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WA Governor Recount Ends With 42-Vote Difference
Republican Dino Rossi came out on top of the gubernatorial recount in Washington state, beating Democrat Christine Gregoire by 42 votes. He had won the initial count by 261 votes. King County (where Seattle is) gave Gregoire a 245-vote swing. It's expected that the Democrats will call for a partial hand recount, which they would have to pay for (25 cents per vote), unless they end up winning the recount.
When its this close, you make sure you get it right. If that means a statewide recount, then so be it. Whats the downside of recounts as long as its done by January 12th?
Reality has a liberal bias
Common sense would say:
All elections, unless statistcally impossible, should have a hand recount after the fact, to be finished before the election day. Computer count(secure terminals, obviously, what a REQUIRED paper trail) and what not are fine, they give media the fast count. But those numbers arn't stuck until
1. the thought-to-be losing candidate drops out, or
2. the hand recount confirms the count
if there is any reasonable doubt about the process, the losing candidate(s) can petition a judge that says "X happened, that could have changed how votes were counted, please recount them after fixing this" the judge rules on wether it is reasonable for a recount(not in terms of winning/losing, but in terms of fraud or miscalculation) and then is so ordered.
HOWEVER, true common sense would say:hey, this system (two party, PDC, Diebold-esque voting flaws) we have is bullshit, we need to fix it. Personally IRV looks like the best fix, with electionic machines certified as safe with peer/government reviewed code and testing with a federally mandatory paper trail... and/or hand ballots.
But I am open to ideas
According to the Seattle PI this morning:
"But with the recount still favoring Rossi yesterday, Vance (State Republican party chairman) said the Democrats would only be dragging the state into a political quagmire. 'That's wrong,' Vance said. 'If Dino Rossi is ahead at the end of the day tomorrow, he is the governor-elect, this is over, and she (Gregoire) needs to do the right thing, the gracious thing and the honorable thing and concede.'
But if Gregoire is ahead, 'That's fundamentally different,' Vance said."
So, apparently, the line is drawn such that if a Democrat calls for a recount, it's political quagmire, but if a Republican calls for a recount, it's just... different.
Now that I think about it, the electoral college is good for a reason. Can you imagine a national recount? It would be absolutely terrible. Even a state-wide election is hard enough to run.
Why don't we just have electors for the governor's seat? We can send one elector from each legislative district, and then have them choose the governor. This way, a recount would only be warranted in districts that are close. (Districts in WA are about 100,000 people). Since the voting is much more local, it is much less subject to fraud and thus the unwarranted accusation of fraud.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
I know they wouldn't, because they Didn't. Six years ago Tom Daschle won his senate seat by less than 500 votes, most of which were extremely suspect. His Republican challenger refused to drag the results out, saying that it would do more harm than good.
In the Kennedy/Nixon election, Richard Nixon lost the vote under extremely suspect circumstances. He made the deliberate decision not to pursue because of the harm it would do to the nation. In fact, he made a personal phone call to the journalist who was beginning to uncover massive election fraud (in the hopes of winning a Pulitzer), and specifically requested the journalist stop investigating the matter.
In a senate race in Missouri a few years ago, the challenger, lost by a slim sympathy vote when the incumbent died during the race and his wife took his place. The wife replacing the husband in the middle of the race was probably illegal under Missouir law, but the Republican decided not to pursue the matter, citing that it would not be good for the state of Missouri to have the election process dragged through the mud.
The facts would seem to argue against your position that "they all do it."
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.