response 136 of 216:

Nov 11 20:24 UTC 2000

I read that piece from slate.  Mr. Kinsley is wrong.  The ballots MUST be
recounted, as they are being.  There are simply too many concerns to NOT
recount them.  Asking for other recounts just because the Florida
recount may go against them, as the Bush campaign has been reported to
be considering (if not actually done), *is* wrong.  Those will (rightly,
in my view) be seen as childish tit-for-tat.

I expect that the Florida recount will be accomplished in plenty of time
for the December 18 election, and that Bush will win the recount.

response 138 of 216:

Nov 11 23:15 UTC 2000

I've often heard the rumors that Americans don't take responsibility for their
actions and go to court instead.  I've heard it from representatives of the
sorts of companies that tend to be on the receiving end of such lawsuits. 
I've heard it from Republicans trying to get the votes of executives of such
companies.  And I've heard it from foreigners, from cultures where the
government is either expected to step in and protect them without needing a
lawsuit, or from places where consumer protection is a somewhat alien concept.

I've also been in some situations in foreign countries, situations which I'll
admit I still look at as charming cultural experiences, where I've been struck
by the realization that a fear of lawsuits would prevent them from happening
in the US.  One was a long bus ride in Hungary, during which the bus got a
flat tire.  In the US, we probably would have waited for a replacement bus,
and gone onto our destination, while the bus with the flat tire was dealt with
by professionals.  In Hungary, the bus pulled to the side of the road, and
while passengers wandered on and off, the driver got out a tool box, a jack,
and a spare tire, and stood back and watched while a couple of passengers
changed the tire.  I think the driver may have checked the bolts at the end,
but I'm not sure.  We then all got back on the bus and continued on our way.
I've been told that was a pretty typical Hungarian bus ride experience.

Now, let's take a look at that from the perspective of taking responsibility.
Knowing nothing about the ability of the passengers to jack up a big heavy
bus, remove a wheel from it, and attach another, there are a number of things
that could have happened.  The bus could have slipped off the jack and killed
the passengers changing the tire, and probably seriously injured the
passengers remaining inside as well.  The passengers could have attached the
wheel wrong, causing it to come off and injure a large number of passengers.
Those are the sorts of potential problems that would, if they happened, cause
huge lawsuits in the US.  That's why no US bus company would operate that way.
Now, you could argue that the passengers should have taken responsability.
We could have researched how Hungarian bus companies operated, and not gotten
on the bus in the first place.  Once we saw how the flat tire was being
handled, we could have refused to get back on the bus and instead decided to
be stranded in a very rural area.  I suppose if any of us had been really
scared of problems caused by this, that's what we might have decided to do.
But in the US, we would say that the bus companies have responsabilities too.
When a bus company agrees to take passengers somewhere, they agree to be
responsable for getting the passengers to their destination unhurt.  When
passengers buy a bus ticket, they have an expectation that the bus company
will live up to that responsibility.  The resulting lawsuit would not be about
the passengers wanting to avoid responsibility, but about the bus company
needing to take responsibility for what it had done.

Now, to more directly talk about the election:

I see from CNN that Bush, in addition to having declared himself to be the
next President, has now filed a lawsuit to stop the hand recount.  Further
questions Bush referred to James Baker, who insisted that vote counting
machines don't make mistakes, while a handcount will be subject to all sorts
of biases as people look at the ballots and try to decide what they mean. 
"Machines are neither Republicans nor Democrats and therefore can never be
consciously or even unconsciously biased," he said.

Has Mr. Baker ever used a machine, or is he in the same league as his former
boss, and current boss's father, who was amazed when he saw a supermarket
scanner?  Some substantial fraction of the machines I've used have made
mistakes of one sort or another, sometimes causing serious problems with their
operation.  Those that work are dependable mainly because they have been
subjected to lots of testing, and if they appear to be screwing up, people
will look at them again to make sure they are still working.  Now Bush and
Baker are filing a lawsuit to prevent people from checking to see if the
machines have been working correctly.  What are they afraid of?  Do they know
something they think the rest of us don't?

response 140 of 216:

Nov 11 23:32 UTC 2000

I understand that Mr. Bush signed a law allowing hand-recounting.  But that
was Texas, and this is Florida.  Right?

response 142 of 216:

Nov 11 23:58 UTC 2000

i'd buy a ticket.  :)

response 144 of 216:

Nov 12 00:11 UTC 2000

If that's the case in those states, it's probably reasonable to recount there
as well.  Getting the count right is pretty important.

response 146 of 216:

Nov 12 00:23 UTC 2000

Many balloting methods that are used haven't had a good test (ie a close race)
in a while.

response 148 of 216:

Nov 12 00:55 UTC 2000

Sure, a vote can take place, but do they still have to reach the 270
count?

response 150 of 216:

Nov 12 02:01 UTC 2000

Richard, you are wrong.  I strongly suggest you take a few minutes to
read the relevant documents.  Just to make it easier:

"Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature thereof may
direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of senators and
representatives to which the state may be entitled in the Congress" (Article
II, Section 1, US Constitution).


"The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for
President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an
inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their 
ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the
person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of
all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as
Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall
sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the
United States, directed to the President of the Senate; . . . The person 
having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be President, if
such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed;"
(Amendment 12, US Constitution).

It's not a majority of those who show up; it's a majority of those
*appointed*.  If I remember correctly, the southern states declined to
appoint any electors when Lincoln was elected the second time.  They could
have, but they didn't.  This is the situation that *may* pertain here:
Florida may decline to appoint any electors, thereby reducing the number
of electors and the number required to achieve a majority of those appointed.

Personally, I believe this all to be moot:  Florida will, indeed, appoint
its electors by the date the Congress has established for the vote.

response 152 of 216:

Nov 12 03:13 UTC 2000

Yup.  That's why Cheney registered to vote in Wyoming earlier this year (he
had been registered in Texas).  Just before he was announced as the VP
candidate, in fact.

response 154 of 216:

Nov 12 03:47 UTC 2000

Residency is up to each state.  That's why a Rockefeller can become
Governor of West Virginia.  Or how two boys raised in Maine can become
the Governors of Texas and Florida at the same time.  Or how a woman
born and raised in Arkansas can become the junior Senator from New York.
Cheney is not a resident of Texas; he is a resident of Wyoming.

A ticket of a President and Vice-President from the same state that took
that state's electors would face them with an unsurmountable problem:
They can't vote for both, so which one do they vote for?  It is likely
that the ticket would get enough votes from the other states' electors
that not getting their own wouldn't hurt them too much, but why fight it
unnecessarily?  One of them simply moves.  (Easier now than when the
requirement was first written, I'd guess.  Although they did get around
a bit even then.)

response 156 of 216:

Nov 12 04:37 UTC 2000

Oh, I should also point out that Hillary Clinton was born and raised in
Illinois, and moved to Arkansas to be with Bill Clinton, and that the Bush
boys were apparrently at least in part raised in Texas, not Maine.  Not that
that has anything at all to do with this discussion...

response 158 of 216:

Nov 12 05:03 UTC 2000

>what if a ticket has two partial punches, one for Gore and one for Bush, but
>the machine registered the vote for Bush.  The hand counter, not knowing
>that the machine read it as a bush ticket, and being the good dem that she
>is, counts it as a Gore ticket.

The "hand counter" is not a Democrat.  The way this seems to work in Florida
is that there are a bunch of tables, each occupied by an election official,
a representative of the Democratic Party, and a representative of the
Republican Party.  All three look at each ballot and agree to place it in
a pile for Gore, Bush, no vote, or overvote (multiple punches).  If they don't
agree that it is obvious, it goes in an "undecided" pile.  All the "undecided"
are passed to a panel that studies each one and rules on it.  My guess is that
the actual counting of the cards in the piles is done by a machine.  It's
as careful a process as you can easily make.  It is difficult however to
discern the voter's intent from a lot of incomplete punches, and the procedure
though not particularly biased, is dubious in its own ways.  There is probably
no such thing as an absolutely authoritive count.