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Counting Glitches In Washington Governor Race
Fjornir writes "With 19 votes currently seperating the challenger from the incumbent in Washington state's race for governor, local news sites sites are reporting more glitches in the process for counting votes. This one, which has been described alternately as 'computer problems' and 'human error' as I've watched the story unfold, caused 6,200 ballots to be counted twice. This raises the question -- how many 'isolated incidents' are there going to be before we admit we have a 'real problem' on our hands?" Votes must be certified today, and a difference of less than 2,000 means an automatic statewide recount. If the difference is less than 150, that recount will be by hand (which is hard for the voting machines that have no paper trail). Update: 11/18 05:46 GMT by P : One candidate finished with a lead of 261, so the statewide recount will not be by hand, and should be completed before Thanksgiving.
You're a liar, and so is your friend.
Indeed? The taxpayers should foot the bill to allow some subset to choose the person favoured by a subset of the subset want on the ballot? Makes no sense at all. You can choose who represents YOU on the ballot in any fashion you like. You just can't restrict MY right to choose who represents ME, even by the artifice of holding a "Party Primary" for the purpose of excluding the minority of your own Party.
Last Congressional election, we had seven candidates on the ballot, as I recall. Five Democrats, two Republicans. How is anyone being disenfranchised there?
If the Lousiana Democratic Party wanted to pay for a Party Caucus, or send ballots to all registered Democrats, I'm sure they could have done so, if they only wanted one Democrat running. Same for the Republicans. No reason the State should foot the bill for an issue that is purely internal to the Party. NO reason that the Voters should be forbidden to vote for Edwin Edwards just because the Democratic Party didn't approve of him
Note, for the record, that the Dems approved of Edwards completely, and my choice of his name in this example is in no way meant to malign him - his conviction on various corruption charges later does that quite nicely.
Note further that his opponent in that race was a Nazi/KKK'er. The downside of the open system we use is that it tends to select for people a bit less middle-of-the-road. Being blah about everything doesn't tend to catch the voters' attention very well. Standing and speaking your mind works better, unless you are spouting complete nonsense - David Duke had to tone his previous rhetoric down a LOT to make himself acceptable to enough voters to reach the runoff. Lucky for us we'd rather have a crook than a Nazi....
Of course, it might be seen as infringing on the Rights of the other four Dems, who thought that they could do the job better then the one (who would have won the Primary, if we'd done it that way). I tend to think that individual civil rights matter more than the Parties' "civil rights".
we don't weaken voters by giving them LESS opportunity to get people on the ballot. There are generally MORE people on the ballot here than in other places. We're pretty easy about getting on a ballot here - we had at least eight Presidential candidates on our last ballot - how many were there in Washington State?
The Parties have flimflammed you into believing that THEIR interests come ahead of YOUR interests. I want the two best candidates to be in the runoff, not have a Superbowl sort of thing, where the best team from one Conference plays the best from the other (and the second best team overall stays home, because they were in the same Conference as the best team, which happens more often than not). Our system pretty much guarantees that, by making Party affiliation irrelevant to the ballots. YOu can choose to vote for someone whose ideas you like, and associate with like-minded people all you want. But Louisiana won't help you force YOUR ideas on the general public. If your guy is popular enough, he'll get the votes, no matter the Party.
If the two most popular guys are Republican, there won't be a Dem on the runoff ballot. If they're Dems, no Rep in the runoff. If they're Libertarian, neither Dems nor Reps. Here, it's all about ideas, not about Parties. We don't care whether the guy with the good ideas is a Dem or Rep or Lib or Green, and none of those characteristics make someone more or less electable here. Unlike, say, Washington, where if 51% of the Republicans don't like someone, he won't get o
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"