donuts
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
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).
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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.
-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
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.
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.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
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
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.
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Vidi, Vici, Veni
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.
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Compared to federal control over every aspect of life? Definitely.
"most" was an overstatement but the sentiment is correct: 24 states require that the elector vote as they were elected.
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....)
Gorkman
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.
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.
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Did your Bisexual girlfriend vote in this election?
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).
"On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero."
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
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.
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.
Look around, and choose your own ground. -PF
>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.
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Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
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.
Sig:
Barbeque is a noun. Not a verb.
.. 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.
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CitizenC
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:
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.
-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
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.
I do not have a signature
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?
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.
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.
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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.
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E_NOSIG
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.
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.
[javac] 100 errors
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
(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 ;-)
I am French
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.
How difficult can this be to understand? Go on, claim I'm unique- that doesn't scare me and besides it is a lie.
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.
/.ers don't see the geeky reasons why Condorcet voting is even better.)
(The best-known ranked ballot system is IRV, which is indeed far superior to the current plurality system. However, I'm disappointed that more
(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.)
Preferential Voting: easy as 1-2-3
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.
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?
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
Is that why Florida is called the Key State?
Random Electoral College link
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Yeah, but football's a lot cheaper.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
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..
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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.
> 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.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
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.
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.
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...
:) But boy, I enjoyed last night far more than the NBA finals. If nothing else, this election has been a great show.
that's irony.
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).
Tweet, tweet.
> 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?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
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!
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A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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.
~ radiographite: art by john shepard
"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.
Ph'nglui mgwlanafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgahnagl fhtagn. Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn!
> 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
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
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.
~ radiographite: art by john shepard
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..."
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?
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Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
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.
"Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!" - Kurt Vonnegut
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."
El Karma: excelente(principalmente la suma de moderación hecha a los comentarios de los usuarios)
Also, didn't you get the words backwards? Isn't it "General Attorney," not "Attorney General?" :^)
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.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
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...
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
This space for rent. Call 1-800-STEAK4U
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).
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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
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
To err is human, to moo bovine
See also A Vote for Bush Is a Vote for Gore
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How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
science is a religion
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.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
Just like to pint out that Jeb recused himself from the certification group.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
Surfing the net and other cliches...
(Who Meta-Meta-Moderates the Meta-Moderators?)
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.
________________________________________
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
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.
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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)
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E_NOSIG
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.
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E_NOSIG
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.
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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?]
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E_NOSIG
Ah, but imagine the welcome he'd receive from the other party. Ambassador to Tahiti? You got it!
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E_NOSIG
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.)
11.0010010000111111011010101000100010000101101000
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).
I had no idea, I just used Utah to represent typical ultra-right state represented by a really cool senator (Hatch)....
From CNN:
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
Karma: Bored. (Thinking about resurrecting the "Anyone else is an imposter" joke.)
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.
________________________________________
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
... 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 (=
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
-ESend mail here if you want to reach me.
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.
sulli
RTFJ.
I voted for Nader!
The cure for 1933 is 1917.
Could Bush and Lieberman win in Florida?
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).
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
[shrug] Obviously, blaming Nader is easier than fixing the system. (And it ain't just the voting system that's broke.)
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.
Wasn't the shoe on the other foot then?
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
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.
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.
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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.
---Joe Merlino gnupg public key ID: 1E91EBAF
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.)
"The things we wizards have to put up with."--Jethro Bodine
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
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
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.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
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.
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.]
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
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).
Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not after you!
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
J-aims
--
Yo, whatever happened to peas? Join T( H)GS
Anyone that still says that their vote doesn't count is full of it.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
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.
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seumas.com
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
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.
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
-- A New World, Unordered http://www.anwu.org/
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..
If it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.
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...
________
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
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The more I learn about the Internet, the more amazed I am that it works at all.
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
-Michael
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. .
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
--
--
We have fought the AC's, and they have won.
I think it's sad that we'll probably never know who the people of Florida *REALLY* wanted for President :-(.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
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.
The anti-salmon
"May you live in interesting times" -- Chinese curse.
Now hiring experienced client- & server-side developers
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
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. =)
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.
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
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.
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
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.
Anyone have any good links as to the benefit of the electoral system????
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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.
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
--
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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.
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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
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.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I really doubt that a re-count of allready counted votes would suddenly turn out completely different. I'd say Bush won.
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.
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. :)
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?
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
"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.
--------
You've got a good point, but it isn't necessarily a conspiracy...
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
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
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
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.
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
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.
...to find out who the next President will be.
Welcome to Indecision 2000!
-- WhiskeyJack
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.
--
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E_NOSIG
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.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
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.
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
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.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
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.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
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.
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
Here is a more thorough, less biased comparison of several voting methods.
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
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
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
#!/bin/sh
/\s(\d),(\d{3}),(\d{3})/}print $n[0]-$n[1];'
echo -n 'Bush winning by '
lynx -dump http://www.cnn.com/ | grep -2 PRESIDENT | perl -e '
while(<>){$n[$i++] = $1.$2.$3 if
echo ' votes in Florida.'
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
--
<FONT SIZE="-3">Patrick Buchanan, not</FONT>AL GORE
I swear I am not making this up!
©Dave Barry, Miami Herald
--
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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!---
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
Nobody moderated anything, Einstein.
Just drive drunk to the next militia meeting.
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!"
I used to be someone else. Now I'm someone better.
Real life is underrated.
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!
... 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."
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
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
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.
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.