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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. |
polygon
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response 238 of 409:
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Nov 25 15:57 UTC 2000 |
The "old reliable lever machines" are certainly old, but they are NOT
reliable any longer. They are full of thousands of moving parts, none
of which are made any more.
It is very typical for a losing candidate to request a recount in one
subset of the district, and for the winning candidate to "retaliate"
by requesting recounts in all other areas.
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bdh3
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response 239 of 409:
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Nov 27 04:07 UTC 2000 |
Re: 'the Miami-Dade recount'. The Gore camp insists that the county
(which only tabulated 53% gore to 47% bush county wide) recount would
garner al-the-pal 700-900 voted based on the recount of 135 of 614
precincts before it was stopped. What the gore campos don't tell you is
that those 135 were the ones most likely to vote for gore. The
cuban-american precincts, which voted 'six of seven' for bush were not
recounted and were not included in the gore projections nor were others
who had gone 9 to 1 to bush. A prof. Brian Kalt from MSU projected that
a recount of the entire county would have resulted in a net gain of 400
bush votes. There were heavily republican counties in the panhandle
where as many as 20000 ballots were thrown out, maybeso they have just
as much a right to be recounted as any other county? (say they only went
3 to 1 for bush...)
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mdw
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response 240 of 409:
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Nov 27 05:18 UTC 2000 |
Maybe the bush camp should be insisting on a recount there?
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bdh3
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response 241 of 409:
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Nov 27 06:52 UTC 2000 |
Dunno. Maybe the bush camp is being shrewd instead of stupid the way
the GOP usually is. Maybe the bush camp is doing its own 'focus groups'
and 'polls' and figured that even die hard DNC types are disgusted at
the manipulation and 'lawyering' that is going on (78% say florida
should go as it was originally counted). Bush declaires after the 5pm
EST deadline that he is 'in transition' and the Clintonistas issue an
executive order *BEFORE* the deadline saying that no funds are to be
issued for said. Dunno.
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krj
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response 242 of 409:
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Nov 27 07:10 UTC 2000 |
Three cheers for George Bush, elected President because Florida is
incompetent to run an election, and incompetent to run a manual recount.
Bush becomes even more of an accidental president than Ford.
It's hard to see what's left in the barrel for Gore, unless the
Seminole County lawsuit, the potential land-mine, flips the result.
Broward County gets my applause for sticking to their knitting and
getting their recount done on time. Palm Beach gets a raspberry for
taking Thanksgiving off -- after getting a late start -- and then
being surprised that Secretary of State Harris wouldn't give them
a two hour extension beyond the deadline set by the Florida Supreme
Court. Fortunately for Bush, inclusion of the Palm Beach county
results wouldn't have changed Harris's certification today.
Miami-Dade: well, I knew immediately when the Florida Supreme Court
came out with their deadline that Miami-Dade was out of the game.
They'd already been intimidated out of working on their recount
earlier by Secretary Harris, and they had already announced that
with the late start they couldn't complete recounting until December 1.
If Gore wants Miami-Dade recounted, where does he go to make that
argument? By the rules of the Supreme Court decision, two of the
three counties in question still could not complete the recounts.
Bush, in his speech tonight, could hardly keep the smirk off his face.
Bush talks about how there was a count, then a recount, then a manual
recount: what bullshit! This is about on par with the weasel's
firm statement that Cheney did not have a heart attack!
But only the manual recount for Broward was included in the certified
results! Bush seems to be trying to claim that the manual recounts
were completed and he's still the winner, when the Republicans
successfully fought to block these recounts from being completed,
or included in the count.
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bdh3
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response 243 of 409:
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Nov 27 08:48 UTC 2000 |
Yep, #242 is exactly the thingy that no matter how it all plays out
*sombody* is gonna mention the grassy knoll and area 51 and roswell and
probably think about wearing aluminium foil hats (which if you use cell
phones may not be a bad idea....) Tri-latteralists and Bilderbugs.
Its all the jews fault. Yep thats it, its all the jews fault. Remember
the _Elders of Zion_, its all the jews fault.
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senna
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response 244 of 409:
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Nov 27 13:19 UTC 2000 |
I'm not seeing much ethical difference between dems and reps here. It's no
big deal. The country hates both of them.
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flem
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response 245 of 409:
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Nov 27 17:11 UTC 2000 |
Maybe if Florida's education system were better (like, oh, say, Texas), we'd
have had a prompt, fair election in Florida.
Looks like ol' Jeb came through, after all. ;)
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jerryr
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response 246 of 409:
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Nov 27 18:09 UTC 2000 |
approx. 25% of elligible voters in this country like either gore or bush.
the other 50% don't care enuff to caste a vote.
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albaugh
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response 247 of 409:
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Nov 27 18:35 UTC 2000 |
Some comic relief:
Subject: Palm Beach Pokey
You put your stylus in,
You put your stylus out,
You put your stylus in,
And you punch Buchanan out.
You do the Palm Beach Pokey
And you turn the count around,
That's what it's all about!
You put the Gore votes in,
You put the Bush votes out,
You put the Gore votes in,
And you do another count.
You do the Palm Beach Pokey
And you turn the count around,
That's what it's all about!
You bring your lawyers in,
You drag the whole thing out,
You bring your lawyers in,
And you put it all in doubt.
You do the Palm Beach Pokey
And you turn the count around,
That's what it's all about!
You let your doctors spin,
You let the pundits spout,
You let your retirees sue,
And your people whine and pout.
You do the Palm Beach Pokey
And you turn the count around,
That's what it's all about!
You do the Palm Beach Pokey,
You do the Palm Beach Pokey,
You do the Palm Beach Pokey,
That's what it's all about!
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ashke
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response 248 of 409:
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Nov 27 19:39 UTC 2000 |
a lot of people not voting has little to do with wether they care or not.
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jerryr
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response 249 of 409:
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Nov 27 20:11 UTC 2000 |
would you accept - not motivated enough to demonstrate that they care by
casting a vote?
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ashke
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response 250 of 409:
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Nov 27 20:12 UTC 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"
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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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