FLORIDA! FLORIDA! FLORIDA!

[paulcs]

If memory serves me correctly, John Quincy Adams was elected by the House, despite the fact that Andrew Jackson won the popular vote.

It didn't go over well then.

I think there is no will in the Senate to ditch the Electoral College. They feel, and they're probably right, that it forces candidates to make campaign visits to the smaller states. Certainly, this isn't what the framers intended. Expecting Eighteenth Century candidates to cover all that territory without the benefit of planes and automobiles was a bit much to ask.

It still doesn't sit well with me.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[paulcs]

I'd like to make an indecent suggestion:

Two fine civil servants, who ran fine but gruelling, have found themselves in one of the oddests situations in the republic's history.

We, as voters, have gone completely insane. We are, as a people, married to gridlock. We weren't satisfied with making sure the Executive Branch was represented by one party while the Legislative Branch is dominated by the other. But that isn't enough. We then have a presidential election so close that the clear winner of the popular vote is probably not the winner.

So close that a bunch of elderly voters in Florida, who couldn't figure out how the stupid ballots worked, threw the election in favor of their choice's opponent.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[paulcs]

Now this was an election:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...031728_000.htm

Oh man.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[ahartman]

Just read that Gore picked up 800+ votes in the first day of the recount. Turns out there were some ballots 'missed' in the initial count...

Also read that some FL voters have filed a lawsuit and that the Democratic Committee is considering the same.

Would YOU want to be the judge that hears these cases? Talk about a no-win situation.

I agree that an election shouldn't be granted a 'do-over' just because someone doesn't understand the ballots. However, when those people who don't understand the ballots ask the election judges and THE JUDGES don't understand the ballots, then we have a problem...

[HedsSpaz]

The electoral college is not such a bad idea, it has it's advantages and disadvantages. The real problem lies in the single vote plurality voting system that we currently use.

How many Democrats, Greens, Republicans, Libertarians, and whoever, would have voted for John McCain?

Polls from way back at the beginning of the year showed that he would have likely won the election in a landslide.

Take a look at this article and you'll see a mathematically sound solution to the problem. http://www.discover.com/nov_00/gther...atbestman.html

It's a fascinating read and really shows just how screwed up the current system is.

Ian

PS. The treason comment was referring to the whole selling arms to China incident that somehow has dissapeared from US conciousness to be replaced with the absurd memory of a president who got a BJ in the oval office.

[ahartman]

Just read this on ABCNEWS.COM:

" But only about half of states have laws “binding” their
electors to vote for the presidential candidate who won
their state’s popular vote. Wisconsin, for example,
punishes a defecting elector with a $1,000 fine and New
Mexico makes a “faithless” vote a fourth-degree felony.
No faithless elector, however, has ever been prosecuted
or penalized. And no faithless vote has ever decided the
outcome of an election."

[Joel]

And whatever happened to the statements in the Constitution that we vote separtly for the vice persident?

And someone was right when they said that the electors did not have to vote the way the people of the state did. That was something that was left up to the states to decide and some of them did through laws that stated that the electors must vote the way of the people.

This has all been a good lesson in civics.

Joel

[KvHagedorn]

Why do liberals seem always to stridently claim that conservatives are "stupid"? George W. Bush is not stupid, thank you very much. Nor are "all southerners" or "all Texans" for that matter. Among those who know him and who have lived with him as Governor, George W. got 60% of the votes. How did Gore do in his home state? Al Gore would have lost this election badly had the Democrats' political machine not been in full voice this election. OK, tell me again how Bush could have lost 30,000 to 200 or so in one Michigan county? We wouldn't want to suggest any impropriety here, would we? After all, the media told us where the election would be fought.. in Florida. And that's the ONLY place we are allowed to look for impropriety. </sarcasm>

[paulcs]

If you back up a bit, you'll find Kindness linking to stats that indicate that Democrats are poor, stupid, heathens.

I don't think Conservatives are stupid. Although I wouldn't vote for them, I think both John McCain and Bob Dole are smart, principled men.

George W. seems, truly, to be "George the Unready." Texas, if I'm not mistaken, has a weak governor system. His business experience is checkered to say the least. He appears to be a quick study, but he doesn't seem to have his father's skills, and he certainly doesn't have his father's experience.

Combine his lack of experience, his lack of knowledge, and his problems with the Mother Tongue, and he comes off like a bit of a lightweight. Hopefully, this is just a matter of perception.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[Wombat]

The whole FL thing bothers me soo much though. Here I am hoping that Gore can scrounge up another 300 FL voters (I hope they win the ballot challenge, I've seen the Palm Beach ballot and it explains why Buchanan got 3000+ votes), while he won the country by thousands and thousands.

[Pneumatic]

I live in Texas and I can tell you that George does have some skills.
We have recently created 2,433,600 jobs in Texas (a 34.9% increase). We have low taxes and a surplus in our budget. Here in the Dallas area we have a sudden surge of coporate offices moving here (a few from New York) like JC Penney, Fina, Frito Lay, and about 7 others that I could drive a golf ball and hit their building. Why do you figure that all of these companies are uprooting and moving all the way to Texas?
I can't speak for anyone else, but every school in my area ranks at the top of the list nationaly. I am connected to the building industry and we have noticed a large number of HUGE houses being built ($1-5 Million Dollars). We are doing fine here in Texas. We are actually far from what you have been told. We are'nt all sister kissin, tobacco chewin, bull ridin, rednecks. Actually we are well educated, highly motivated, highly skilled, highly PAID people.
As for my comments about the exit polls in Florida, I just noticed that trend and thought that it was interesting. I have to chuckle as I drive around here though. All of the Mecredes, Cadillacs, Linclolns, and BMW's have Bush stickers. The only Gore stickers I see are on 1978 Oldsmobiles, and Pinto station waggons. I actually stopped at a light yesterday and had 2 cars sitting side by side in front of me. One was a Ferrari 355 spider, and the other was an old rusted out Charger. They both had political stickers on the back (ferrari's was on the window, if it was on the paint I would have shot him). I think you can guess which was which. I'm not saying that all Dems are low income, but I found it amusing.

If you want to know how Texas is doing don't listen to Dan Rather. Ask a Texan. If George were such an idiot why did he carry such a HUGE percentage of Texas, and Gore lost his home state? Sounds like Tenn knows something you don't.

[This message has been edited by Kindness! (edited 10 November 2000).]

[HedsSpaz]

An interesting fact that the Democrats are trying to keep under wraps. In the 1996 Election, Pat Buchanan recieved more votes in Palm Beach County, than in any other county except one, across the entire nation. To be precise (relatively), Buchanan recieve approx. 9,000 in Palm Beach County in the 1996 Election. Furthermore, in the 1996 Election, officials in Palm Beach County threw out nearly 15,000 ballots for double voting.

I read a wonderful statement in a rant on a web page this morning.

"Voters in Palm Beach County are f**king idiots."

I think that sums it up nicely. I've seen the picutres of the ballot. IT'S NOT THAT F*CKING HARD TO FIGURE OUT!!!!!

There is no evidence of fraud. There is very little evidence of discrimination. "Life isn't fair", is not a reason to call a revote in that county. It would skew the results by a rather extreme amount. Last but not least, the ballot was approved by officials from both parties. I'm sorry that things ended up looking this bad, but it's too f*cking late to do anything about it now. Fix it for the next election, but there are no legal grounds to call a revote.

In my VERY not at all even remotely humble opinion.

Ian

[Himself]

We have a party for thr poor (aka unions) in Canada, it's called the New Democratic Party. Nobody votes for them nationally and few regionally.

We just had our debate last night, very amusing. 5 leaders of parties, 4 generally attacking the current Liberal Party leader on the last 8 years in office. You had the New Democratic leader harping on the one note, finance the hospitals, finance public housing, nobody cares about the poor, whine, whine. The Canadian Alliance Party advocating Change, ie, scrap everything, nothing works, let's get on with it. The Progressive Conservative Party advocating a return to a better status quo, ie. we did better 8 years ago, we'll do the same again. The Liberal Party basically advocating the status quo, when not defending past policies. And the Block Quebeqois advocating nothing but that Quebec should vote for them because they want to separate from the rest of Canada. Quite entertaining.

[ahartman]

Himself,

Entertaing or INFORMATIVE? That's exactly why I said the so-called 3rd parties should NOT be allowed to participate in the debates. It doesn't add any value and it just takes time that can be spent discussing the issues.

Kindness,

Are all those companies flocking to TX because there is such a huge break for corporations there? No environmental laws to speak of. As for the schools, keep your kids in your district. Even Bush doesn't dispute TX is at the bottom of the country for education. The car analogy just points out what we already know, the Republicans traditionally champion the rich and the Democrats the poor and downtrodden (not that I necessarily BELIEVE that...).

HedSpaz,

I agree, the ballot is not THAT confusing. However, when many of the people asked for help, the electoral judges were not able to help them. That's the problem, IMO.

Overall, I'm more disturbed that the initial vote in FL was 2000 votes wrong. These ballots are counted by computer. How could it be wrong 2000 times?

Regardless of who wins, nothing will get done for the next 4 years. Bush can crow all he wants about being a 'uniter', but you will see deadlock after deadlock.

[Himself]

Bit of both.

There are three parties with quite large representation, it's not so easy to get rid of everybody but two. The remaining 2 parties still have enough numbers to make them legal, one was the former government, so why shouldn't they be allowed to debate? You can't draw parallels between Canada and the US, they are totally different.