A U.S. Election Ritual That Needs to be Scrapped

In My Humble Opinion
1

…is the prompt concession phone call / speech.

(This seems to me to be a matter of opinion, but if a debate develops, the Mods can feel free to move the thread.)

I think it’s time we accepted the fact that, if the election is at all close, we cannot know for sure who the winner is on the day after Election Day. If A appears to have won by a landslide (has more than enough Electoral Votes, and more than the required minimum of those Electoral Votes come from states where he has won decisively enough to be really sure of the wins), then yes, B may as well formally concede. But as long as the country is as evenly divided as it is now, such a landslide win is unlikely.

But IMHO, B should not concede if he faces the situation Kerry faced this time, and Gore faced four years ago: the news media are reporting probable Bush wins in a combination of states that give him enough Electoral Votes to win the election – but, in one or more states that Bush appears to have won, his margin of victory is very narrow. If one of the narrow-Bush-victory states turns out to actually have been won by Kerry, Kerry wins the election (or, in 2000, If one of the narrow-Bush-victory states turns out to actually have been won by Gore, Gore wins the election).

As it turned out in 2000, Florida was very much up in the air for several weeks. There were, IMO, several reasons for the widespread perception that Bush was the rightful winner in Florida, reasons having nothing to do with the rights or wrongs of the situation – and one of those reason was Gore’s (IMO) premature concession phone call / speech.

Yet with that lesson before him, and after some pre-election talk about making sure every vote is counted, and about not being out-lawyered by the Republicans, Kerry conceded on Nov. 3. IMO, on Nov. 3 we did not yet know for sure that Bush was the winner. It’s not that the vote counts were not yet complete. In Ohio, for example, the count had gone far enough to be sure that even if all of the uncounted votes went to Kerry, Bush would still be the winner. The problem is that on Nov. 3, it was way too soon to be sure that all of Bush’s wins were kosher. If election fraud has occured, it takes a few days for suspicion to begin to dawn, and it may well take weeks to find out the truth.

IMO, the right course of action for the candidate who appears to have narrowly lost is to say, “Well, right now it looks as though I may be the loser, but let’s not be hasty. We have not yet finished counting the votes. Perhaps more importantly, we have not yet examined the situation in states where my oponent’s apparant win is quite narrow.” By “narrowly won,” I don’t mean the popular vote as (unfortunately, imho) the popular vote does not count. Regardless of the popular vote, if the apearant winner has just barely enough Electoral Votes to win, and if the vote is very close in even one state, it’s a narrow victory.

2

Sort of a sign of the times I guess, a mans word is no longer bound to his honor (or he doesn’t care about honor). Either way I disagree with you.

I think it is good for the country to hear the looser admit defeat so there is no question.

What I think might be a better idea is states not anouncing anything till they know for sure, and no exit poles.

3

What kanicbird said.

Gore refusing to concede in 2000 made sense for a while. Florida was SO close.

Had Kerry refused to, he would have just looked like a putz. 100,000 votes in Ohio was a decisive enough Bush victory without Kerry pulling a Gore.

4

In my view, the OP is motivated more by a desperate hope that things could still turn out differently.

In any event, I think there is great value in the obvious loser conceding to the obvious victor promptly.

5

Sure, it’s “good for the country to hear the loser admit defeat so there is no question” – once we’re really sure about who the victor is. However long that takes.

I agree that states “should not announce anything till they know for sure,” no matter how long that takes. But, IMO, we need exit polls. In most other democracies, exit polls are a check re, should we question these election results? Should be the same here.

6

I disagree. For several years, we’ve been seeing reports about the unreliability of these unvarifiable e-voting machines. Nonetheless, they were used. It therefore follows that we cannot be sure that the results reported the day after the election are valid.

7

Yes, I would prefer that Bush be turned out of office. I’d also prefer that the nation be able to be confidant that we’ve had an honest election. I, for one, am not confident of this.

I see great value in the supposed loser not conceding until it is really, totally sure that he really did lose. The way things are, we can’t be sure the day after the elecition.

8

While I’m not sure of what went on before, Nixon’s concession to JFK was after an extremely close race (1960) and he’s (Nixon) been noted to have said that it was not in the country’s interest to ask for a recount.