BS: So Who is Our New President?

Subject: So Who is Our New President?
From: harpgirl
Date: 27 Nov 00 - 06:58 PM

Dear Abby,

...I've just returned from S Florida and I can't figure out who our next president is. Katherine Harris said she gave the election to Bush and told the Electoral College to give him the votes. Can she do that?

Signed, harpgirl

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Nov 00 - 07:08 PM

A president elected by one woman. Wow...

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: harpgirl
Date: 27 Nov 00 - 07:15 PM

...geez McGrath...I was hoping you would have an interesting ten paragraph answer for all the winter depressives to get revved up about! You are uncharacteristically terse!

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: harpgirl
Date: 27 Nov 00 - 07:28 PM

...I can't wait to read what Katha Pollit has to say about Katherine Harris!!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Banjer
Date: 27 Nov 00 - 07:44 PM

Who would you expect to get the vote regardless of how many votes there were for the opposition. His brother is the Governor of the state, and this Harris was one of his (G.W's) campaign workers. All of a sudden we heard that Dade had shut down their manual recount before finishing. That tells me they had enough votes to put Gore over the top and were pressured to drop it. All this proves to me is that the biggest of the two crooks prevailed.
Does any of this make anyone but myself wonder how, in years and elections past, the winner was declared the next day. If there are seven days for absentee ballots yet to come in how can a winner be declared so fast? Does that show that all those absentee ballots were just ignored and thrown out? I would love to be able to go back into some records and see who REALLY won some of our earlier elections. Just one more GOOD reason to not trust our government or any of its shennanigans.

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Barry Finn
Date: 27 Nov 00 - 07:55 PM

We can never again say that oure vote counts. Barry

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Amos
Date: 27 Nov 00 - 08:05 PM

Every message from the Bush campaign that I heard was about forcing a win on the strength of situational vagaries which reeked of influence.

Every message I heard from the Gore campaign was about cleaving to a principle of allowing individual votes to make a difference.

I wish the issue before the Supreme Court was framed differently, so they could exercise some intelligence about the fundamentals (if they wouyld). As it is, while it makes terrific drama, the real upshot is possibly beyond their sphere of influence.

I thought Lieberman was downright statesmanlike. While I have always had misgivings about Al, they are as nought compared to the whirlwind of loathing Bush's cronies elicit in my litte heart.

A

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Nov 00 - 08:06 PM

Can't you just see it. A nice non-controversial electiion, and the result comes out on time, and the loser concedes and the winner gets down to it. And then ten days kater or so they rush out and say "Sorry folks, we've just added in the absentee votes and it's the other guy that won after all."

Is there any other democratic country where they announce the result of an election before the votes have even arrived, let alone been counted?

And where it would be possible for a candidate to successfully sabotage a recount because he thinks he might actually have fewer votes than his opponent if they are all counted? Can't you get impeached for pulling something like that?

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Giac
Date: 27 Nov 00 - 09:31 PM

Who is our president?

Alfred E. Bushman.

What, Me Worry?

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Bill D
Date: 27 Nov 00 - 11:17 PM

Bush is acting like he expects a crown....he is being so arrogant about it all that a few Republicans are embarassed....I suppose he WILL be inaugrated...but it will be fun to watch him make a blooming fool of himself...(I'll bet $1.00 he doesn't make it thru the first year without a major bumble!)......

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: kendall
Date: 27 Nov 00 - 11:35 PM

A year? it wont take him nearly that long. They have football pools, why not a stumble pool?

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: The Shambles
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 05:38 AM

Thank you Giac. I wondered where I had seen that face before.

I think I will worry, though............

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 11:47 AM

This particular presidency is so tainted it's amazing either of them would want it. Whoever gets it will be a one termer. Might as well give it to George. That'll guarantee a Democratic majority in the House after the elections in two years.

Funny, I thought he just wanted to be baseball commissioner.

Bat Goddess

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Wesley S
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 12:27 PM

I can't remember - it was either Tweedledee or Tweedledumb that won. I have a hard time telling them apart.

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Gary T
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 12:29 PM

Who is our new president? Okay, I give up--who?

Can Harris do that? Well sure, why not? She could be reversed by the courts or (theoretically) the legislature, and no one can force the electors to vote their pledge, but as far as I know her actions have been within the law.

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Margo
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 12:49 PM

No no. She certified the votes,and Bush having more than Gore, the 25 Electoral votes go to Bush. The Electoral college meets in December. They actually can vote for Gore, but such a thing is not likely, as it would mean political suicide for those electors who did. But there is a possibility that the electoral college can't decided who to vote for and then the decision making is handed over to Congress. Congress would need a simple majority to decide, so it is likely that they would decide republican, because of the majority. So I think it's almost safe to say it will be Bush. (But you never know...) Margo

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Kim C
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 12:56 PM

I don't know if anyone has mentioned this, but in EVERY election there are mucked-up ballots that are disqualified for whatever reason. I guess it's just because this one is so close that people are paying more attention. But not EVERY vote counts EVERY time. Sometimes they are thrown out. That's just the way that is. Sorry.

No matter who gets the office, the other party is going to be finger-pointing for the next 4 years and frankly I hate that sort of behavior from adults who ought to know better.

In true Napoleonic tradition, I hereby crown myself Princess Svetlana of Antioch, Keeper of the Holy Giant Spoon of Discipline. A keg in every cellar, a chicken in every pot (or a tofu chicken for you vegetarians), and a song on every ear. Misbehave and you get a whack with the Spoon.

Hell, it sounds about as good as the alternatives...

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: MMario
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 12:59 PM

actually kim, sounds better then most of the alternatives.

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: mousethief
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 01:45 PM

We don't have a new president until January 20. Until then we have a president-elect. Or two president-elects. Or two president-not-elects. Whatever.

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: The Walrus at work
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 01:51 PM

Seriously, can somebody explain to me (a somewhat confused Brit) how there is effectively a tied ballot throughout the state and yet one candidate gets ALL 25 seats for the state<1>. I'd have thought the logical method would have been one seat per 4% of the total vote (or 1 per 5% and the rest allocated with the majority to the "winner" - if there is one). Am I missing something?

Regards

Walrus

<1> A sinngle seat, no problem, but 25 seats on a "winner takes all" basis?

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Kim C
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 01:57 PM

Maybe they could do a job-share. One gets to be President in the odd months, the other in the even. As neither one is hurting for money, it should be no problem to split the salary. :)

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Jim Krause
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 02:14 PM

Job share? A Democrat and a Republican? What with both parties fightin' for the political center, and the Senate evenly split 50/50 with that Maria Whatsername from Washington State the brand new Senator, what's the point? You ain't seen no gridlock like this here gridlock. I don't even think the next Prez. will have his cabinet in place before the next midterm elections in 2002. Dubyah or Al, makes no difference, really.

Jim Krause
Mudcatter formerlyknownas Soddy

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Gary T
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 02:17 PM

Walrus, the president is elected by the states through their electors. The individual states administer the elections, though on a day specified by federal law. While a few states apportion their electors on a pro-rata basis as you have mentioned, the overwhelming majority use a "winner take all" system. I would presume that the logic behind this is to maximize the state's voting power for a given candidate. For example, if a state had 6 electors, the popular vote in that state were a 50-50 split, and it apportioned its electoral votes 3-3, that state would cancel its own votes and have no actual influence on who won. By giving all 6 of its votes to whomever had the most popular votes, if even by the smallest margin, that state has the potential to make a difference in who gets elected.

If every state apportioned its electors on a pro-rata basis, presidential elections would for all intents and purposes be decided by nationwide popular vote, making the Electoral College unnecessary. While there is certainly debate (and has been for years) over the pros and cons of the Electoral College system, the most effective way for any individual state to participate in it is by the "winner take all" method.

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 02:20 PM

Wlarus - The winner of a state (by even just one vote) gets all of the votes of that state. That is the way our Electoral College works. The vote is not actually tied in FL. here is a small majority for Bush among those votes deemed as valid and counted. The argument is whether or not additional votes can be deemed valid and therefore counted, if the definition of valid votes is modified. So far that process still has Bush clinging to a small majority - so the courts over ruled the time frames set for polling by the state of Florida - and now that ytime has run out. Florida has completed its election and certified the results. Gore has challenged that election in Florida courts. Bush has challenged in Federal court the Florida Supreme Court's decision to extend the election dates and expand the vote counting criteria. There are a few lesser court issues pending, and it is likely that the US federal court (our Supreme Court) will make a watershed decision for all of the other cases. If it finds for Bush, that the Florida Supreme Court overstepped its bounds by extending the election process, itis unlikely that Gore has any further reasonable chances. If it finds for Gore, that the Florida Supreme Court made a decision within its legal bounds then there will follow a series of legal machinations; the Florida legislature has the over-riding authority over the elction process and will likely appoint the Electors (and therefore the electoral votes) and that will almost cetrainly be a Bush win. If that happens, Gore will challenge that decision, probably in Florida court first - then in US Supreme court. At any rate - these court decisions, frustrating as it is to wait for them, will likely be the best way to solve an election that is so close the winner is selected within the margin of error! The good news is that (the glass is half full) BOTH candidates got more vote then the winner of the last two presidential elections. While you and I may not like one, we can pretty darn sure that our neighbor does!

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: mousethief
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 02:23 PM

I also heard that Nader, not wanting to be left out of the lawsuit jamboree, filed suit in federal court. Unfortunately due to a glitch in the legal wording on the lawsuit, he ended up suing himself. If he wins, all the votes awarded Buchanan will be given to Ross Perot; if he loses, all the votes awarded Michael Dukakis will be given to Pat Paulsen.

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: *#1 PEASANT*
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 02:43 PM

He is some politician!

CB

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Gary T
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 03:00 PM

Walrus, on re-reading your post, I thought it might be helpful to clear up the mention of "seats". The election under discussion has nothing to do with seats in the legislature. It is strictly for selection of the president. The legislature does not routinely elect the president, although the job can fall to the legislature if the normal Electoral College process fails in certain ways. It's quite rare for that to happen (twice in 200+ years, I believe), but there's some chance it could happen this go-round.

The legislature is elected as follows:

Senators, who represent the state as a whole, are elected by statewide vote. Each state has 2 senators, serving in the Senate.

Congressmen are elected by a portion of the state in a voting area called a Congressional District. The number of congressmen varies with the population of the state (some states have but one, Florida has 23, California has--I dunno, a whole bunch). Congressmen serve in the House of Representatives.

The NUMBER of presidential electors from a given state equals the NUMBER of senators and congressmen combined (in Florida, 2+23=25). However, they are not the same people. Presidential electors perform their function only in a presidential election, every four years. Senators and congressmen, of course, do their job throughout their terms.

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: GUEST,Chris Nixon - puzzled in the UK
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 03:04 PM

Has it occurred to anyone that in the event of your being unable competently to elect a new head of state, you should revert to colonial status and be governed direct from the Court of St James. See how you like OUR band of thieves liars and fools. You could, however, declare a new public holiday for the 23rd November - Indecision Day... All our trials Lord... Chris

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 03:08 PM

since we have some VERY small states, and some large ones, and the individual states 'mostly' govern themselves, it was decided to use the electoral college system so that the small states votes tended to have 'some' influence (much like giving each state 2 Senators and a variable # of representatives in Congress).In a country where there IS no major governing body below national level, such as Great Britain, a national popular vote makes sense. We 'usually' have the popular vote winner get elected...but......

I don't like some aspects of the electoral system much, but it is not easy to design things so N. Dakota and Nevada don't get totally ignored.

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: mousethief
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 03:10 PM

We're not unable to elect a president. The college of electors doesn't even meet until what? December 18th? And they report to congress when? January 5? Until then all this "incapable of electing a president" nonsense is grossly premature. The system is grinding its way along. I understand this might be confusing to foreigners who don't realize how our nation of the lawyers, for the lawyers, and in spite of the people works. I'm boggled that there are Americans who don't get it, though.

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: mousethief
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 03:13 PM

Is there some reason NOT to totally ignore Nevada and North Dakota?

(ducking and running),
Alex

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Jeri
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 03:58 PM

Now I'm thinking "Captain Indecisive."

Please forgive me...

Oh, who will be our president
To that office, who'll get in?
First it's Bush, then maybe Gore
And now it's Bush again
It's clear speed outweighs fairness
If you voted for him
It's clear that everyone's vote counts
Depending on who you want to win

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: GUEST,Sarah
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 04:02 PM

Chris,

In fact, I received the e-mail below from a friend in the UK not long ago...

Sarah

***

To the citizens of the United States of America,

In the light of your failure to elect a President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchial duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories Except Utah, which she does not fancy. Your new prime minister, the rt. hon. Tony Blair, MP (for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary Then look up "aluminium". Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up "vocabulary". Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up "interspersed".

2. There is no such thing as "US English". We will let Microsoft know on your behalf.

3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn't that hard.

4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys.

5. You should relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen", but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.

6. You should stop playing American "football". There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American "football" is not a very good game. The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays "American" football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football. Initially it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies). We are hoping to get together at least a US rugby sevens side by 2005.

7. You should declare war on Quebec and France, using nuclear weapons if they give you any merde. The 98.85% of you who were not aware that there is a world outside your borders should count yourselves lucky. The Russians have never been the bad guys.`"Merde" is French for "sh!t".

8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 8th will be a new national holiday, but only in England. It will be called "Indecisive Day".

9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are rubbish and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.

10. Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy

Thank you for your cooperation.

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: harpgirl
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 06:07 PM

The latest lawsuit twist is the allegation that 5,000 absentee ballots were tampered with. Nikki Clark will hear this in her courtroom in Leon county Dec6th. She was the judge who ruled on the murder of the British tourist in Monticello, Florida. I've been in her courtoom a number of times for various reasons and she is fearless and a very seasoned and reasonable judge. I have tremendous respect for her and I am eager to hear what she has to say!

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 06:48 PM

1) When there is a very close result in any election, the normal practice is to have a full recount.

2)This has to be a manual recount, because there are inherent flaws in machines which mean that there are inevitably going to be some errors which can be eliminated by individual scrutiny of ballot bapers.

3)A manual recount has to be carried out in a way that ensures that there is no bias in favour of any particular candidate. There are tried and tested methods of ensuring this.

4)There is no reason why it should take any longer to carry out a full recount in all parts of the state than it does to carry out a recount in a single precinct or a single county.

5)Anybody who tries to prevent such a recount, by any means, in order to favour a particular candidate is attempting to disrupt the process of a democratic election.

6)Carrying out a democratic election is a far more important matter than who actually wins it.

It seems remarkably simple to me. Can anybody honestly say they disagree with any of these points? And, if so, that they are not influenced by whom they would like to see win this particular election.

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: InOBU
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 07:16 PM

"Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything."

Joseph Stalin
and Larry - all the best...

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Troll
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 08:35 PM

I found the height of hipocrasy in Liebermans statement about only wanting everyones vote counted fairly after he and his fellow Gorons oversaw the throwing out of the absentee ballots from the military on the flimsiest of excuses.
Gore lost. Demanded a recount. OK. Lost again. Demanded another recount with a change in the rules. OK. Lost again. Demanded anoyher recount with still another change...are you starting to see a pattern here? Like maybe "recount until we win."?
Lets look at the dimples on the ballot and see if we can figure out who they REALLY intended to vote for. I mean these are elderly people and they get confused easily.
RIGHT! These are the same old people who can run 24 bingo cards at a time and never miss a number.
I don't really care for Bush but Gore?
yuk

troll

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: raredance
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 09:11 PM

This is clearly an election without precedent

rich r

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 09:15 PM

why, Troll....you wouldn't have a strong opinion, would you?...are these the **SAME** old folks who play bingo?...and the whole question they are trying to work out is ...DID Gore lose? Running the cards thru the same machines again is not exactly a real recount, and the laws are designed to move to hand recounts when the vote is very close and the machines can't judge the close ones....Bush simply would rather they NOT look at them with human eyes! So far, almost all recounts have shown Gore gaining.

Can't you imagine this whole thing being reversed with BUSH losing by a few hundred? I'll bet Republican lawyers by the bus load would see the wisdom in careful recounts...just in case!

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: MarkS
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 10:42 PM

Walrus - You used the word "logic" in the same sentence with "American Politics." Those two terms are mutually exclusive. Bur stay tuned, we are only about one-half way home so far.

Anybody else but me betting on our next president being Dennis Hastert?
MarkS

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Margo
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 11:28 PM

McG of H: You said:1) When there is a very close result in any election, the normal practice is to have a full recount.

Yes, and there are rules in each state that speak to that issue: Here in Washington state the recount is required when the vote is within a specified amount, for example 1500 votes. In that case the recount is automatically done by machine. If the race is closer, say for example within 500 votes, the recount is done by hand. I don't know if there is a standard method layed out for a hand recount, but in the Florida situation there doesn't seem to be any standard being used. I object to that.

So you see, a recount doesn't automatically have to be done by hand. Also, you said A manual recount has to be carried out in a way that ensures that there is no bias in favour of any particular candidate. There are tried and tested methods of ensuring this. Apparently they don't know that in Florida. The business of holding a ballot up to the light to try to interpret the intention of the voter turns my stomache.

I would want to stop a recount done under such conditions... Margo

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Lucius
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 11:29 PM

Yeah, our poor millitary, what a flimsy excuse that they didn't request the ballots, fill them out properly, mail them in time or needed them completed by republican canvassers. Talk about stupid Miami voters.......

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: BlueJay
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 11:49 PM

I heard a good one, similar to Kim C's above. Let Bush be Prez on Mon-Wed-Fri, and Gore can do it on Tue-Thur-Sat. Sunday off. Maybe they could trade shifts to get the whole weekend off, (like folks in the Real World do).

"Don't you cry, don't shed no tears,
You know it only comes around every four years".

Steve Goodman, "Election Year Rag"

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Troll
Date: 29 Nov 00 - 08:18 AM

Gore has not won on ANY recounts that I have heard about here in Florida. Every recount of the LEGAL, VALID, VOTES cast have put Bush ahead.
Votes where the chad is not completely removed or where NO CHOICE was made are not valid and no amount of spin is going to make them valid.
They started with hanging chads and when Gore couldn't win that way, they demanded another recount counting "dimpled" or "pregnant" chads as "intended" votes.
What next? Count Aunt Sally 'cause she would have voted for Gore if she hadn't died last week?
Yeah. I have strong opinions. A pox on both their houses.

troll

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Kim C
Date: 29 Nov 00 - 10:18 AM

Like I said earlier, every election has disqualified ballots for a variety of reasons. Why should this be any different? I'm all in favor of getting a proper count BUT I am not in favor of the idea of "let's see if we can glean by psychic intuition who this person REALLY meant to vote for." I'm sorry but I think that's just a little bit Out There. Why is it so difficult to just accept those ballots that have an actual, discernible vote on them? Isn't that how it's usually done anyway?

Also, a friend brought up this interesting question - why is it that the Florida voters were only confused by the Presidential ballot arrows, and not the LOCAL ballot arrows? Or are they having these problems with their LOCAL elections too and it just isn't making the national news?

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Amos
Date: 29 Nov 00 - 10:32 AM

Florida is reverting to type; we fought this kind of crap back in the 60's. Nobody is arguing for dimples here.

The whole thing would be irrelevant in a normal election, because the anomalies would not be meaningful if the state had been carried by a preference, say, of 10 per cent. But in a population of 6,000,000 to "win" under problematic circumstances by a margin of 300 is so thin a margin that all the votes become meaningful.

Under those circumstances to do anything that looks like partisan manipulation is very unwise policy because well-intended or not it smells like corruption. Personally, given the significance of the very small margins involved, I would have preferred a state-wide revote or recount in the first 7 days.

Instead, Bush's campaign is in a position where they can win by dragging their feet, and being the slightly stupid people they are, this will appear to them as an acceptable option. The fact that it creates an international impression of underhandedness and lack of principle is secondary to the realpolitik benefits they believe they will gain from it.

As far as I am concerned this is a very dark day for the Great Experiment; it has been subverted by small-minded manipulations. Fortunately margins as narrow as these don't come around very often.

The really dumb thing is that there is so much technology out there to make this sort of thing absolutely unnecessary -- for example, large-scale displays, touch screens, unique biological ID sensors (fingerprinting the vote entry as a way of ensuring uniqueness and confirmation of intent, with no link to registration ID, would be a clear solution)...it is a pathetic organizational swamp, as well as a moral embarassment to us all, IMNSHO.

A

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Nov 00 - 10:57 AM

So troll, am I right to understand that your view is that, no matter how close the vote may be, it is impossible for a fair recount to be held, so that whatever figure the initial vote comes up with should be regarded as final?

And that any evidence that suggests that these antique machines inevitably exclude a number of votes greater than the difference between the two candidate in this case is not relevant?

And that this should apply whichever candidate happens to be ahead on that initial vote?

And is this just for votes in Florida because of particular characteristics of people in Florida, or is it something that should apply in elections generally?

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Ella who is Sooze
Date: 29 Nov 00 - 11:01 AM

sheesh...

Bored now!

I don't know... But I wish they would hurry up and sort it out... It's wearing a little thin now...

Ella

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: mg
Date: 29 Nov 00 - 11:32 AM

for who posted the nasty thing about military ballots: there was an error in printing some of the military ballots and the votor number was hand written in some of them. This was no fault of the servicemen and women. Sometimes they don't "mail" their mail. It is carried by other means. There is room for honest discussion here but no room in my opinion for slamming those who are defending us.

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: mousethief
Date: 29 Nov 00 - 12:19 PM

Troll, the first recount was called for by Florida law, not Gore. None of the recounts Gore has called for (exept Browder county) have been completed. So your statement "Gore called for a recount. Lost again. Gore called for another recount" is pure bunkum.

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: GUEST,Sarah
Date: 29 Nov 00 - 02:40 PM

The irony I'm enjoying is that the Gore folks, having spent the better part of a year vilifying everything in Texas from Brownsville to Perryton, are now quoting Texas recount policy as having come from the Mount.

Sarah

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Tiger
Date: 29 Nov 00 - 02:57 PM

Sarah, it's hypocrisy, not irony.

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: GUEST,Sarah
Date: 29 Nov 00 - 03:44 PM

Tiger,

Yes, it's one of the glories of a two-party system: You can get people who speak out of four sides of their mouths -- both sides for each party -- as well as other parts of the anatomy.

Sarah

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Nov 00 - 04:24 PM

"There is room for honest discussion here but no room in my opinion for slamming those who are defending us."(mary garvey)

"The nasty thing about military ballots" - the only post I could find referring to military ballots was troll fulminating about the fact that some of them had been ruled invalid by the returning officer. "I found the height of hipocrasy in Liebermans statement about only wanting everyones vote counted fairly after he and his fellow Gorons oversaw the throwing out of the absentee ballots from the military on the flimsiest of excuses."

I'm not too up absentee ballots - but I imagine that there are pretty strict agreed rules about them, meant to ensure that people don't fake them, and in effect steal the votes of the military etc. Agreed by everybody in advance - and wasn't Bush and his minders complaining bitterly about anyone attemptng to change the rules during the election? But it's all right if he thinks it helps him?

That's what is so sick about this whole thing - people judging what is and what is not fair and just purely on the basis of what will help their side. It's not meant to be that way. Most honest people don't behave like that, and I imagine most Americans Areren honaest, and think it's disgusting.

There's room for honest disagreement about the best way to ensure that an election count is carried out fairly. But if all the people on one side are Repubicans and all the people on the other side are Democrats, and the disagreement is purely about technical matters, that is not an honest disagreement.

But when it comes to actively disrupting a recount - that's a direct attack on the democratic process. In essence it was an act of treason. But more important, it was deeply dishonourable.

Maybe if the flip of the coin had come up with Gore being a few hundred votes ahead, he'd have done just the same as Bush. But maybe he wouldn't. Maybe beneath the pomposity and the self-flattering spin he's put on his CV, he's an honourable man.

But as for Bush - there can be no doubt now that he's a squalid litle crook. Nixon without the brains.

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Kim C
Date: 29 Nov 00 - 04:36 PM

Seems to me that both of them are behaving like children. Let's see what happens at the Electoral College Toga Party next month...

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: GUEST,Tone d'F
Date: 29 Nov 00 - 06:20 PM

In the UK we have the Hustings and Rotten Buroughs (block voteing) so I will pass on an email I recieved today

NOTICE OF REVOCATION OF INDEPENDENCE

To the citizens of the United States of America,

In the light of your failure to elect a President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except Utah,which she does not fancy. Your new prime minister (The rt. hon. Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections.

Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up "aluminium". Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up "vocabulary".

Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication.

Look up "interspersed".

2. There is no such thing as "US English". We will let Microsoft know on your behalf.

3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn't that hard.

4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys.

5. You should relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen", but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.

6. You should stop playing American "football". There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American "football" is not a very good game. The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays "American" football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football.

Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies).

We are hoping to get together at least a US rugby sevens side by 2005.

7. You should declare war on Quebec and France, using nuclear weapons if they give you any merde. The 98.85% of you who were not aware that there is a world outside your borders should count yourselves lucky. The Russians have never been the bad guys. "Merde" is French for "sh*t".

8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 8th will be a new national holiday, but only in England. It will be called "Indecisive Day".

9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are cr*p and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.

10. Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Troll
Date: 29 Nov 00 - 07:52 PM

Alex, the recounts, whether called by the State of Florida ,as provided for by law or by Gore, also as provided for by law, haven't given Gore his victory. When guessing the voters INTENTIONS are the determining factor, it's getting a little far-fetched.
It is apparent that the strategy was to keep calling for recounts until Gore won. It didn't work.
The Broward Co. count didn't help him and if appears that the incomplete Dade Co. count would not have either since, with the Deomcratic stronghold precincts counted he STILL didn't have the votes. The remaining Dade Co. precincts were not strong for Gore. That's probably why they were not counted. When the Fla. Sec. of State set the deadline, the Dems knew that their best hope was to count the strong precincts and thats what they did.
McGrath, the Democratic party sent a seven-page notice out to it's people in Florida about how to disquailfy absentee ballots with a whole section dedicated to the military. This was done because they knew that the military tends to lean Republican and any Republican votes that could be negated was simply money in the bank.
I am upset about the military ballots because I grew up in a military family and served my time in turn.I don't like it when the military gets screwed, when it gets used to take the heat off some politician, when men die because someone needs to appear "strong" or "concerned about human rights".
Yeah, I fulminate, you're damned right I do. I've seen just how important the lives of our service men and women are to Bill Clinton and Al Gore. When the first six corpses were brought back to the 'States from the Presian Gulf, Gore and Clinton were not at the airport to meet them and to offer support to the families.
No, they were at a fund raiser. They raised $200,000.
Damn them.
And damn anyone who thinks it's alright.

troll

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Ebbie
Date: 29 Nov 00 - 08:02 PM

sniff

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Troll
Date: 29 Nov 00 - 08:07 PM

BTW McGrath, you've never said why you think Bush is a "squalid little crook". Please enlighten us.
As for the disruption of the recount, that seems to exist only in the minds of Gores spin doctors and the media. The people on the scene, including people who were actually counting ballots at the time report no feelings of fear of any kind and Dade Co. has said repeatedly that they stopped counting because there was not time to finish the count.
But that doesn't fit with the media picture does it?
OK. Try this. Jesse Jackson came in from out of state, Got a demonstration going and marcked around where the count was being conducted in Palm Beach Co. shouting " No Hand Count, No Peace". That sounds a lot to me like a threat to start riots if things don't go his way.
The Press gave it a passing glance and that was all.
But because a group of Republicans decide to demonstrate, right away it's an attempt to disrupt the count and intimidate the counters. If it weren't so serious it would be laughable. But what is sauce for the goose is most certainly NOT sauce for the gander.

troll

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Nov 00 - 09:09 PM

98% of EVERYONE involved in the politics of this, and 98.762% of everyone posting here about it(yeah, me too) are looking at their preferred outcome/resolution and picking & choosing arguments that will support it. It is logical Gerrymandering...it is related to throwing the dart, then drawing the bullseye. It is seldom about what is fairest and most reasonable....or even what the law 'actually' allows/requires.

In the end, it will come down to who has the most leverage and philosophical representation on some court or in some governmental body. At this point, I expect Bush will squeak by and we will never know who won. What we have seen is, that under current voting & counting procedures, it is almost impossible to count a large number of votes accurately, and thus very close elections are decided by manuevering, not precise numbers.

But...what the hell...*grin*,...it's the American way, and we'll all get by.

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: DougR
Date: 29 Nov 00 - 09:22 PM

Troll: I decided around election day not to comment further in political threads on the Mudcat. It used to be fun. It isn't anymore. You are getting pretty beat up by our liberal friends, and I just wanted you to know that you are not totally alone.

Have you ever considered, friend Troll, if Gore gets into the White House, considering everything he is doing to get in ...how difficult it will probably be to get him out of it if he serves a four or eight year term? His fingermarks clutching the front door will still be in place a hundred years from now. That, in my opinion, will probably be the only "mark" he will make on history, during his tenure in that wonderful, big old White House on Pennsylvania Avenue, in Washington, D.C.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: GUEST,Sarah
Date: 29 Nov 00 - 09:29 PM

Troll,

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the..."

reporters!

Then the lawyers -- you might direct them to the courthouse just over beyond that swamp, which is just knee deep -- they know all about knee deep. (I did read somewhere that crocs and 'gaters like their meat rotten; sounds like an opportunity for Floridians to become national heroes.)

Sarah

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Troll
Date: 30 Nov 00 - 07:54 AM

Thanks for the kind words but I like pointing out the other side to our liberal friends. It's so much fun to watch them scurrying around, defending their man.
They only read the liberal media. I just try to give 'em the rest of the story so they can't feel quite so self-righteous.
Of course, I can't MAKE them listen.

troll

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 30 Nov 00 - 08:24 AM

That was pretty tasteless, troll. I am a fairly liberal Gore supporter who is not scurrying, doesn't feel all that self-righteous, and doesn't deserve the disdain you are so freely offering. I AM listening -- your arguments so far just haven't been very convincing.

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Nov 00 - 10:37 AM

........like I said 4 posts above...*sigh*

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: mousethief
Date: 30 Nov 00 - 10:48 AM

I voted for Gore and I wish he would just shut up and accept the current Florida tally. Troll can't see reasonable liberals; they don't fit the preconceived notion and thus don't make it onto the scope.

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Troll
Date: 30 Nov 00 - 12:19 PM

Generally "reasonable liberal" is an oxymoron. If you ARE one, then what I have said obviously does not apply to you.
Don't believe my arguments. Check them out for yourself. Go to some of the Conservative sites and see what the other side has to say. I'll guarantee that you won't get the whole story from the mainstream media.
Tom Brokaw spilled the beans on THEIR objectivity when he siad "WE are ahead".

troll

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: mousethief
Date: 30 Nov 00 - 12:21 PM

Yes, obviously the conservatives are the rational ones. They make such quips as

Generally "reasonable liberal" is an oxymoron.

Which PROVES they are more rational than we.

Thanks for setting me straight, Troll.

ROTFLMAO.

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Margo
Date: 30 Nov 00 - 12:25 PM

Omigosh, Mousie! I just "PM"ed you and made a joke about the oxymoron. I just want you to know I did it before seeing this last post!! Margo

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: mousethief
Date: 30 Nov 00 - 12:38 PM

Given any public debate, people on the one side love to vilify those on the other side, and render them not-worth-listening-to. I mentioned this in the last abortion thread but it was roundly ignored (or, worse, disagreed with. I hate that!).

By making all liberals idiots, the conservatives don't have to listen to anything the liberals have to say. This makes them feel more comfortable and secure in their own prejudices and follies.

Contrariwise, by making all conservatives into money-grubbing and/or morality-down-your-throat-shoving fiends make the liberals feel better about their achilles heels.

In reality both sides have good and bad points, and their share of both very smart people, and idiots.

It will be verrrrrrrrrry interesting how our new prez (who I assume will be George Bush, unless the Sore Loser manages to pull off a hat-trick) manages to "consensus build" after all the vitriol that has been flying about in the last month. We'll really see who the consensus-builders are and who the empire-builders and ego-builders are in the next 2 years in this country. Should be verrrrry interesting, indeed!

Charter member, M.I.S.T. (Moderates In Search of Tact),
Alex

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: GUEST,j.b.
Date: 30 Nov 00 - 12:44 PM

The U.S. Supreme Court will rule for Bush next week and Gore will concede. That will be it, and then the media will REALLY begin their attack on George W. Bush. I hope he and Laura are good prayer warriors. They'll need to be to survive the next four years.

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Troll
Date: 30 Nov 00 - 12:50 PM

Personally, I'd like to send both of them to England. They would fit very well into the Parliamentary system, representing a "pocket" bourough somewhere, where they can tailor the vote to fit.
I think it's gone too far to build consensus.When the end justifies the means, there isn't much chance for reconciliation.

troll

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 30 Nov 00 - 01:39 PM

Actually, troll, it's pretty well known that Brokaw is a conservative Republican. In fact, there have been frequent suggestions that his reporting is skewed in favor of conservatives. I don't know whether those suggestions are true or not (I prefer to watch Peter Jennings myself), but Brokaw's sympathies are well known.

I think mousethief got it right -- when one side starts to vilify the other, the chances for a rational discussion of the issues are diminished (I'm paraphrasing). I'm a little disappointed in both of these guys, to be honest with you; a balanced view of this suggests that both sides have a point, but because the two principals are in "confrontation mode," they can't admit that there's merit to any position other than their own. However, Gore has made an effort to resolve this fairly by offering to meet, proposing alternative methods of conducting a fair recount, counseling patience and moderation, etc. Bush has done nothing but pretend that he IS the winner, because he had a momentary advantage based on an incomplete count, and because the Florida Secretary of State was very happy to use her office to attempt to lend legitimacy to her favored candidate. My liberal, self-righteous opinion is that Bush may well end up being named President, but Gore will come out of it with more of his integrity intact.

Now excuse me while I scurry off ...

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: GUEST,Sarah
Date: 30 Nov 00 - 02:47 PM

Troll,

It's a firm belief of mine that it is never good to attract the attention of the national media. If they show up in droves (is it a murder of reporters?), you should immediately assume something is very very wrong, wherever you are.

Whistle Stop, that's odd: I met a vet not long ago who called Brokaw the worst of the liberal media. Guess that's why I enjoy watching the O'Reilly Factor so much: The best part is the Your Mail section, wherin some people write to tell him he's a raving liberal and others label him a knee-jerk conservative. Once he read about six alternating missives like that and said, "I'm getting dizzy."

Which goes to show, mousethief, that nobody caches flak like an independent moderate. So always be ready to duck!

Sarah

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Nov 00 - 03:14 PM

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., proposes an interesting modification to the electoral process in the November 20 issue of Time magazine.

"There is a simpler reform that would ensure the popular-vote winner a majority in the Electoral College: award a bonus of 102 electoral votes, two from each state and for the District of Columbia, to the winner of the popular vote. ... The evidence is that the Founders fully expected the Electoral College to execute the popular will in each state."

Ebbie

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: GUEST,Sarah
Date: 30 Nov 00 - 03:30 PM

Yeah, and Schlesinger's father once told my mother, "Arthur's and idiot and he'll never be anything but and idiot."

True story.

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Kim C
Date: 30 Nov 00 - 03:48 PM

Y'all be sweet, now.

I did not vote for Bush or Gore and I guess you could say I am largely conservative but not completely because I do have several views that might qualify for "liberal" status. I don't know. But here's what it looks like to me...

People have been bashing W because he's getting his cabinet in place. Nothing wrong with being prepared. Gore should be doing the same thing. Right now we don't know beyond the shadow of a doubt what's going to happen, so why shouldn't both of them be prepared to take office? I don't see one thing wrong with that.

The more Gore doth protest, the less patience I have with him. Why does he want this office badly enough to keep the US in a state of limbo? I have to wonder whose best interests he has at heart.

Neither candidate impresses me in the least, which is why I voted for someone else. But I am sick of all this silliness, and that's what it is, plain silliness, and I want it to be OVER, do you hear me, OVER!!!!! Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Winter Solstice/insert your holiday of choice HERE is coming and I want to see a little Peace and Good Will. Is that too much to ask?

Somebody pass me the damn whiskey.

(I'm taking the day off tomorrow and won't be around again till Monday.)

KFC

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Seth
Date: 30 Nov 00 - 06:07 PM

Over, bloody hell! I think it's great. Anything that disrupts a system that doesn't represent me, and calls the legitimacy of that system into question for millions of people, why, that's an incredible gift. Nobody got killed, either. Let it continue to bubble and fizz.. Either way, it seems that the U.S, will have a moderate politically weak president, and for the rest of us, that's a good outcome. Seth from China

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: mousethief
Date: 30 Nov 00 - 06:10 PM

I'm with Kim C: the more Gore doth protest, the less respect I have for him (which never was great).

Alex
O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: M. Ted (inactive)
Date: 30 Nov 00 - 06:42 PM

Just got back from visiting London and Paris, and the view most commonly held in both places that that Bush's 'Florida Victory" being as shaky as it was, is obviously the result of hanky-panky by brother Jeb--The Bush position is regarded as nothing more or less than an effort to steal the election and kick up enough dust to get away with it. The "American System" which we flaunt and tout to the point of insufferability, is now something of a joke--

I heard the comment that "The only reason that Bush could have for trying to keep the recount from taking place is that he knows the election was rigged and he'll be found out." so many times that I got sick of agreeing with it--

The fact that the margin of victory in the election was less by huge number, than the number of ballots thrown out, makes the whole election, no matter what the outcome, look completely invalid, no matter who the victor turns out to be, and no one in Europe, from the people that I talked to, to the press, to the TV journalists, can understand why another election is not held in Florida--

Of course, in our narcisistic way, we insist that Europeans and others simple do not understand how our system works, and that anyway, their views don't matter--but the fact is that we are the pre-eminent military and economic power in the world, and, as none other than Former President George Bush once said, you may run for office on domestic policy, as president, your main occupation is foreign policy.

If Bush finally becomes president through any other means than a full, systematic, accounting of all the ballots cast, and a full judicial review of all the legal issues, the world view of it will be that the election result was manipulated, and he stole the election. This will undermine any credibility that we have when insisting on free and democratic elections anywhere else in the world, and Bush will be viewed as a corrupt usurper in the ranks of Pinochet, Marcos, Milosevic, Suharto and so on.

If conservatives really believe in their candidate and in their country, they need to seriously consider the appearance that his action have, and should encourage him to do encourage a close examination of all the details of the election so that the final, general perception, will be tht the Florida election was untainted--

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Nov 00 - 07:55 PM

Yeah, and Schlesinger's father once told my mother, "Arthur's and idiot and he'll never be anything but and idiot."

True story.

Ah, but Sarah, his father's name was also Arthur and he was talking about himself.

Probably just about as true a story. :)

Ebbie

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Nov 00 - 08:00 PM

"squalid little crook".

Counting the vote should be above politics. Any kind of democrat - small L please note - wants to see a fair and complete count.

A razor-thin division of vote means that a recount is necessary. Any true democrat (small L) will want to see a recount, regardless of whether he or she is ahead or not. Getting the vote right is more important than who wins.

If the person who is ahead in a razor-thin vote tries to obstruct the recount, he or she interfering with the democratic process and trying to steal the election.

And that is what Bush has been openly and persistantlym and shamelessly doing, that is why I think he is a squalid litle crook. And if Gore had done the same I'd call him a pompous little crook.

The point is, there has not been a complete recount in Florida, nor even in the few counties that tried to hold a recount. And Bush and co have done everything they could to obstruct every effort to hold such a recount.

Anyone who tolerates behaviour by and on behalf of the candidate they happen to prefer that they would not tolerate in an opposing candidate is a hypocrite and no friend of democracy. Can't there at least be consensus on that?

This isn't really about politics, at all, it's about dishonesty and corruption.

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Nov 00 - 08:11 PM

McGrath, I agree whole heartedly.

Ebbie

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: mousethief
Date: 30 Nov 00 - 11:16 PM

I agree with McGrath except the small L part. "L" doesn't occur in "democrat." This confuses my simple mind.

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Troll
Date: 30 Nov 00 - 11:17 PM

All the LEGAL, VALID votes have been counted several times. What is now going on is a desperate attempt by Gore to find more votes. Since he can't find them in the valid votes, he's looking in the invalid ones. His lawyer lied in the case he cited where a judge in Illinois allowed "dimpled" chads to be counted.
In fact, the judge DENIED the counting of dimpled chads. A complaint has been filed with the Amer. Bar Assn. in this matter.
McGrath keeps saying that Bush has tried to "obstruct the recount" but he never cites examples except for the demonstration in Miami-Dade. The truth is that the counters-all Democrats- were attempting to MOVE the counting site from the large open area where it was to a group of locked offices on the next floor where there could have been no observers. The onlookers justifiably raised hell and they stopped. There was no "near riot" as the Gore camp claimed and this is confirmed by the counters themselves.
If anyone is trying to "steal" the election at this point, it's Gore. He has gotten military ballots disqualified that should not have been disqualified. He has lied -via his attourney-to the state Supreme Court. His cronies in Washington and the media are now trying a smear campaign of the lowest sort on Fla. Sec. of State Katherine Harris (where are the feminists on this one).
I could continue but I won't. I'll simply say that you need to read something other than the mainstream liberal media and learn the other side of the story.
Of course, if you want to maintain your ignorance...thats up to you.

troll

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Troll
Date: 30 Nov 00 - 11:20 PM

I'll make it easy for you.
www.boortz.com
He's a Libertarian. Follow the links. Read the articles.
Learn.

troll

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Nov 00 - 11:27 PM

Troll- can't let this one go by: The counters were NOT all Democrats- what'sa matta you? Each team had members of each side, as the law requires. It's true that when the Republican overseer (of a 3-person overseeing team) went on her vacation, they filled that spot with another Democrat. But that's a very different thing.

Ebbie

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: DougR
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 01:21 AM

Sorry, Ebbie, I think you are mistaken. Yes, the Republican went on vacation, but I think she was replaced by another Republican.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: GUEST,Marty
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 02:40 AM

Who cares? The reason the election was so close in the first place is that there isn't a nickel's worth of difference between those two clowns. Next time around, we'll have one candidate and just vote on whether to call him a Democrat or a Republican.

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Troll
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 12:54 PM

Ebbie and DougR, thanks for the correction. Even us conservative icons (a legend in his own mind) make mistakes now and then.
June 1947 and now this. Tsk. Tsk.
Marty, I agree with you. Lets put a dome over Washington, D.C., and let them continue to think they're the center of the universe while the rest of us get on with life.

troll

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 01:39 PM

I see that in Canada's election, where there were something like 13 million ballot-papers, they counted all the votes by hand, and did so in four hours or so. And I assume that included recounts. (I gather that the 62% turn out was a record low for Canada, and conmsidwered a bit disgraceful...)P>

Couldn't they just ship all the ballot-papers from Florida up across the Canadian border, and they could sort the whole thing out over the weekend, including a couple of recounts if need be. And they wouldn't have one single Republican or Democrat involved in counting the votes. Either doing the counting or trying to stop the counting.

As for recounts - the only way to get an accurate recount of a machine vote like that has to be a manual recount. That was never carried out effectively, and Bush's team made every effort to stop such a recount being made, and I doubt if anybody either Republican or Democrat really sincerely believes that it is less accurate to check the votes by hand.

If Bush had been making noises about how to make sure that a manual recount was carried out more effectively and fairly, and rule out any kind of bias that would have been reasonable and fair, and a responsible thing to be doing. But he wasn't doing that.

And if he had been complaining about the failure of more counties in Florida to carry out a manual recount, including especially counties where it was expected that the voters were predominently Republican, that would have made sense too. But he didn't do that either.

What he and his supportwers did was to do everything they could do to obstruct and prevaricate, with the self-evident intention of taking advantage of the fact that he had come in marginally ahead on a count which was clearly very unreliable indeed. Maybe he might in fact have come in ahead on a fair count - but he wasn't going to take that risk. Winning was far more important to him than preserving the democratic processes.

As for the military votes - there are rules agreed in advance about such things. They are meant to stop fraud, fraud which would mean that the votes of military personnel could be stolen by the people carrying out the fraud. I assume that the people drawing up and agreeing the rules been doing so on the basis of possible ways of cheating which they had envisaged, and that these rules would have been agreed on a cross-party basis.

If the rules were genuinely broken, and the safeguards against fraud were removed, clearly they shouldn't be included. If it is not clear whether the rules have been broken, I assume that some kind of court has the duty to rule one way or the other. And I understand that that is what is happening.

As I said, maybe they should call in the Canadians to help sort things out.

Small L for Democrat. Slip-up there. It's from being used to saying "liberal with a small L". But with what's going on down in Florida, maybe the difference between big and small D is getting a bit eroded anyhow...

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Skeptic
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 04:09 PM

troll, There is no "mainstream liberal media". The mainstream media is sensationalistic, headline grabbing and a lot of other things, but there really isn't a conspiracy. (Which is interesting, considering the low opinion you seem to have of liberals, I mean, the ones you describe don't seem capable of orchestrating a conspiracy so well concealed and managed that proof is lacking. Anecdotes don't count as proof, BTW.) If anything, the press (overall) are notorious fence sitting wimps.

Interesting that the "liberal media" hasn't brought up the Bush efforts in Seminole and Marin County more prominently as the allegations there involve outright fraud. And Ms. Harris chose to ignore those (and similar) allegations of collusion and fraud when she certified the ballot. They also haven't mentioned the interesting historical trivia of the massive recounts in 1960 demanded by the Republicans, playing this a Democratic challenge to the electorial system. The recounts in 1960 involved 13 states and in Illinois lasted well into December.

Whatever our divergent opinions on Bush and Gore are, claiming that the media is liberal (with the hint of a conspiracy of some sort) and that somehow means something is disingenuous and misleading. And unworthy. You can and have argued more persuasively (and enjoyably) based on substansive issues, not irelevancies. (Well maybe not on mudcat, but you have)

To Continue:

I believe another thread commented on the fact that there isn't a State, let alone Federal standard for managing an election. It bears repeating. The County Supervisors in Florida, as elected officials, enjoy a great deal of discretion. My County is a Charter County, which means that except where specially limited by the Constitution of Florida which gives us a lot of local discretion. And makes the local Supervisors perhaps more susceptible to pressure.

Should I be concerned that a Republican Secretary of State certified the election. That a Republican controlled legislature will act to validate it? No, according to the "liberal press", I should be concerned that a democratic State Supreme Court sided with Gore.

Are Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton stirring up trouble? I think so but see no great conspiracy. Both of them generally play to the media to further there own agenda. Say what you will, neither are robots.

And if there is a bias in the media against Bush, is it because he is a Conservative Republican, or because he really is the self serving tool of the upper class people portray him as? Media (the liberal media) spin is what a great job he did in Texas, and all the problems aren't really his fault. Hardly the attitude of a liberal press conspiring against the downtrodden Republicans.

Why doesn't the Bush campaign want the hand count to continue? They were and are trying hard to stop it, with the ingenious claim that the people have spoken. But if all the votes haven't been counted, the people haven't spoken, at least not all the people.

The true contest isn't about Bush or Gore but about the integrity of an (admittedly) cumbersome system. If the ongoing schoolyard fight causes a significant number of voters to doubt or reject the system itself, that will do more harm than the issue of who is President for the next year.

And finally, the only date that truly matters under the US Constitution, is January 6 when Congress counts the ballots of the Electors. What if Bush takes Florida but the electors vote for Gore. (As they are perfectly free to do under the US Constitution)?. That is worthy of concern.

Regards

John

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Seth
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 04:36 PM

I agree with M. Ted. People that I talk to in China, where they don't get to vote, see this election as a fraud and I haven't spoken to anyone who sees Bush Jr. as a legitimate president. Of course, I'm on the level with teachers and educators-I don't know what the politicians are really thinking. China was very supportive of Milosevich until days after the rest of the world knew that he had been booted, at least in the press and T.V. here. Seth from CHina

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Troll
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 05:23 PM

Septic er, Skeptic(sorry there) I never mentioned a vast liberal media conspiracy. I simply stated my opinion based what I have seen and read.
Of course the press is sensationalistic. It is no longer driven by a wish to inform but by profit margins and market shares. My examples are not anecdotal but are there for anyone to read or-more likely- view.
The ballot problems in Seminole and Marin(?) Co.'s are even now being investigated by the courts and this fact is being carried in the conservative press.
Why hasn't Bush asked for a recount in Republican counties? I don't know.
If the shoe had been on the other foot, I'm pretty sure Gore would be doing everything humanly posible to hang onto his lead. As it is, the reports are that he has investigators out trying to find dirt on the Fla. electors to see if any of them can be "persuaded" to change their vote. Sweet guy.
The votes that Bush is trying to stop being counted are NOT legal, valid votes. I'm sorry but a dimpled chad does not qualify as a legal valid vote no matter how you spin it.
Those votes were counted twice by machine and the rejected votes were counted again and when Gore STILL couldn't find enough votes to win, they started counting dimpled chads.
Fla. law is pretty clear that the votes will be in and certified by five o'clock on the seventh day after the election. Ms.Harris tried to follow the law. Should she have recused herself because she's a Republican?
If so, by that logic, so should the supervisors and canvassers in South Fla. since they are Democrats.
I don't like Bush. I like Gore even less. Our choices this time were limited in the extreme.
Better luck next time.

troll

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Troll
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 05:39 PM

BTW
"The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything."
Josep Stalin

troll

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Troll
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 05:41 PM

Taht should have been "Josef"
Proofread, you fool.
Proofread!

troll

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 07:25 PM

God help me, I just today wrote and posted what may be a world's record for the longest ever single posting of all-original material: 1,132 words, according to my word processor. And it was all carefully thought out, not BS. I don't know what possessed me. Probably nobody has the patience to read all of it, least of all the people it was addressed to. Still, having put so much effort into it, I would appreciate it if anyone would read it and give me their comments. Look here.

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 08:19 PM

"Why hasn't Bush asked for a recount in Republican counties? I don't know." Says troll.

Well the simplest reason is that he doesn't want to risk being defeated if the votes were really counted across the state, and prefers to hang on to the lead which he fluked. (600 or so votes in 6 million is a fluke by any standards, especially when there are tens of thousands which could be in question.)

After all, it wouldn't have taken any longer to count all the votes than to count one large county, even at Florida speed.

"If the shoe had been on the other foot, I'm pretty sure Gore would be doing everything humanly posible to hang onto his lead." You may well be right.

If in those circumstances, Gore had tried to stop the recounts, he would, in my view anyway, have shown himself up as a man totally unworthy of any elected office. "A pompous little crook" was the appropriate term I suggested for him in those circumstances, earlier in the thread..

Would I be right to assume that ,in those circumstances, troll would be calling for Bush to concede, and for him to refuse to countenance any manual recounts?

I'm not being sarcastic here - it can be argued that what matters is to get the whole thing out of the way without a fuss, even if the person "elected" actually got fewer votes. (Well, of course, Bush did get quite a lot fewer votes than Bush overall - but I mean votes where it counts, for electoral college purposes, since it's the system you've still got.)

But if people have one set of rules for their own side, and a different set for the other side in the same situation, that is plain dishonest, whichever side they are on. And it treats the outcome of an election as more important than maintaining the processes of democracy. And that is a very slippery slope, and a lot of other countries in their time have slid down it, and it ends up somewhere very unpleasant indeed.

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 08:23 PM

Sorrty - typing error in that penultimate paragraph! It should read:

"I'm not being sarcastic here - it can be argued that what matters is to get the whole thing out of the way without a fuss, even if the person "elected" actually got fewer votes. (Well, of course, Bush did get quite a lot fewer votes than Gore overall - but I mean votes where it counts, for electoral college purposes, since it's the system you've still got.)

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Troll
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 08:48 PM

I will post no more on this thread. I have given everyone a site where they can learn the other side of the story, but I hear the same tired misconceptions. If they don't wish to avail themselves of this opportunity to educate themselves, so be it.
As mark Twain said,"You can't argue with invincible ignorance."

troll

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Dec 00 - 10:57 AM

Well, I agree with that Mark Twain quote. And I take it that troll agrees with me when I said "But if people have one set of rules for their own side, and a different set for the other side in the same situation, that is plain dishonest, whichever side they are on. And it treats the outcome of an election as more important than maintaining the processes of democracy. And that is a very slippery slope, and a lot of other countries in their time have slid down it, and it ends up somewhere very unpleasant indeed."

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: mousethief
Date: 02 Dec 00 - 01:01 PM

What do you mean Troll, "My examples were not anecdotal" -=- isn't that what anecdote means, an story told as an example?

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 03 Dec 00 - 09:08 AM

McGrath: Aren't you English? Or Scottish? How is it you have so much interest in American politics? (I say this with admiration. Would that I were so well informed about any nation other than the US.)

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Dec 00 - 12:00 PM

London Irish. Well, you may (with some difficulty) actually elect the President, but we have to put up with the stuff he does, so it's relevant enough who gets the job, and also what kind of process is involved. And we do get deluges with coverage in the media. And it's a good idea to keep an eye on it, becuase there's a tendency for the rest of the world to take America as a role model in all kinds of things. (Not in election techniques now though, I suspect.)

The general rule is that the bigger the country the more parochial the people living there tends to be. Well, it's natural enough, it feels self-sufficient, a world on its own. As England gets smaller, it gets more aware of the existence of the rest of the world as something more than a source of groceries. But America must feel an awful long way from most places, and even though hyphenated Americans have folk memories of other places, I get the impression these aren't always that close or accurate.

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler
Date: 04 Dec 00 - 11:05 AM

I've tried to avoid getting sucked into the little local difficulty the colonists are having in Florida but I think Matt_R hs the solution: in his universe everyone rules!! (but if Matt is the only taxpayer left...)
Well, try it and see how it works out!
RtS :oD)

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: GUEST,Frank Hamilton
Date: 04 Dec 00 - 05:22 PM

I think it's important to consider that the issue of who is president has left the arena of law and now is exclusively in the theater of politics. Any legal position is tempered by political leanings and this is why the Supreme Court of the US chose not to take this case.

Whoever becomes president will do so because their political party will be cagier, stronger, more unified and partisan. This goes for Nader as well as Bush and Gore.

Now to answer the real hot-patato question, which of the candidates is better for America? (Clue: expect partisan answers).

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Dec 00 - 07:54 PM

Well it ought to be "Whoever becomes president will do so because their political party will be cagier, stronger, more unified and partisan" - and this means that they get more people voting for them.

Once the voting is done, it should be is purely and simply an administrative matter of making sure that noone stops people casting their votes and a technical matter of counting the votes accurately. But somehow the partisanship and the manoeuvring and so forth that was appropriate duiring teh campaign was allowed to dominate and distort the voting stage.

And that's not a council of perfection, "in an ideal world", it's how most democratic countries do it, without needing to make a lotr of fuss about it, and without anybody - God Forbid! - trying to interfere with the process of counting or recounting the votes either by legal chicanery or extralegal methods.

And if anyone starts talking (and I've already heard the TV pundits doing it) about how all this has demonstratedt a robust democractic process in action, where the battle is carried on in a combative but fundamentally healthy way, and that kind of guff, it's total crap. Not healthy, sick, and in some danger.

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: GUEST,FOG (FRIEND OF GNOME)
Date: 04 Dec 00 - 08:39 PM

YIPEE DAVE IT IS US!!!

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Margo
Date: 04 Dec 00 - 11:57 PM

Bush.

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Ebbie
Date: 05 Dec 00 - 12:05 AM

Bosh

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Lucius
Date: 05 Dec 00 - 12:23 AM

Ask me in four years, and only if the votes are counted properly. Until then there has been no valad election, and no president.

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: DougR
Date: 05 Dec 00 - 12:50 AM

Hmm, Lucius. I assume you don't agree, then, with the opinions of the courts (to date) in Florida?

Do you realize, Lucius, that if the popular vote in this country deteminded who will be president, that we would probably have a replay of what has happened in Florida, in every state in the union during every future election? We could have an election that lasts for four years, probably.

You folks still have a chance. Don't give up yet. Al certainly won't. I assume your best chance for getting your guy into the White House is the court case charging that the Republicans skewed the election by adding registration numbers to the applications for absentee ballots in one of the counties in Florida. They didn't tamper with the ballots themselves, of course, just the applications for a ballot (and everyone knows that could seriously impair the judgement of the voter, right?). If the Judge rules against Bush, in that case, your guy has the election.

But what happens then, to the hue and cry for all ballots to be counted? Nine thousand or so votes would be voided due to the stupidity of the election officials and the Republicans that added registration numbers to the applications. The voters will have done nothing wrong, but their votes will still be voided.

So, do the Democrats want every vote counted, as they have been screaming about for the past two or three weeks, or do they just want to win an election, regardless of what it takes to win it?

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Suffet
Date: 05 Dec 00 - 06:58 AM

[Untitled]
Lyrics: Stephen L. Suffet © 2000
Tune: ROSIN THE BEAU (ACRES OF CLAMS)

I lived all my life in Chicago,
In the county the world knows as Cook,
I voted each time for Mayor Daley,
The boss that the world knew as crook.
And when it came time to re-ti-i-re,
A West Palm Beach condo I bought,
Each Sunday I sang in the choir,
And I voted for Gore, so I thought!

In Chicago we counted dead voters,
The cadavers all flocked to the polls,
Down here they don't count the live ones,
Unless they make clearly punched holes.
It's payback for Richard M. Ni-i-xon,
A cosmic kick in the tush,
Young Jack licked Dick back in '60,
But this time will Albert lick Bush?

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Dec 00 - 08:23 AM

If there's a fiddle in the absentee viotes which means that it is possible that fraudulent votes were slipped through, or people were allowed to vote after the election had finished, clearly they shouldn't be counted. That'd be the same as having ballot boxes stuffed with phony votes, which I gather has been a tradition in some places.

Presumably it was to stop that kind of fraud that there are rules agreed in advance of the election about things like postmarks.

If they were genuine votes cast in time, and it's purely a technicality, then they shold be counted, just in the same way as all the other votes which may have been inmproperly excluded should be counted. But being flexible to allow one sort of vote while excluding the other would be exercising a double standard.

"Not double standrads" - that means either including all the votes, and being flexible to ensure that happens; or it means being firm and sticking to all the rules.

And though DougR is against double standards, it looks very much as if there are a lot of people around who are not, including the guy who is probably going to be in the White House (and quite possibly the one who probably won't be in the White House - but there's rather less evidence of it in his case).

The bottom line is, it would have been perfectly simple and straightforward to have had by now a complete and verifiable manual count of all the votes in Florida (or for that matter in every state in the Union).

If all the counts happen at the same time, it doesn't matter how many there are, it doesn't take any longer than it does to conduct one count. So why was it seen as any more of a problem to count manually in all the counties sthan it was in one or two only?

And that would have sorted things out in a way that would have been much fairer and more open. (All right, it wouldn't have sorted out issues of intimidation and obstruction stopping people from voting, but that's a pretty big thing to sort out. And badly designed ballot papers, and badkly maintained voting machines...)

So the person responsible for all the confusion and delay have been the person responsible for obstructing the complete count which was requested by Gore and company.

Anyway, one useful thing, I imagine, is that this is going to mean that it won't be so easy to push electoral reform in the USA off into the margin.

And one unfortunate result will probably be that the unfortunate thing will be that the very imperfect voting system we have here in England is less likely to get shaken up, because it's evident now that it could be so much worse that it can be made to look quite good. (But at least we won't be getting voting machines, I suspect - and that is the kind of change we can definitely do without.)

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Troll
Date: 05 Dec 00 - 10:41 AM

" In this case there is no other confident substantial evidence to establish by a preponderance a reasonable probability that the results of the state-wide election in the state of Florida would be different from the result which has been certified by the State Elections Canvassing Commission. The court further finds and concludes the evidence does not establish any illegality, dishonesty, gross negligence, improper influence, coercion or fraud in the balloting and counting processes . . . In conclusion, the court finds the plaintiffs (Mr. Gore's team) have failed to carry the requisite burden of proof." Judge Sauls.

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Troll
Date: 05 Dec 00 - 10:47 AM

Sorry. The first line should read:
"In this case, there is no credible statistical evidence and no other etc.
I know I said I would not post again on this thread but I feel that this quote is of some relevance.

troll

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Dec 00 - 12:42 PM

I take it that means "without counting the votes, we can't know whether it would make any difference to the result already declared. So don't count the votes."

I thought the idea of counting the votes was to find out things like that.

The logic of your man Sauls would seem to suggest doing away with having a vote in the first place. Does he do this judging stuff for a living or is it just a hobby?

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 05 Dec 00 - 02:32 PM

In fairness to Judge Sauls, judges have to restrict their opinions to the legal matters brought before them, rather than decide what they think is "right" independent of the legal issues that are in dispute. Judges pay a great deal of attention to the structure of our democracy, and which decision-making power rests with which branch of government. If a judge were to go beyond his constitutional prerogatives and start trying to make decisions that are supposed to be made by the legislature, he could expect to be overturned on appeal. Judges are supposed to make decisions that they believe are able to withstand an appeal. I think this is what Judge Sauls was trying to do. He recognized that the legislature's job is to enact laws that will ensure the fairness of the process, so HIS job was to decide whether (a) these laws are constitutional, and (b) these laws were followed. Not whether he would have written different laws, or applied his discretion differently if he were in charge.

As I understand it, Florida law requires that the plaintiff in a case like this must establish that there is a likelihood that the revised totals after a recount will change the outcome of the election (I'm paraphrasing, obviously). These threshold questions are important, otherwise every dispute could be tied up in court indefinitely, based only on one party's willingness to continue the contest. The judge ruled that the plaintiff (Gore) had not met his threshold burden, and therefore the ruling would have to go against him. The good thing about Judge Saul's ruling is that it was clear and unambiguous, which will allow the Florida Supreme Court to consider the appeal in an expeditious manner.

In this and other cases, there are legitimate questions about whether judges can and should go beyond the narrow confines of the question they're confronted with, and examine the larger implications. This can cut both ways; we want judges to have the whole picture and issue rulings that make sense in light of all the facts, but we also want to be sure that we don't give judges so much discretion that they effectively usurp powers constitutionally granted to the other branches of government (which are elected, and therefore directly accountable to the voters). In order for our system of government to work right, the powers of the three branches have to be kept in some sort of balance. I think Judge Sauls had this very much in mind. Now we get to see whether the Florida Supreme Court thinks HE handled his discretion correctly.

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Greg F.
Date: 05 Dec 00 - 08:30 PM

McGrath-

The logic of your man Sauls would seem to suggest doing away with having a vote in the first place.
Just heard this approach explained as classic Lewis Carroll justice: Verdict first, evidence later. Sounds about right.

Anyway, one useful thing, I imagine, is that this is going to mean that it won't be so easy to push electoral reform in the USA off into the margin.
I wish I was as sanguine about this as you seem to be; the average attention span of the American Voter being about two weeks, I would bet you a large sum that this whole sorry travesty produces little or no reform whatever. Nothing has been done about campaign finance reform as yet.

And hey! Sauls ain't MY man, laddie!;-)

Best, Greg

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Lucius
Date: 06 Dec 00 - 12:15 AM

Good idea DougR, if our elections lasted four years then we might have time to get to know where the candidates stand, rather than relying on the BS put out by their campaign donors.

McGrath has a point. We could have hand counted the ballots several times over. After all, New Mexico didn't have a problem doing a hand ecount on Bush's request.

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Dec 00 - 06:17 AM

"After all, New Mexico didn't have a problem doing a hand recount on Bush's request."

Am I right in assuming that there wasn't a massive attempt by Gore and company to obstruct the count in New Mexico in the courts or in the counting room itself?

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: GUEST,Frank Hamilton
Date: 06 Dec 00 - 09:55 AM

Unfortunately the ruling given by Sauls was not unambiguous and clear. It was the verdict given before examining the evidence which is why it's going to the Florida Supreme Court.

If the ballots are tossed out in Seminole and Martin Counties, that would be a fair trade for the ones ignored in Miami Dade.

What's fair and unamiguous is determined on which side of the partisan fence you are on.

I have no problem with being partisan on the issues but as much as I think that Gore won Florida, I don't agree with him on his views of capitol punishment and gun ownership. Ergo, contra or ad hominem arguments don't serve well. Issues do.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: GUEST,Frank Hamilton
Date: 06 Dec 00 - 10:10 AM

No one has mentioned explicitly the idea of living in the state of Fraudida. That may be next.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 06 Dec 00 - 11:18 AM

Frank, I think we can make some decisions about what is fair irrespective of our "side of the partisan fence". I voted for Gore, and generally think his actions and positions since November 7th have been correct. I might even say he has been more statesmanlike and -- yes -- "Presidential". I just thought that the attack on Judge Sauls ("does he do this judging stuff for a living or it is just a hobby?") was misplaced. I wish Judge Sauls had ruled differently, but I give him credit for giving a straightforward (and clear) account of the reasons for his decision.

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Dec 00 - 02:02 PM

Misplaced? Unkind maybe, but not misplaced. He'll live. I still think my translation of what he ruled is accurate, and it's insane. Which of course doesn't mean it's not the law.

"If the law supposes that," said Mr Bumble..."The law is a ass..."

But I'd have thought that even when a judge has to rule that what is clearly bonkers is legal, he could still indicate that he'd been forced into the decision, rather than just roll over and embrace it enthusiastically.

I mean to say - we are to understand that the law in Florida says that when you don't know what the result of a recount is going to be, you should not carry out the recount that would tell you what the result actually is.

Anyone anywhere making a law that says something like that must be off their trolley.

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 06 Dec 00 - 02:51 PM

Fair enough, McGrath. But the law did allow for recounts (pre-certification), and in fact some recounts happened, and others still could. Judge Sauls's ruling had to do with challenges (post-certification), and the things a party has to establish to persuade the court that it is entitled to proceed with a challenge. It's a higher bar. Reasonable people can disagree on how high it should be, and I do get your point that it seems kind of silly to prejudge the merits of Gore's case without counting the ballots. But it could be disastrous if there were no threshold questions, and a party had a right to keep the election "open" without establishing that there's some compelling reason to revisit it. As with other games, you have to bring something to the table, or you don't get to play.

There's a famous quote by one of our past Chief Justices (it may have been Oliver Wendell Holmes). I can't recall it word for word, but basically it says that "the law has little to do with justice, and much to do with expediency". It's a good point, even if we wish it were otherwise. When legislatures pass laws, they have to be concerned not only with justice, but also with workability -- how do we give everyone his day in court and still have a society that manages to function without grinding to a halt over every passing dispute? These type of threshold questions are essential to the expediency part of the equation, since they basically put the burden on the plaintiff to establish that it has a legitimate claim -- not necessarily one that will prevail in the end, but one that is substantive enough to mobilize the apparatus of the judicial system. That's what was at issue in Judge Sauls's courtroom.

As a rule, most judges shy away from issuing rulings that say "this law sucks, but my hands are tied". They do so on occasion, but it wouldn't be a good idea to be too free with pronouncements of that sort, because they tend to undermine the role, and insult the intelligence, of the legislature (and by extension, of the people that voted them in).

The law deals with minutiae and technicalities. We can all scoff at that, but it's how the system works, and I think it's a good thing somebody is required to pay attention to the details.

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Dec 00 - 03:08 PM

When the ballots are desiged right, it's much quicker to have recounts than court cases...Manual recounts.

Subject: RE: BS: So Who is Our New President?
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 07 Dec 00 - 11:20 AM

I agree, McGrath, and I wish Bush had accepted Gore's offer of a statewide manual recount. In my opinion GWB knew that this is the fairest way to resolve the contest, and his refusal to do so is a clear illustration that his first concern was winning the election -- fairness was a secondary consideration, if he considered it at all. It would take a lot to convince me that Bush had nobler motives than that. I guess I just want to place the blame where it belongs -- on Bush, with a substantial assist by Katherine Harris. [In my opinion, of course.]