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Grex > Agora35 > #124: Win the electoral college but lose the popular vote? | |
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| 25 new of 409 responses total. |
jep
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response 251 of 409:
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Nov 27 22:04 UTC 2000 |
re #244: I'm not seeing much ethical difference between the Democrats
and Republicans,either, with respect to the Florida election process.
I've seen no reason at all to declare either side to be unethical, nor
do I think the process has been unethical or corrupt.
If the situation had been exactly reversed, with Gore leading the vote
in Florida by a few hundred to a couple of thousand votes, the Bush and
Gore campaigns would have reversed their actions pretty much exactly.
Bush would be demanding recount after recount. Gore would be saying
"the vote is over, let me get on with running the country", and trying
to close any openings anyone had that cast any doubt on whether he won.
Maybe one side or the other hasn't done some things the way we all would
have wished, but I find it hard to tell which side has been better or
worse about the situation.
It would be interesting to be able to have a case-study, with two
elections as close as this one has been, each one going to a different
party, so we could compare the actions of the two campaigns in each
situation, and the reactions of the press, and of the population. A
parallel universe Grex would be a wonderful thing to have right now.
Likewise with a parallel universe Newsweek.
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gull
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response 252 of 409:
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Nov 27 22:31 UTC 2000 |
With an election this close, there's no such thing as an adequately accurate
count, I suspect. It's probably within the margin of error of any method
you use. You might as well flip a coin and select the President that way.
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other
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response 253 of 409:
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Nov 28 03:50 UTC 2000 |
re:
>#250 of 252 by Sunny Sunshine (ashke) on Mon Nov 27 15:12:37 2000:
>no...how about not motivated by the choices presented that they feel not
>voting as an alternative to choosing the "lesser of two evils"
If the presidential race were the only one on the ballot, that argument
might be supportable, but since the number of races/issues on any given
ballot this November probably ranged from a minimum of 10 or 20 to a
maximum of over 100, the argument comes across more as facile than
realistic.
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ashke
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response 254 of 409:
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Nov 28 05:07 UTC 2000 |
There are people who voted in local elections and didn't vote in the
presidential election. however, I am assuming that isn't what you are all
talking about.
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rcurl
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response 255 of 409:
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Nov 28 06:19 UTC 2000 |
It seems difficult to invent a clear choice algorithm. For example, a
state might adopt a law that if the vote difference is less than, say,
0.01% (that would be ca. 600 in this case), the selection of electors
goes to the state legislature. In this case, that would mean that the
state legislature would decided. But depending on the party dominating
the legislature, and the party of the candidate, there still could be
a fight over that limit. For example, if the legislature had been
majority democratic, Gore would still fight to get the vote difference
below 600. It seems to me that there must be some kind of logical algorithm
that regardless of how close the vote is, or which way it is imbalanced,
both sides would favor using it. Or, can it be proven there isn't?
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scg
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response 256 of 409:
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Nov 28 07:21 UTC 2000 |
There needs to be some sort of system for deciding the election even when it's
close. If it's an absolute tie, Florida decides it via a lottery. I don't
see how using whoever got more votes, even if it's just one more vote, as the
deciding criteria is any worse than that.
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mdw
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response 257 of 409:
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Nov 28 08:55 UTC 2000 |
Just remember:
better the lizard than the wizard
(this was actually a slogan in an interesting recent election)
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bru
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response 258 of 409:
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Nov 28 12:32 UTC 2000 |
There is a process, it is called the electoral college, followed by the house
of representatives and then by the senate. If this went that far, it is
concievable that Gore, as President of the senate, could cast the tie breaking
votte to elect himself as president. Wouldn't THAT be interesting!
AS it is 60% of the people believe Gore should concede, 27% think Bush Should.
80% of the people will accept Bush as President, 47% will accept Gore.
I do think that if the positions were reverese, Bush would have conceded by
now. Sorry, thats the way I see it.
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johnnie
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response 259 of 409:
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Nov 28 14:03 UTC 2000 |
Back when it looked like Gore would win the electoral college and Bush
the popular vote, the Bushies worked up a plan to "overturn" the EC in
favor of the popular vote, via lawsuits and "spontaneous" demonstrations
and so on. So to say that Bush would concede in Gore's circumstance is
a bit naive.
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scott
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response 260 of 409:
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Nov 28 15:35 UTC 2000 |
Both the Gore and Bush campaigns have a huge amount of money invested in the
election so far, and the only way to recoup is to become President. So both
sides will fight like rabid pit bulls over the election.
I'm sorry, did you think their behavior was based on principles? :/
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other
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response 261 of 409:
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Nov 28 17:12 UTC 2000 |
re: #254 of 260 by Sunny Sunshine (ashke) on Tue Nov 28 00:07:27 2000:
>There are people who voted in local elections and didn't vote in the
>presidential election. however, I am assuming that isn't what you are
>all talking about.
Yes, but the numbers of those folks are vastly insufficient to account
for the percentage of the eligible population who did not even go to the
polls.
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gelinas
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response 262 of 409:
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Nov 28 17:41 UTC 2000 |
Bruce, the Electoral College only works *after* the electors are appointed.
It does not help at all when a state can't decide who its electors are. Which
is what is happening in Florida right now.
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ashke
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response 263 of 409:
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Nov 28 17:51 UTC 2000 |
re 261: I wonder if rather than thumming noses at those populations of people
(and I'm not saying that you did, but I do get that general feeling from a
lot of people) that we should rather find out why they didn't? I wonder if
they get the impressions from the politicians and the media that they end up
not really mattering and they choose to believe it and stay home...
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other
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response 264 of 409:
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Nov 28 18:23 UTC 2000 |
Speaking as someone who has a bit of the sense that it is hard to feel
like my one vote matters all that much (though that doesn't stop me from
exercising it), I'd say that the problem is more the rarefied atmosphere
surrounding any candidate with the real potential to attain the
presidency and the perception that real people who would best serve the
country in that position could never attain it.
We simply don't like the choices, and many folks don't know or care
enough about what they are to take the trouble to press one meaningless
buttin instead of another. It is a huge responsibility and a lot of
effort to go to, to actually understand who these people are, and what
they stand for and why one of them would be better to pick than another.
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other
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response 265 of 409:
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Nov 28 18:23 UTC 2000 |
s/buttin/button
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rcurl
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response 266 of 409:
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Nov 28 18:37 UTC 2000 |
I don't understand why the majority of people don't understand that if
there are votes uncounted or miscounted, they should be counted or recounted.
It seems unnatural just to give up because it seems messy. Why are the
majority taking the stance that even though the count is incomplete or
inaccurate, at the moment the incomplete/inaccurate count favors Bush, so,
"what the heck, give it to him".
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jep
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response 267 of 409:
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Nov 28 18:55 UTC 2000 |
re #266: I can give my perspective on that.
I'm not convinced the votes in just 3 counties should be given endless
preferential treatment. There have been multiple recounts in at least
parts of those 3 counties. It seems likely there are as many problems in
other counties in Florida, and possibly in other states. Three or four
recounts, including one or more hand recounts, would seem impractical to
do, at this point, for all of Florida, and wildly disruptive to do for
the nation as a whole. It might take years to do nationally. Why have
a "count them endlessly no matter how long it takes" attitude just for 3
counties in Florida, but not for the entire state or the country?
If there were 20 hand recounts for the entire state of Florida, do you
think any 2 of them would match exactly? How many of them would even
match within 500 votes (the current difference between the two
candidates is 537, according to USA Today on-line)? How many of the
recounts would result in the same winner?
I think the process in Florida was obviously too flawed for this year's
election. Nothing will ever change that; no amount of recounts, no
re-elections, nothing. I don't think it was an *unfair* process,
though. And I don't think it's less unfair because of recounts. I
think it seems more unfair now than it did a week ago because of the
changing rules in Broward County. (From machine recount to "hanging
chad" to "dimpled ballots".)
The election has to be completed. It's not going to be 100% accurate,
and I'm not sure at all it's getting more accurate as time goes on.
So that's why I'm inclined to want to finalize the process.
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polygon
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response 268 of 409:
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Nov 28 19:01 UTC 2000 |
The statistic that only half the population voted is not at ALL a fair
picture of American political participation. Keep in mind that the
"other" or non-voting half includes:
- People who are not U.S. citizens and hence ineligible to vote
- People who have felony convictions and hence ineligible to vote
in most states
- Over one million people who are incarcerated in jails and prisons
at any given time
- People who are incapacitated, e.g., by mental illness, retardation,
coma, etc.
- People in the midst of relocating, or who just recently moved to
a new place (and ineligible to vote both in the old and new
locations)
- People in military service who, though probably eligible, in most
cases have not maintained voter registrations anywhere, or have
enough contacts with a home locality to follow its politics
Exclude all those folks from the denominator, and the fraction which
votes in a presidential election is a lot higher than 50%.
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gelinas
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response 269 of 409:
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Nov 28 19:01 UTC 2000 |
Thing is, there have been ONE machine recount and NONE to ONE manual recount.
Of the three counties, only ONE finished its one and only manual recount.
One didn't try, and the other didn't finish.
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gelinas
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response 270 of 409:
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Nov 28 19:03 UTC 2000 |
Larry didn't include those too young to vote. If 100 million votes were
cast, that's just under 1/2 of the total population. So yeah, it's better
than it looks. :)
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rcurl
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response 271 of 409:
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Nov 28 19:04 UTC 2000 |
Re #267: so then, on what basis do you want to "finalize the process" in
fabor of Bush, when it is not known who got the more votes?
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rcurl
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response 272 of 409:
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Nov 28 19:04 UTC 2000 |
s/fabor/favor
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jep
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response 273 of 409:
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Nov 28 21:01 UTC 2000 |
re #271: As I said, I don't consider the hand recount process to be very
fair, or more accurate. Are you in favor of continuing to recount,
regardless of whether the results may well be less accurate than what we
have now? What would be the motivation for that?
re #268: Larry, what percentage of the real population did vote? Would
you say it's closer to 55%, 60%, 65%? I've never before seen anyone
make that point, or produce any estimates taking those factors into
account. I thought they must already be factored in by the newspapers.
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scg
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response 274 of 409:
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Nov 28 21:20 UTC 2000 |
I don't think anybody has asked for the ballots to be recounted over and over
and over again, nor has a hand recount been completed, regardless of Bush's
statements on Sunday. One machine recount was done. A hand recount was
started in several counties, but only completed in one.
The hand recounts should be completed. We should find out what the vote
totals actually were. Then the election should be over.
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mcnally
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response 275 of 409:
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Nov 29 02:04 UTC 2000 |
I remain consistently flabbergasted by the Bush camp's constantly repeated
exaggerations of the number of vote counts that have been completed in
Florida and I keep waiting for the networks and for newspaper reporters
to start calling Jim Baker on it every time he makes another cynically
self-serving misstatement on the subject, but I have a feeling I'm in for
a long wait. (In the interests of fairness, I'm also willing to issue a
seltzer bottle to anyone in Florida with a valid press card so they can
drench Gore the next time he makes a pious statement about "making sure
every vote counts.")
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