Actually, the Supreme Court said literacy tests were constitutionally acceptable. It was Congress that outlawed them, IIRC with the Voting Rights Act. The Supreme Court later ruled that Congress did indeed have the power, through the enforcement clause of the 15th Amendment, to outlaw literacy tests. No time for cites right now, unfortunately.
Now back to your regularly scheduled election thread.
ouch. that sound you heard was my head hitting the monitor. I hate when that happens. Well, I knew that it went to SCOTUS and that it’s now illegal, that counts for something, doesn’t it?? (joking). thanks minty I’d give you a ‘high five’ but I don’t “do” that 
And now that I think about it, the obvious conclusion to be drawn from my nitpick is that even in the 60’s, the Supreme Court was fighting the good fight against people who are too stupid to vote, while the damn Democrat Party was passing laws to steal elections from the Republicans. :rolleyes:
But you’re forgiven for the mix-up, wring. Hell, I only mentioned it because I was so utterly shocked a few years ago when I found out that literacy tests were constitutionally permissible.
As I’ve stated other threads, I’m actually a Constitutionalist. I support Democracy as presented by the Constitution. True enough, what we have here in these United States isn’t a true Democracy, but it’s close enough that using the technical term isn’t necessary, and avoids hijacking the thread too far.
Here are the bad facts:
Proposed solution:
I dunno – you tell me, should I be concerned that a large number of the voters in the last Presidential election firmly believe that the Earth was flooded for 40 days by an invisible omnipotent god, despite the lack of any fossil or geological daa to support that claim?
Should I be concerned that the populace that voted in the last Presidential election also chose “Survivor” as the best TV program of 2000?
Should I be concerned that the populace that voted in the last Presidential election also endorses McDonalds as its restaurant of choice?
Considering that the Conservative majority of the US Supreme Court (the same majority that selected “President” Dubya to the White House, BTW) recently crippled the Americans With Disability Act, perhaps this is a sign of something bigger…
Satan, I think you misread SPOOFE’s post. As I read it, he did not say anything about disabled or elderly voters who messed up because of their condition. He said “tough shit for them” in referring to those voters who did not want to face the responsibility of their being careless when voting.
RE: This overvote nonsense:
As Milossarian already stated, a ballot with two votes for the same office is invalid/spoiled/whatever and CANNOT be counted.
“Intent of the voter” doesn’t even come into play.
Only properly completed ballots should be tabulated.
milroyj: *As Milossarian already stated, a ballot with two votes for the same office is invalid/spoiled/whatever and CANNOT be counted. *
What if both votes are for the same person—i.e., a punch plus a write-in with the name of the candidate punched? What’s “nonsensical” about that? According to some reports, about a fifth of the Florida overvotes contain two votes for the same person, and I don’t see at all why such clear indications of a voter’s intention “CANNOT be counted.”
Duh. Becasue then the wrong guy wins. :rolleyes:
Because a ballot with two votes is invalid. Period. Consider the following ballots:
They are all spoiled ballots. Why should 4 be treated any differently? And would you count 5 as well? 
Why? because the machine couldn’t read it?
The ballot is the vote. Machines make it easier to read them faster. that’s all. Or are you claiming that the machines were intended as vote ‘validators’ instead of vote counters? If so, please bring on the proof of your contention.
The machine has nothing to do with it. We could be talking about paper ballots here, with an ‘X’ for Gore and a write-in for Gore. The instructions are to “Vote for One”. The ballot, containing two votes, is spoiled and not counted.
milroj, the law of Florida at the time of the election said that votes were to be tabulated according to the intent of the voter. Now we can quibble all day long about what kind of standard intent of the voter should be, but nowhere in the Florida election code does it say that a vote only counts if it is one hundred percent perfectly cast so that it can be read by a machine. Adopting that as the standard for a vote would, indeed, be changing the rules after the election. You’re against that, right?
And you’re darned tootin’ I would count both 4 and 5. Unless you have some sort of argument that the intent of the voter is not patently obvious when the voter has both punched out “Buchanan” and written in his name?
please submit, for our consumption, ballot forms language. The ones I’ve seen do indeed say “vote for one” or “vote for no more than two”, but also include a line “write in candidate” which can be interpreted as an instruction to write in the candidates name (which is what some people did).
I would be interested to see if such language included **voting for more than the required number will result in your ballot being invalididate".
awaiting your proof. thankyou.
Or unless you can point me to where in the Florida election code it says that a vote cannot be counted unless the voter has inerrantly followed the instructions for how to cast a vote? The Florida legislature could have made that the rule. But it did not.
And btw, according to your analysis, all those absentee votes where the Republican officials had to fill in the voter ID numbers go straight into the trash.
Nice simulpost, wring! Was it good for you too? 
Ok, minty, you’d count 4 and 5. But the problem becomes, where do we draw the line? How about 2, Punch for Gore, write-in for Lieberman? After all, the voter is choosing a President and Vice-President at the same time. Should we count those, as well? As for 3, I’m sure a partisan canvassing board member could argue that since Mickey isn’t a real person, the write-in portion was a harmless “joke” and should be ignored, thus a vote for Gore. As for 1, either side could argue that the ballot was intended for their candidate. For example, say the punch for Gore was a hanging chad. The voter changed his mind mid-punch, withdrew the stylus, and to be extra-sure, wrote-in Bush. Sounds like a vote for Bush. Someone else could argue that the same ballot was for Gore. Part of the reason the Supreme Court stopped the recounts was that there was no objective way to determine the intent of the voter. IMHO, the only reasonable method is to discard all the overvotes.
Did you read this whole thread? Where voter intent is clear (both a write in for the same candidate that is also punched and the ‘straight ticket’ plus candidate from same party for example), the vote should be counted, even though it’s rejected by the machine. I don’t believe that any of the rest of us are arguing about the strawmen that you keep on putting up. (although I did say that I’d suspect highly that the PBC folks who voted both for Gore and Buchanen wanted Gore, but, sadly, one cannot discern which individual voter used that ballot to ask them, so therefore it shouldn’t count. not because the ballot was ‘spoiled’ but because their intent is not clear).
and ** minty** “if you have to ask…”
Wring, what about a punch for Gore and a write-in for Lieberman? The “intent of the voter” seems pretty clear for the Gore-Lieberman ticket. Would you have counted that ballot for Gore?