"... mark a cross (X) in the blank space at the RIGHT of the name of the candidate for whom you desire to vote. "
Why isn't anyone noticing that the statute being quoted doesn't even properly apply to a punch card ballot.
It is unlikely that ANYONE succeeded in marking an "X" for their candidate on these ballots. It is not
simply the
format
of the ballot that is out of whack with the law, it is the entire
method
What is fair about letting this particular group of confused voters have a crack at voting again, and possibly changing their minds in the light of new information, while countless confused voters elsewhere are not accorded the same privalege?
Consider all the voters that were torn between Nader and Gore. Many of them are doubtless wishing they had chosen differently - and what voters are more confused than they?
Natapoff's theory was brought up yesterday in the discussion "And The Winner is... Nobody!".
I will say again what I said then. The purpose of an election is simply NOT to "maximize
the voting power" of any individual -- it is to put into government office the candidate
most acceptable to those that will be governed. Viewed with that in mind, it really doesn't
matter that Natapoff's analysis is flawed, (which it is), because even if it were perfectly
sound it would be irrelevent.
It is my understanding that the Florida polls in the Eastern timezone closed at 8 PM EST and the
Florida polls in the Central timezone closed simultaneously at 7 PM CST.
What you say makes some sense in the case of Congress, especially since there are Congressional districts and the views of, say, Long Island need not be "drowned out" by the views of New York City which has a much higher population. But the President is only one person and is expected to
execute the laws of and represent the interests of the nation as a whole. This has nothing to do with "abolishing state's rights".
I have seen any number of rationales for keeping the current system but everyone of them has the common defect of losing sight of the purpose of having a Presidential election in the first place.
The President is to represent the interests of the
NATION.
Actually in the case of either direct popular vote or, approximately the same thing, the Electoral College system with split votes, any candidate will head for whatever location has the highest concentration of "swing voters". The total number of electoral votes in the state that happens to contain such a concentration will be about as relevent as the number of letters in the name of the official state bird.
Under the EC+winner-take-all system candidates concentrate on "swing states" rather than "swing communities". Is this an advantage?
If the first place, no matter how we may reform the way we elect the President, (and VP), we remain a republic if for no other reason because of the way we elect Congress. Secondly there are any number of proposed alternatives to the EC besides simple majority vote. I would guess that the Governor of Alabama is elected by simple majority vote and last I heard that state has yet to "crumble" as a result.
Like another responder, I read the article and came away unimpressed. In the first place, the whole purpose of having an election is to install in government office the candidate that is most agreeable to those that will be governed. It is NOT to "maximize the voting power" of any individual. So Natapoff's entire analysis is based on a premise that is vaporous. The other responder pointed out that the analysis is flawed even granting this premise. (Some voter's power will be arbitrarily increased in some circumstances but only at the expense of some other voter's power).
Interesting that it looks like Gore's won the popular vote..
it appears that Gore's popular vote majority is due for all practical purposes
to his very strong showing in California. The WSJ was reporting by their evening
deadline with 75% the vote in, (and California still out), that Bush was leading
in the popular vote. Most of the states west of the Mississippi eventually went
for Bush.
As of about 4PM EST with data from http://www.sfgate.com/election/returns.html
Nationally
Al Gore (D) : 48,572,136 votes, (48.3%)
George W. Bush (R) : 48,329,891 votes, (48.0%)
Difference : 242,245
California
Al Gore (D) : 5,242,816 votes, (53.6%)
George W. Bush (R) : 4,052,422 votes, (41.5%)
Difference 1,190,394
So for the nation apart from California Bush "won" the popular vote.
After pointing out that the primary respondsability of the executive branch is to enforce rather than draft laws it is odd that you forget that the primary respondsability for the budget rests with Congress.
Re:Big problem: short storage times
on
Quantum Security
·
· Score: 1
Isn't the situation analogous to the problem of using charge leaking tiny capacitors to store bits of data, (aka DRAM)? If so, then the indicated solution is to continously refresh the data before coherence is lost. For security this could be done at a hardware level specifcally designed to be inaccessable to software. Or is the problem this: without a key the quantum state cannot be read and copied even in encrypted form?
The story is not really about this particular machine but about how IBM is becoming more of a presense in the supercomputer field. There is also a subtext about benchmarks.
I wonder if having a bunch of these in ones clothing would bollix airport security scanners. Getting to the gate might not be so simple as putting the cars keys in the plastic tray.
If the Electoral College were a deliberative body and the Electors actually representatives of the State's voters, (not just the Party of the winning candidate), then perhaps the system WOULD be working as designed.
If you really want to pursue this line of argument consistently then you must recogonize that even the "pile of money" would be nothing but IOUs backed only by the power of government to tax and not any better that the IOUs in the Social Security account. By this standard government is totally indebted even without Social Security. The government's debt is a slippery concept. Unless you are ready for a far more convoluted analysis that can be reasonably presented here, try focusing on the real cash flows as in my earlier response.
The trust fund may be a fiction, but the cash flows are real and there really is more currently coming in from "premiums" than are going out in payments. The "program" that loses the real money is, of course, the surplus - the disposal of which is what is at issue in the first place.
The idea of gradually reducing the future obligations of the system by voluntary opt-outs, to some degree, is a good one and not to be dismissed so easily.
You can't divert incoming payments to private accounts and at the same time use them
to do what you were doing before (paying existing obligations).
No, but since the Social Security account is CURRENTLY in surplus, (the deficits are projected for the future), you can divert funds from increasing that current surplus to the private accounts without taking anything away from existing obligations -- if by existing obligations you mean current payouts. If, however, you want to address how the future obligations can be met by present policies then that becomes a vastly complicated subject, far beyond the simplistic arithemetic being used by most critics in this discussion.
Timezones really have nothing to do with it. Assume for simplicity a 2 candidate race and no tie vote. The losing candidate ultimately garners N votes. At somepoint in the balloting the winning candidate collects N+1 votes. From that point forward the votes cast do not effect the outcome. Any voter who can understand this can use it as an excuse to be discouraged without bothering to bring timezones into it.
Then, didn't he immediately follow it up with promises to spend the majority of the $5 trillon surplus on new programs and not on debt reduction
Actually, no. Half is supposed to go 'into a "Lockbox" so that government can't spend it, except on Social Security benefits.'
If it isn't spent then it is saved. The way government saves is to buy in it's own debt instruments; i.e., reducing the national debt.
Half of the remaining half is for tax reduction leaving only a quarter of the surplus to go for spending on new programs.
Chairman Greenspan has gone on record saying that he would rather see the surplus returned to taxpayers than spent on new government programs like Al Gore proposes.
This statement is very misleading. I've listened to a fair number of Congressional testimonies by Greenspan (not that he gives that many), and his list of
priorities for any government surplus is as follows:
1.Debt reduction
2.Tax cut
3.Increased spending
Provided one takes Bush's answers at face value, he is actually 75% in favor of Greespan's first priority, 25% in favor of the second and not at all in favor of the third. If the list is really Greenspan's PRIORITIES, not his PREFERENCES, then it could be that Bush is more in favor of debt reduction than is Greenspan.
They both must report to their respective insurance companies of course. If the companies can insure SUVs it can't be that much more expensive to insure galaxies.
Slashdot Mirror
Consider all the voters that were torn between Nader and Gore. Many of them are doubtless wishing they had chosen differently - and what voters are more confused than they?
Natapoff's theory was brought up yesterday in the discussion "And The Winner is ... Nobody!".
I will say again what I said then. The purpose of an election is simply NOT to "maximize
the voting power" of any individual -- it is to put into government office the candidate
most acceptable to those that will be governed. Viewed with that in mind, it really doesn't
matter that Natapoff's analysis is flawed, (which it is), because even if it were perfectly
sound it would be irrelevent.
It is my understanding that the Florida polls in the Eastern timezone closed at 8 PM EST and the Florida polls in the Central timezone closed simultaneously at 7 PM CST.
What you say makes some sense in the case of Congress, especially since there are Congressional districts and the views of, say, Long Island need not be "drowned out" by the views of New York City which has a much higher population. But the President is only one person and is expected to execute the laws of and represent the interests of the nation as a whole. This has nothing to do with "abolishing state's rights".
I have seen any number of rationales for keeping the current system but everyone of them has the common defect of losing sight of the purpose of having a Presidential election in the first place. The President is to represent the interests of the NATION.
Actually in the case of either direct popular vote or, approximately the same thing, the Electoral College system with split votes, any candidate will head for whatever location has the highest concentration of "swing voters". The total number of electoral votes in the state that happens to contain such a concentration will be about as relevent as the number of letters in the name of the official state bird.
Under the EC+winner-take-all system candidates concentrate on "swing states" rather than "swing communities". Is this an advantage?
If the first place, no matter how we may reform the way we elect the President, (and VP), we remain a republic if for no other reason because of the way we elect Congress. Secondly there are any number of proposed alternatives to the EC besides simple majority vote. I would guess that the Governor of Alabama is elected by simple majority vote and last I heard that state has yet to "crumble" as a result.
Like another responder, I read the article and came away unimpressed. In the first place, the whole purpose of having an election is to install in government office the candidate that is most agreeable to those that will be governed. It is NOT to "maximize the voting power" of any individual. So Natapoff's entire analysis is based on a premise that is vaporous. The other responder pointed out that the analysis is flawed even granting this premise. (Some voter's power will be arbitrarily increased in some circumstances but only at the expense of some other voter's power).
As of about 4PM EST with data from http://www.sfgate.com/election/returns.html
Nationally
Al Gore (D) : 48,572,136 votes, (48.3%)
George W. Bush (R) : 48,329,891 votes, (48.0%)
Difference : 242,245
California
Al Gore (D) : 5,242,816 votes, (53.6%)
George W. Bush (R) : 4,052,422 votes, (41.5%)
Difference 1,190,394
So for the nation apart from California Bush "won" the popular vote.
After pointing out that the primary respondsability of the executive branch is to enforce rather than draft laws it is odd that you forget that the primary respondsability for the budget rests with Congress.
Isn't the situation analogous to the problem of using charge leaking tiny capacitors to store bits of data, (aka DRAM)? If so, then the indicated solution is to continously refresh the data before coherence is lost. For security this could be done at a hardware level specifcally designed to be inaccessable to software. Or is the problem this: without a key the quantum state cannot be read and copied even in encrypted form?
Inquiring minds want to know.
The story is not really about this particular machine but about how IBM is becoming more of a presense in the supercomputer field. There is also a subtext about benchmarks.
Try http://infoview.lucent.com/pubs/bl-enews/todays.h
I wonder if having a bunch of these in ones clothing would bollix airport security scanners. Getting to the gate might not be so simple as putting the cars keys in the plastic tray.
This is yet another form of cheap non-volitile memory. I feel another turn of the media obsolesence wheel coming on.
If the Electoral College were a deliberative body and the Electors actually representatives of the State's voters, (not just the Party of the winning candidate), then perhaps the system WOULD be working as designed.
Right! We really slow government down by making the Electors convene to have their votes counted.
If you really want to pursue this line of argument consistently then you must recogonize that even the "pile of money" would be nothing but IOUs backed only by the power of government to tax and not any better that the IOUs in the Social Security account. By this standard government is totally indebted even without Social Security. The government's debt is a slippery concept. Unless you are ready for a far more convoluted analysis that can be reasonably presented here, try focusing on the real cash flows as in my earlier response.
The trust fund may be a fiction, but the cash flows are real and there really is more currently coming in from "premiums" than are going out in payments. The "program" that loses the real money is, of course, the surplus - the disposal of which is what is at issue in the first place.
The idea of gradually reducing the future obligations of the system by voluntary opt-outs, to some degree, is a good one and not to be dismissed so easily.
Timezones really have nothing to do with it. Assume for simplicity a 2 candidate race and no tie vote. The losing candidate ultimately garners N votes. At somepoint in the balloting the winning candidate collects N+1 votes. From that point forward the votes cast do not effect the outcome. Any voter who can understand this can use it as an excuse to be discouraged without bothering to bring timezones into it.
If it isn't spent then it is saved. The way government saves is to buy in it's own debt instruments; i.e., reducing the national debt. Half of the remaining half is for tax reduction leaving only a quarter of the surplus to go for spending on new programs.
Provided one takes Bush's answers at face value, he is actually 75% in favor of Greespan's first priority, 25% in favor of the second and not at all in favor of the third. If the list is really Greenspan's PRIORITIES, not his PREFERENCES, then it could be that Bush is more in favor of debt reduction than is Greenspan.
They both must report to their respective insurance companies of course. If the companies can insure SUVs it can't be that much more expensive to insure galaxies.
Shouldn't that be "when programming assume the user is an idiot"?