Well, Minty is most likely correct, but that is in theory only. The Feds have control over Federal voting, but if they start telling the states what kind of machinery to use, the states will tell them to hold their own damn elections somewhere else. So in practice the Feds have to rely on the states and whatever machinery they have available.
astorian hit the nail on the head concerning doing away with the EC. There just aren’t enough “big” states to get an amendment passed. Hell, there aren’t enough to even get the process started.
As interesting as the vote in Florida was, I think the vote in Tennessee spoke volumes.
I haven’t looked at the link you provided but I am swaying to your way of thinking…still not quite there yet though.
As to your constitutional cite that speaks specifically to Senators and Representatives. The cite I provided speaks directly to presidential elections which is what is at issue in this thread.
If you read that it talks about the restrictions put on the states to ensure a fair election process (e.g. avoid discriminatory practices). It doesn’t say anything about congress having the right to tell the states the actual mechanics of conducting an election as long as it is deemed fair.
True, though it doesn’t say that Congress cannot regulate presidential elections. But if Congress exercises its authority to regulate elections for senators and representatives by mandating, say, foolproof touch-screen voting machines, there is no practical way that the states are going to retain a separate ballot for presidential elections.
Another interesting scenario to consider. What if the Supreme Court had refused to stop the recounts? It seems pretty clear to me that the wrangling would continue. No matter which counts produced what tally, both sides would claim victory, given that we were talking about only a few hundred votes.
So, what happens then? Florida is left with no clear mandate. The date the electors are supposed to meet draws near. The most likely thing I can see is that the republican florida legislature would order a republican slate of electors to be sent, as long as the count was as close as it was. The democratic slate would probably show up too, as long as they felt some of the counts showed that they “should have” won. Or the democrats could give up. But probably not.
And so we have Hayes-Tilden again. The House of Representatives would have to decide which slate of electors to seat. And of course, the House was majority republican. If the count was anywhere near close, the republicans would vote as a bloc to seat the republican electors, the democrats vote as a bloc for the democratic electors. The republican electors are seated, and Bush becomes president.
No, I was addressing the simplification that the consortum recount showed Bush as the winner, rendering the vote-counting moot. My point was that the recount could have resulted in a Gore win, depending on which criteria one decided to use.
OK, I reread your post a few times, and maybe I’m just thick, but I don’t see that you mentioned which two states have this situation. Which states are they? (not calling bullshit, just never heard that before and it sounds like a decent system)
Well lessee, in the Florida fiasco we had the Pubbies:
Sending in absentee ballots well after the closing date and using them.
Striking eligible Dem voters from the roles in great numbers.
Use of ballots of dubious design to make people vote for the wrong candidate
Use of a partisan Supreme Court decision to end the recounts
allegations that black voters were discouraged from voting in many precincts
Florida Secretary of State Kathleen Harris (not sure of the name) allowed some ballots to be counted that were just plain illegal under Florida law. She should be in jail.
Fox News’ elections expert is a relative of Bush’s. He called the election for Bush early – well before any of the other networks did, and well before the final outcome was even close to clear. Widespread suspicion was that he was trying to discourage Gore voters in the West.
On the Dem side, we have the Florida Supreme Court, whose decisions did seem to have a partisan flavor to them.
OK, that’s not quite 10 percent, but close enough.
And the Pubbies sure were mean in Florida, standard procedure for them, though it leads to errors.
**Or are you just indulging in the lies so typical of your ilk? **
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rjung, I do not deny your point. But none of the “Gore wins” scenarios were possibilities, except within the realm of speculation–certainly not based on the recount the Democrats themselves requested.
Wasn’t it established that the butterfly ballot was the design of a Democrat, or are you referring to something else? Or did the mere proximity of Republican evilness make her crazed, which led to the poor design?
Maybe I was mistaken, but I’ve noticed that News channels are Notorius for calling elections or states for various candidates far ahead of time. It’s not just Fox news who does this, it’s Everyone.
“With one percent of the ballots counted, we can now say that Candidate X will be our next president! Oh, wait, it’s Candidate Y!”
It’s one of the reason I try to avoid watching election coverage.
You mean the MILITARY ballots that were perfectly legal, but which the Democrats tried to stop? To refresh your memory, the ballots didn’t have a postal stamp on them - which was common practice for military ballots. Everyone agreed that they were filled out before the election.
Allegations to this effect showed up on various lefty web sites, but do you have a CITE that proves the Republicans did this? I remember anecdotal evidence by people with an axe to grind being elevated to the status of ‘fact’, but I don’t remember any corroboration.
Designed by a DEMOCRAT. Someone who didn’t understand the importance of good user interface design. The Republicans had nothing at all to do with it.
Due to very reasonable equal protection argument - which the MAJORITY of judges agreed was a problem. It was only the remedy that brought a narrow vote. The vast majority agreed that Gore’s proposed actions were a violation of the constution.
And allegations are all they are. Made by people with an axe to grind, and never corroborated.
What laws did she violate? I’d like a cite for that. The only thing I can recall that she did that got the Democrat’s panties in a bunch was to call for a deadline on the recount.
And most of the other networks called far more early elections for Gore than they did for Bush. Florida was called for Gore very early by all the major networks and CNN, for example.
The first I remember hearing Florida called for either candidate that night was for Gore, and that was before many of the polls had closed in the western part of FLorida.
The popular vote is really inconsequential, but I will throw in that if ahead of time the rules were somehow changed and the country knew the candidate with the most total popular votes would be the winner, the outcome of the popular vote could have been different. Bush won more states than Gore. Many of those states he had large majorities in and it was pretty well known ahead of time that he would win. When voters know this, they tend to turn out to vote less. If the people in the states Bush had locked up before election day knew they still needed to turn out to vote because it really would still mean something, the popular vote could have turned out different.
The whole outrage over the butterfly ballot is suspicous also. These ballots are used all over the country and have been used for years. The local Democratic party approved of these ballots before the election and then complained about their use after the fact. Why? How did it come about that a bunch of people all at once decided, "Oops, I may have voted for the wrong person" because of a standard ballot that has been used all around the country for many years? I swear I remember hearing or reading somewhere that there was actually a group of Democrats in Palm Beach who created this controversy by calling people and suggesting to them the ballot may have caused them to vote for the wrong person, but I can find a source and this may all have been a Republican driven story.
Why is Bush using a partisan Supreme Court any more dirty than Gore relying on a partison Florida Court?
Anyway, the election basically fell within the margin of error, but somebody had to be chosen. Both sides had some arguments. If Gore had won his HOME STATE, this controversy goes away.
My vote would go towards abandoning the EC system in place and go to one where each district gets one vote and if you win the whole state you don't necessarily win all its EC votes.
Sorry I’m late. First off, there is a current EC thread, Practical Plan to Abort Electoral College. My practical plan destroys the myth that the “smallest” thirteen states can stonewall on this issue. The eleven “largest” states working together can overcome the EC right now without any supermajorities in Congress ( except for cloture ). See also that thread for repeated explanations of the limitations of the district system used by Nebraska and Maine. No state assigns their electoral votes proportionally.Findlaw on the Twenty-Sixth Amendment has some pertinent information on federal authority and influence over electoral systems.
I’ll leave the statistics of the Florida vote for RTF but it is quite one thing to argue that Bush would have won Florida if the recount hadn’t been halted. It is quite another to attempt to deny that had every eligible voter had their actual choice counted then Gore would have taken a plurality.
It is also difficult to argue that Gore had no path to a victory when the judge who was supervising the recount himself has stated that he “would not have ignored the overvote ballots”, that he was open to including them. After all, every vote should count, right? CITE
I’m only halfway through Dershowitz’ book on Bush vs Gore but he has pointed out that the equal protection argument neglected to identify anyone who’s right to equal protection under the law was violated. He examines the possibilities and can find no reasonable candidates, at least not before the high court halted the process victimizing those who’s votes were not yet counted.
Teresa LePore who was responsible for the Butterfly ballot was a Republican prior to 1996 and after 2000, But for some reason was registered as a Democrat during the 2000 election.
She was basically a republican flying false colors. Which you already know since you were involved in this thread where we went through all of this in detail in April of this year.
Yep, SimonX, it’s clear as daylight now. Well, at least I understand where the “Bush was appointed” people are coming from, but as much as I would like to hang with the lefties on this one, I can’t. Bush was as elected as any other president (and unless I misremember, at least one other president has been elected even though he lost the popular vote), and calling him Governor Bush (or for that matter Shrub; come on people, you’re smarter than that) is just silly.
According to a BBC documentary in 2001 postal votes were counted that were postmarked after election day.
There is no doubt about the Republicans purging supposed ex-felons from the electoral rolls. Greg Palast first wrote about it. At this site you’ll see there are plans for more of it in 2004 - Jim Crow Revived. From the documentary I believe Harris and the state of Florida are/were being sued by the ACLU. An NAACP lawsuit charged the state with violating the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and asked for an order of surveillance to prevent discrimination in future elections in Florida.
The documentary made it clear that Bush and Harris illegally required out of state “felons” to request restoration of their right to vote when their rights were protected.
The documentary also pointed out that 2 of the Supreme Court Justices who voted in favour of Bush had family members employed by the Bush administration either then or after. I believe one had a wife who recruited all Bush’s personnel and another had a son who was appointed counsel for a government department.
