Totally off topic post but hey, couldn't resist :)

[Elie]

We just had our Election 2000 here in Canada, polls closed at 9:30PM EST and the results were out at 12:00 am, hmmmmm

Cheers to all,
Elie

[Patrick]

Elie, the polls closed out here on the west coast at 7:00 PM (our time) and by 7:05 PM it was already being announced on TV that a Liberal majority government was elected. No wonder we feel like our votes are worthless here in BC.

[Walrus]

Elie: Yeah, I sometimes wouldn't mind knowing sooner the results of this election, but in the US' case, I'm glad extra care is being taken to try to ensure that the person who actually won won.
Dr. Mordid: MILLIONS of factors could have given us instant results. You're correct about the networks calling Florida too soon.. it's a shame, and it better not be repeated. (don't think it will either, the networks largely shaped up after the '80 travesty) Even as a Democrat I agree, that could have easily been the election. However, I can also point to other facts that would have ended the election sooner. IF the idiotic "butterfly" ballot had not been used in Palm Beach (and yeah, I know a Dem designed and approved it), or IF the legal challenges had held off allowing the hand counts to end a lot sooner, or even if Bush had joined in on the hand recounts in counties where it could have helped him. However, I'll throw most of the blame on both Bush and Gore. If either had been a more attractive or effecitve candidate this would never had happened as we wouldn't have had this incredible tie. That all said, I think what's happening now is good for the nation in the long run, though I do feel whomever gets into office is going to have severe legitimacy issues, and is unlikely to win a 2nd term. (Bush OR Gore) That coupled with a nearly perfectly divided Congress = little or no action in at least the next 2 years. We'll survive it though, and in the long run we'll be stronger for it.

[paulw]

One thing that surprises me about the US elections is that every state and county seems to have their own idea of how the ballot paper is designed. Would not a nation wide system be best?? I believe that's what was used in Canada and it was a manual count as well?? Ellie??

[Dr Mordrid]

We would have had instant results too IF the following had happened;

1. the networks hadn't (wrongly) announced Florida was going Gore before all the polls in the state closed (the panhandle is in a different time zone). This caused an estimated 10,000 Bush voters to go home before voting in the Florida panhandle area, a Republican stronghold. With these counted the current "situation" would not be happening.

2. Gore had sense enough to realize that the extra recount he's asking for in Miami/Dade will include a previously un-recounted area that is strongly Republican. Bush is expected to gain at least 500 more votes there.

3. The rest of the Democratic party would realize that Gore gaining the Presidency by law suit will result in such polarization as to make his term (most likely a single one) ineffective.

Dr. Mordrid


[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 28 November 2000).]

[Walrus]

paulw: I'm sure an effort will be made in that direction to somewhat standardize our voting system, though with the way our federal system is structured, each state will have to make its own decision. With luck they'll decide to think alike.

[Dr Mordrid]

I'd be willing to bet that one piece of fallout from this election will be some form of standards for voting and counting, at least on a State-wide level.

Setting Federal standards might be problematic since voting and the selection of Electoral College delegates is a State function by both the Constitution and Federal statute.

The only thing the Feds can get involved with on the State level is if the State changes the counting or election rules after the vote. This is the basis for the current Supreme Court appeal by Bush that will be heard on Friday. That the Supreme Court took the case shows that at least 4 of the 9 justices think Florida's Supreme Court screwed up by extending the recount.

This business of every county of congressional district having a different voting technology and counting system is beyond bone-headed.

I had the pleasure of seeing a truly MODERN voting system recently that combined computer and net technology. It used touch-screens and double confirmation of each selection with the totals tabulated and transmitted to a central counting station hourly. The actual hardware was ROM based with the ballot info on DVD. It worked much like a mall guidebook kiosk.

Each person was issued an electronic card much like an ATM with it's own PIN (actually an 11 digit ID number) which was disabled for further use once the session was ended.

If only Florida had used these things.

But then again, some of those Miami/Dade voters would have still complained because it didn't give them the cash advance they asked for

Dr. Mordrid


[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 29 November 2000).]

[Elie]

Actually when I voted, it was on a piece of paper which I folded and inserted into a box.
The design was simple kinda like this..

John Doe 1.................O
John Doe 2.................O
John Doe 3.................O
Where you would mark an X in the circle shown, done.

I recall when we voted for Mayor, it was electronic here in Toronto, I don't know if it was like that all over the country, Patrick?

Anyhow, the situation in the US is creating an unstable market, although the US Dollar is climbing, the stock market is fluctuating big time, due to political unrest, I hope it doesn't last too long

Cheers,
Elie

[This message has been edited by Elie (edited 29 November 2000).]

[bongo]

If canadians were so smart, would they really have a beaver on their money? Canadians are just americans without the testosterone.

did you know when a beaver is cornered by a predator it chews off its own testicles and hands them over. go canada.

[Dr Mordrid]

Or, as is said in my area: a Province is just some acreage in the farm system for Statehood

If Quebec ever gets its way we may be up to 55-56 in short order....

Dr. Mordrid

[Patrick]

Elie, the civic elections in Vancouver also use ballots that are machine counted. However, instead of a hole being punched in the ballot as was done in the recent American election, a special pen is used to mark the ballots. There is none of this nonsense of whether or not a ballot is punched through all the way. Surprisingly enough though, the federal elections here in Canada still use the old tried and true method of marking an X beside a candidates name with a pencil.

Bongo, you must be from a different neighborhood in Vancouver than me.

Doc, with all the money that the federal government throws at Quebec, there's a much greater chance of western Canada separating from the rest of the country than there is of Quebec leaving. Why would anyone in Quebec want to get off the gravy train? Having said all that, I really don't think anyone's going anywhere. The French and English in this country love to bitch at each other. It's what Canada's all about.

[Brian Ellis]

Bongo

I think both Bore and Gush (how appropriate!) have already chewed off their testicles by their execrable combined behaviour, aided and abetted by a partisan State authority supervising autocratically and thus announcing results undemocratically.

As one outside the USA, I often wonder whether the average US citizen realises by how much the USA has become the laughing stock of the civilised world over this affair. Even the very formal and august BBC called it a soap opera on the news, the other day. The real drama is that it plays into the hands of dictators who say that, if this is the way democracy works, give us dictatorship, any day. What is certain is that either candidate will have lost all chance of any personal clout in international affairs.

The best thing that could happen now would be for all four presidential/vice-presidential candidates to resign after the meeting of the Electoral College (to make sure Nader doesn't get in). I guess it would then be up to Congress to nominate a P and VP, which must be a better option than anything likely to happen (and more openly democratic).

As for Canada, I think the PM has been quite astute and has laid the ground for putting the Québecois pretentions firmly to rest. I live now in a country split by ethnic divisions, having previously lived in one (Switzerland) for 35 years where there has been more or less union between 6 ethnic groups (OK, with the odd storm-in-a-teacup squabble which is always resolved). Comparing these, I am arrogant enough to put forward a solution to most of the world's dissensions, be they between Palestinian and Israeli, Kosovo and Serbia, Indonesia and East Timor, Russia and Chechnya, Northern and Southern Irishman, Northern and Southern Korean, Greek and Turkish Cypriot or any other. It is 1) put away your arms 2) sit around a table 3) swallow all your pride 4) democratically silence your extremists and 5) compromise, compromise and compromise. If that doesn't work, compromise further. It is no bloody use knocking the bejabers out of each other: this only makes things harder. All conflicts end, usually later, round a table, so that is where they should start, with compromise and without foreign interference. This is why I think the Canadian election has produced a positive result, because a relatively popular French-Canadian PM is the best person to seek a settlement with his own people. And we should not forget that much of the unrest of the French Canadians was fomented by foreign interference, culminating by De Gaulle publicly creating a battle-cry "Vive le Québec libre" (incidentally, while trying to suppress Breton, Corsican and Basque freedom movements in his own country). My reponse is "Vive le Canada uni"!

Let me climb down from my pedestal, now



------------------
Brian (the terrible)

[This_Idiot]

What a bloody shambles ! On one hand you have a guy who wants to hand-count votes to see whether they are pregnant, in the hope that this may swing things his way. On the other hand, another guy who believes that it is right to disallow a whole region's vote because they can't count fast enough.

BBC's radio 4 kind of put their fingers on it when they stated that it's unsurprising that both are acting irrationally because each of them has laid out hundreds of millions of dollars in the pursuit of becoming president. What is this, survival of the richest ?

As a British political cynicist, I have enough problems dealing with an arcane system in which votes are irrelevant - it doesn't matter which party gets into power, you'll all get screwed anyway. I remember bumping into an acquaintance on the evening of our last election when it was fast becoming clear that Labour were fast becoming the favourites to win. The guy had been waiting for years for a leftist government - I wonder how he feels now, when the promised spending into Health, Education and Transport has disappeared into the treasury coffers in order to bribe the public into voting Labour in for a second term. And that his precious leftists are currently trying to sell off yet another national asset (Air Control). Let alone that the IT sections of most of the major government departments (Taxation, Social Services etc) have been sold off to a foreign software house (not that I'm anti-American, but I'm not sure I want them controlling the systems that run the UK, let alone pay them out of my taxes).

Of course, we have the alternative of a Conservative party that thinks that cutting direct taxation still further (while no doubt recouping via indirect taxation) and letting our schools, hospitals, police facilities etc fall into disrepair. Oh, and why don't we backpedal out of Europe totally, especially now that we have killed off the previous trade bloc known as the Commonwealth.

Politics ? Bah, HUMBUG !

[Michel Carleer]

Chris,
I always wondered why UK would enter the European Union.

I think I found the answer:
If you don't want to be a part of something, but you know that it will in a short term kill you (economically speaking), then just pretend to join in but only to veto against anything that may enable it to develop and go forward.
?
Michka

[This_Idiot]

Hi Michka,

Well I sit on that fence right between complete rejection and complete acceptance of the European principle.

I'm happy to share knowledge, trade, even military capability. And I'm all in favour of the common currency (despite the fact that the current exchange rate makes my holidays in France cheaper). What I'm not in favour of is handing over sovereignty to a bunch of beaurocrats. I don't think I'm alone in this. The French have probably the most independent view of their own country in Europe, the Germans are convinced that their financial system is better than anyone elses. Our current problem is that the Conservatives want to throw the whole lot out - bathwater, baby, the lot. Labour want to dive in regardless and pass the problems on to the next government.