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Grex > Agora35 > #124: Win the electoral college but lose the popular vote? | |
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| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 409 responses total. |
janc
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response 200 of 409:
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Nov 20 16:04 UTC 2000 |
Joe's likely right - the recount won't be enough for Gore. The butterfly
ballot did him in.
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tpryan
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response 201 of 409:
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Nov 20 17:12 UTC 2000 |
It's a shame, but then when it is decided to use a system that
can produce a 4% error with no race in recent history having less than
a 4% defference, one has to blame the humans, not the machines.
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flem
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response 202 of 409:
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Nov 20 17:49 UTC 2000 |
All in all, I think it's just as well that we picked this year's winner by
random chance. (Butterfly ballots) Next time, we could just use dice. Or
better yet, Russian roulette. :)
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aaron
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response 203 of 409:
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Nov 20 18:07 UTC 2000 |
I think the most interesting litigation, and that which could potentially
change the outcome of the election, is taking place in Seminole County,
where a "Democratic activist" is seeking to have 4,700 or so absentee
ballots thrown out. The applications were incomplete, and a Republican
operative was allowed to spend a week adding voter registration numbers to
the applications. Given that the information was required from the voter,
as part of legislation designed to stop the fraudulent use of absentee
ballots, and Florida has a precedent where all of a county's absentee
ballots were thrown out due to fraud, that litigation probably should get
more media attention.
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scg
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response 204 of 409:
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Nov 20 19:32 UTC 2000 |
If the courts rule on the process, for or against the manual recount, and the
process shows Bush wins, then Bush wins. I won't like the outcome, but
changing the process to produce something I will like better isn't a good
thing either.
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drew
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response 205 of 409:
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Nov 20 20:04 UTC 2000 |
I like the Russian roulette idea.
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gelinas
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response 206 of 409:
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Nov 20 20:35 UTC 2000 |
I know the margin isn't much, but a win by 1 point is still a win. ;)
This isn't the first time the winner of the "popular" vote didn't win the
Electoral College, and it probably won't be the last. Them's the breaks.
Everyone knew going in what was required: EC votes.
Aaron, I don't want to think about that. Not with the allegations of
"repaired" ballots.
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krj
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response 207 of 409:
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Nov 20 20:56 UTC 2000 |
Aaron in resp:203 :: challenging the ballots where the GOP operative
filled in voter ID numbers on the applications might be sound legally,
but my gut feeling right now is that it's a non-starter politically.
While I understand that the procedures to protect against fraud
on those ballots were bent, there is no specific allegation of fraud
in these votes, and with the Democrats having hammered so much on
"every vote should count" and "intent of the voter" themes, they'll
come off badly in a challenge here.
Note that Lieberman is already backpedalling on the issue of the
disqualified overseas military ballots, even though reports are that
these disqualified ballots all failed to meet Florida's legal standards.
(Of course Lieberman *can* backpedal, he's got a job no matter what :) )
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albaugh
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response 208 of 409:
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Nov 20 21:35 UTC 2000 |
Yes, candidates knew (as well as the public - at least they *should* know)
going into the election that the EC still "rules", and that one could win the
popular vote without being elected. So, by law, them's the breaks. I still
think the EC is no longer required, and the truest way for each person's vote
to count - and no more nor no less than anyone else's - is a direct popular
vote of all the people.
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tpryan
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response 209 of 409:
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Nov 20 22:46 UTC 2000 |
I think Michigan should release the results of it's counts
in the next election until 4 in the morning. Then if it's a tight
race, all the action can happen here. Lansing could use another
hotel packing event.
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brighn
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response 210 of 409:
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Nov 20 23:22 UTC 2000 |
#206> If the Pistons won a basketball game 100 to 99, nobody would say they
won "free and clear." I think you missed the point.
You may as well say that Bush won by a landslide, for how silly you're
sounding.
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krj
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response 211 of 409:
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Nov 21 01:07 UTC 2000 |
I think the contest in Florida is starting to wind down.
Radio news reports that Palm Beach County has completed 20% of its
manual recount, and Gore has netted only three additional votes.
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aaron
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response 212 of 409:
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Nov 21 01:40 UTC 2000 |
re #207: You sum up the reasons why the Democratic Party would not want its
imprimatur on the case. However, the case has nonetheless been filed,
and the Republicans lost a summary disposition bid this morning.
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scg
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response 213 of 409:
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Nov 21 01:42 UTC 2000 |
The case was apparrently filed by a "Democratic activist," while Lieberman
has been saying publicly that the case shouldn't be pursued. I suppose it
may be a while, if ever, before it comes out whether the Gore campaign had
anything to do with the filing of the case.
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gelinas
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response 214 of 409:
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Nov 21 04:36 UTC 2000 |
Re #208: there's an item for arguing the elimination of the electoral college.
I was thinking a bit earlier today that I've not seen any sound argument
either way. Care to give it a try?
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rcurl
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response 215 of 409:
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Nov 21 06:54 UTC 2000 |
A columnist put it pretty clearly (for retaining the EC): the USA is not
a democratic republic but a federation - the "United States of America".
The people have never elected the president - the "sovereign states"
(to the extent that is true) elect the president. This fact permeates
the operation of our government in one for or another: states have all
powers not delegated to the federal government (which are plenty!);
states are represented *equally* in the Senate, which has enormous
powers. It would be essentially impossible to adopt a constitutional
amendment with the larger number of less populous states wishing to
retain this power in the EC - and it would not be hard for such "small"
states to convince their citizens that they gain from this additional
power. Eliminating the EC may be a starter but I don't think it would
be a finisher.
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bru
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response 216 of 409:
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Nov 21 13:40 UTC 2000 |
I understand better the reason for having an electoral college now. Gore took
the major population centers, but that is all. The rest of the country all
went to bush. The EC keeps the big states and the big population centers from
riding herd on the rest of the country.
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aaron
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response 217 of 409:
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Nov 21 14:01 UTC 2000 |
Anything that helps you rationalize your beliefs is right, after all.
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rcurl
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response 218 of 409:
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Nov 21 16:29 UTC 2000 |
No, that is untrue. Since rationalizations may themselves be true or
false, aaron's statement really says nothing, but if it suggests that
some statements were made that were false, I would appreciate a more
explicit statement of that. As far as I can see, the explicit statements
made in 215 and 216 appear to be true.
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aaron
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response 219 of 409:
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Nov 21 17:13 UTC 2000 |
Oh, I think it was a pretty accurate summary of the way people process
information.
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scg
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response 220 of 409:
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Nov 21 19:31 UTC 2000 |
I think I'd be more inclined to accept Bruce's sincerity in #216 if he hadn't
changed his position once it became clear that it would be Bush, not Gore,
who might lose the popular vote and win the Electoral College.
I'm still not convinced that the Electoral College is a bad thing, but I do
think it is important when designing a process that has to function for
hundreds of years through different circumstances, to not make decisions based
soley on what happened in one election.
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drew
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response 221 of 409:
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Nov 21 20:00 UTC 2000 |
Re #206:
It seems to me that a margin of less than the probable error should be
considered a tie, and treated as such, whatever the rules for such specify.
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bru
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response 222 of 409:
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Nov 21 23:49 UTC 2000 |
Where did I change my position because Bush was winning? Like other people,
I am Learning from this election conflict. And I did used to support abolition
of the EC, but my mind was changed long before this election came up.
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jerryr
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response 223 of 409:
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Nov 22 13:21 UTC 2000 |
has it ever been considered to modify the ec from the winner take all mode
to a proportioned mode? would that work? whatever percentage you receive
in a state's popular vote you get that percentage of electors for that state.
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krj
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response 224 of 409:
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Nov 22 14:29 UTC 2000 |
After the Republican reaction to last night's Florida Supreme Court
ruling, which gave room for the recounts to continue, it now seems
certain to me that Bush will be president, possibly through a
constitutional putsch. Either the Florida legislature will scrap
the election result and appoint the Bush electors, or the Congress
will throw out Gore electors from Florida and pick Bush in the House,
where the GOP controls 27 (?) state delegations.
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