Can / Should Gore demand re-election?

[yosemite]

(Of course, this all assumes there is not some other reason one can justify a higher percentage Buchanan vote in Palm Beach County than any other of the big counties…I don’t know enough about Florida demographics.)

Yes. I just heard something about this at the top of the hour on FoxNews. Apparently a relative of Pat Buchanan lives in this county, and during the last presidential primary, this relative was able to promote Pat and get something like 8,000 votes for him in that county. IF this is true, that could explain the high Pat vote.

[Sterra]

Yeah I took one look at the ballot and can’t understand how it would be confusing. I think that anyone with a iq of over 400 should be able to determine that. IMHO if they coulden’t see that they might have thought that bush was a democrat and gore a republican:)

[DoctorJ]

If they do find that the ballots were mistakenly cast for Buchanan, what should be the response of the Bush campaign?

I picture Bush saying something like, “The people have spoken” and waving it off. The meaningless platitude has gotten him to this point, so why change tactics?

The problem with that is that it would mean Bush’s victory was actually in error. That put a kink in any claim he has to “the will of the people”, not to mention all that crap about “restoring honor and dignity to the White House”.

Either way, I don’t think we’ll hear the end of this one for a while.

Dr. J

[Freedom]

I already posted this on another thread, but this seems to be a topic all over tonight.

About the Buchanan vote thing
FWIW…

Has anyone looked at party registration or past voting habits of this distric compared to the rest of the states? Here is an article from Newsmax.com that claims the vote is well within expectations:
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2000/11/8/161334.shtml

According to the Florida supervisor of elections, Broward County has only 189 members of the Independent Party – Florida’s Reform party.

Palm Beach County, on the other hand, has a whopping 14,551 members of the Independent Party.

In fact, it has the highest Independent registration in Florida.

And about past voting habits…
http://doe.dos.state.fl.us/cgi-bin/genelec.exe?elecdate=11/5/96&mode=D&frm=N&race=PRE&district=&group=
In 1996, Perot got 30,739 votes in this county, the 3rd highest total in the state. That link is to a chart, so you can look at ALL the votes in the state for FL in 1996.

Minor problem with this: Alaska closes its polls at 7PM local time, which is Midnight EST. (I clearly remember hearing “Alaska has just closed its polls” at 9PM PST and then, shortly thereafter, announcing that Bush had won Alaska. I think Hawaii closes at 5PM HST, which is 10PM EST.) You think the networks are going to wait until then to project a winner?

I don’t care.
IMHO all people in AMerica should vote under as equal terms as possible. When I vote here in NJ, I have no way of really knowing how the day will go. (I know this now:)) When a person votes in California after 6:00, they have a different set of facts to consider than East Coast voters.

All the Nader guys yell and scream about how corporations control America, but yet we are going to sacrifice the integrity of our elections for ABC,CBS, NBC, CNN and FOXNews?

America deserves better. We need to overhaul the way we vote. Election day polls, exit polls, calling states, No ID to vote, no challengers at the polls…etc…etc… There are a lot of things that need to be changed to preserve the integrity of the vote. Starting with the networks seems the easiest place to start.

[sethdallob]

I’ve heard that in 20 states, the electors are not bound to vote for the candidate that their state selects. I’ve also heard that the actual electoral “vote” takes place Dec. 18.

1. Who are these electors?
2. What prevents someone from doing a little “lobbying?”
3. What are the chances of enough “faithless electors?”
4. What are the chances of banning the electoral college after this election?

[MEBuckner]

Yeah I took one look at the ballot and can’t understand how it would be confusing. I think that anyone with a iq of over 400 should be able to determine that. IMHO if they coulden’t see that they might have thought that bush was a democrat and gore a republican

Well, I’d definitely have to agree that anyone with an IQ over 400 should be able to make short work of that ballot…

[SouthernStyle]

*Originally posted by IzzyR *
**Southern Style:

Florida’s Attorney General is legally bound to conduct and supervise the recount.

I don’t think this is correct.
**

You are correct Izzy,

The Secretary of State, a Republican, is charged with conducting the recount. The Attorney General, a Democrat, is charged with certifying the results.
I find it highly disturbing that while conducting the recount, one elections office “found” a bunch of ballots that weren’t counted.

[jab1]

*Originally posted by jab1 *
At last report, the margin of “victory” for Bush is now down to 1,725. (Before the re-count began, it was 1,784.)

Now the margin is down to 941 in Bush’s favor, with only 32 counties out of 67 having finished the re-count.

[jshore]

*Originally posted by Freedom2 *

In 1996, Perot got 30,739 votes in this county, the 3rd highest total in the state. That link is to a chart, so you can look at ALL the votes in the state for FL in 1996.

Freedom2, the throwing around of numbers like these is why I posted and tried to look at percentages. Absolute numbers are pretty meaningless…You have to look at percentages…I believe this county is like the 4th or 5th most populous in the state, so of course it will have one of the highest vote totals for Perot. I agree that one should do a careful analysis of what other factors could account for an anamolously high Buchanan vote there though. But, as I just noted in another thread, even Pat Buchanan says that he believes much of those votes were in error!

[sailor]

Having seen the ballot I think those who got confused by it should probably not be voting anyway.

Besides, can we really have a system that would allocate votes not to the candidate marked on the ballot but to the one for whom the voter really “intended” to vote? Who decides what the intention was?

I guess that’s the system they have in China. They can save themselves the trouble of having any elections as the party leaders decide who the people would vote for if they were given the chance.

OTOH we could bring computers into it to facilitate the double checking. You click on the box that says “Buchanan” and a pop-up window says “Are you sure? Don’t you mean Gore? Look, Gore is in favor of the common people so go back and try again until you get it right”

Only after you vote for Gore you stop getting the pop-up windows.

[Spoonbender]

I think that anyone with a iq of over 400 should be able to determine that

That would leave only me, and perhaps Cecil.

1. Who are these electors?
2. What prevents someone from doing a little “lobbying?”
3. What are the chances of enough “faithless electors?”
4. What are the chances of banning the electoral college after this election?

1. They are people selected by the party to be the electors designated for the candidate, generally long-time party loyals.

2. Not much, except that in half the states or so, the electors are bound by “robot rules” and MUST vote for the candidate they’re pledged to. However, since the electors are party loyalists, and (at least this year) will probably be under a lot of scrutiny, I can’t imagine “lobbying” them to do any good.

3. Pretty small. Electors have voted against their pledged candidate, I think, 9 times in history (someone please correct me if I have this wrong). Such votes have never decided an election. I think any elector considering not voting for their candidate would likely think about it VERY carefully…after all, they could be known to the whole country, and in history, as the guy who decided the election on his own.

4. Very small, I think. There will be a call for it, and perhaps even a constitutional amendment will be drafted and the ratification process will start. But it will not have to overwhelming support that it needs to be passed. Small states, whose influence is magnified by the college, will likely be against it. And there are other reasonable arguments in favor of the college…see this thread:
   http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=44808

[MEBuckner]

With 65 of 67 counties reporting, it’s now Bush, 2,909,799; Gore, 2,909,574…or a difference of 225 votes. Ann Landers must be cackling with glee…