McG.: > "Not quite 'almost always'. Twice since the last war the government in Westminster was formed by the party which did not receive the largest number of votes." Well, it is 4 times in United States history, including 2000, that the "electoral college inversion" has occurred, wherein the November popular-vote party "winner" loses the presidential election conducted by the Electors in December. Prior to 2000, the last-previous occasion was 1888. Maybe that's not quite "almost never"; but over on this side of the Pond, I think it'll do until Amost Never comes along. > "But I wasn't making the point that Gore was ahead on the popular vote across the USA, and therefore should have been awarded the victory. That's not the rules under which they play the game." I know you weren't, Kevin; & I knew it when I posted my previous. / So, I was consciously setting up a Straw Man to knock down. So, sue me. (Hey: if you had a sharpie Amurrican trial lawyer, you *would*! :) > "..But the rules also state that all the votes should be counted, and that wasn't done in Florida, because the side which was marginally ahead set to abort the count, and succeeded in doing so..." Well, that's considerably oversimplified [Considerable Oversimplification being *MY* turf btw, so kindly Keepa U Hands Off :] -- but, OKOK, I'll buy it if you'll amend "abort the count" to "abort the *re-re-count*". The FLA results were (a) unofficially tallied by the news media, which is meaningless because (trust me on this) such totals are ALWAYS wrong; then (b) officially counted by the counties and the state; and then (c) officially re-counted [but not all by hand] by said governmental units because of the extreme closeness of the outcome. / What WAS "aborted" was the re-re-count (by hand) of ballots from selected counties as petitioned by the Gore campaign. Here's what I really believe about Florida 2000. (1) If everybody there who voted for President had succeeded in casting a ballot which clearly registered their true intent, Al Gore would be President today and we'd be in somewhat-better (i.e., less-worse) shape than we now are. [Also, since Joe Lieberman would be Vice President, our Middle East policy would be more even-handed and the Road Map would still exist. Ohhh, yes it would. Think about it. Nixon & "Red" China. See? It takes somebody who is immune from the charge of anti-Semitism to push the Likud around.] / However, (2) if every single legally *countable, voter-intent-discernible*, ballot cast in Florida had been re-re-re-counted until the Cows came Home --- Bush would still have won. Unfortunately.
|