I do not recall that coming up in that thread, but I’ll take your word for it. I honestly do not recall being informed that she had once been a Republican, but frankly it just doesn’t matter. I never inferred anything deliberate and nefarious from the butterfly ballot, despite its awful design, even believing that a Democrat handled it. It was incompetence, not evil, IMO.
My last post was to display my amusement over those who see evil everywhere. I really do not, and never did, see this as a “Democratic” problem. There are dopes on both sides perfectly capable of designing a piece of shit like the butterfly ballot. That this was a problem attributed to Repulican evilness is typical of that poster and, honestly, more amusing than worthy of repudiation.
Anyway, thanks for the further amusement by adding your last paragraph–she was a double agent, eh? Crafty super villains, those Republicans, no doubt about it. Somebody call Batman.
**Since you referred to my post, I assume you are inferring something from my contribution here that is not accurate. I have always allowed for the possibility that Gore received more votes. Just as an example, I can’t think of any more plausible explanation for the butterfly ballot fiasco–a large majority of those Buchanan folks, IMO, intended to vote for Gore. There are certainly recount scenarios where Gore wins, and the one you feel should “count” has, perhaps, much to recommend it.
But that’s not the same as saying that the remedies available during that election, established by the legislature beforehand, could exact any outcome but the one that occurred. That’s why I continue to point out that the SC was ultimately irrelevant–not because of any aspect of their opinion, but because the recount that was on the table, the one that we know would have occurred without requring us to speculate in any manner, would have resulted in Bush’s victory. You have inferred something from my post that was not there.
The only thing that confers legitimacy upon the winner in a democratic society is if he wins according to the rules established through the consent of those governed. There is no other “justice” in a democracy, IMO. Even Al Gore, much to his credit, accepted that this is how the system works.
**But your own cite does NOT indicate that he would have conducted the recount scenario you believe would have resulted in Gore’s victory:
**Was I wrong to infer that you meant all overvotes would definitely have been counted? Because clearly that was not the case, not if we are to judge by the evidence you provided. Also, why not draw attention to the latter part of your cite (emphasis added)?:
**
Hmm, then why does the cite you provided suggest otherwise (see above)? Perhaps you should have been one of Gore’s advisors, in which case you could have told them to stop trying to make the Great Man tilt at windmills. Either that or you shouldn’t provide cites that flatly contradict your position.
Again I refer those who don’t understand the Electoral College to the current thread on the topic which I linked to in my last post. Back there I explain why the spector of regional dominance is an argument against the EC rather than for it. It is the EC after all which concentrates all of the political power of all the individuals in an area and delivers it to a single candidate. If you fear tyranny-minded combinations then it is foolish to support a system which combines votes. And “tyranny of the majority” arguments are usually used against policy decisions not in elections. If it is tyrannical to elect by simple majority vote then the US Senators, US Representatives, and governors of every single state are all tyrants.
Uh, no. We are electing a president not an emperor. Policy isn’t decided by the President alone. Besides the assertion is ridiculous on its face. NYC, LA, Chicago, and half of Florida don’t even add up to one tenth of the total US population.
Your view is wrong. The EC divides the the nation up into districts and it is only in those districts which a candidate can achieve a majority or plurality that they need to pay attention to. Gore didn’t waste time in Texas and Bush didn’t waste time in California or New York. Those states were already going to go to the other side so they got ignored. It is the few states that are up for grabs that presidential hopefulls need to court. Florida is the “biggest” contested state so it will receive the lion’s share of the attention and again the three more populous states will get ignored. If you want a system that encourages candidates have broader appeal then you should oppose the EC which narrows their focus.
Also check out IUHomer’s post just above my last one. As he point’s out we didn’t hold a popular election in 2000 so we don’t know who would have won a popular vote. The same goes for every other election. For all we know the EC has never delivered to the White House the candidate with the most popular appeal, though that is extremely unlikely, of course. This point was also covered in the current EC thread.
The Electors weren’t intended to transport the decision of a state; they were intended to make it. They decided who to vote for and still do. There was an “unfaithful elector” again in 2000.
The Constitution was drafted over a decade after Independence and even before then the colonies had been electing representative bodies for longer than anyone could remember. The problem wasn’t inexperience but experience. Before the Revolution the only interests that had to be considered were those of the colonial elite and Britain. When they ousted the Crown the elites figured that they would have untrammelled sway over policy. Their foolish dream was quickly dashed as the new governments of 1776 began working for the general interests of the states with programs such as debt relief and paper money. This challenge to the property of the elite wasn’t taken lightly and they quickly developed an ideology to justify keeping the people from controlling their own government. The counter-revolutionary movement kicked off with the state constitution of New York of 1777 and the method of picking a president settled on in 1787 is just another example of this elitist crap.
All the OP wanted to know, without slogging through all the election threads, is why the view that Bush’s win was illegitimate is so widespread. That isn’t to hard to answer, or even debate, is it? A winner’s legitimacy depends on the others accepting that the process followed the rules and that everyone with control over it acted in good faith on behalf of the people, not a specific candidate. The Electoral College isn’t at the heart of it; that’s been known and accepted as part of the rules for over two centuries.
Without rehashing details, and this thread provides enough, the overview is that the Bush team (including all the relevant officials in charge of ruling on voter eligibility and counting the ballots), was adamantly opposed to completing the count (not a “re”-count; the first count was never completed). The arguments they made are exposed by the fact that they made the opposite arguments in New Mexico, where they were barely behind. Despite shortfalls, the Gore team was trying to get votes that had been allowed to be cast properly counted. When one looks past the interests of the individual candidates to the most basic concept in democracy, the interest of the country in having a clear, fairly-elected leadership, it is clear which candidate was much closer to supporting that principle.
When the Florida Supreme Court, the ultimate authority over Florida law, started the process of getting that done, the unappealable US Supreme Court (with a politically-activist majority also part of the Bush team) ignored the key points of the Constitution and overruled them. The basis of that ruling was so desperately threadbare that they even stated that the ruling could not be used as a precedent for future cases. This all added up to an opinion, not dispelled by the allegations of sore loserness by an insufficiently-humble winner, that the rules of the process were not followed and that good faith was not applied. As it turns out, the full statewide count with court-imposed standards, despite the registration cancellations that couldn’t have been cured that time, would have made Gore the winner.
But still, that was over 2 years ago and much has happened since. Another principle we have, stated in our Declaration of Independence, is that leaders govern by consent of the governed. It is reasonable to claim that Bush has earned a sufficient measure of legitimacy through popular support of his performance in office. I don’t agree with that, and have barely heard it raised, but it’s still reasonable.
Cut the patronizing personal attacks, or take them to the pit. Now I remember why I stay out of these endless ‘Bush lost the election’ threads - you people are so biased that allegations become fact, differences of opinion become lies, and you guys sit there and froth at the mouth.
Hmm. I was going to post that last night but my power went out. I guess I didn’t save a complete copy because none of my response about the problems of the “Math Against Tyranny” article.
I have read the Will Hively article. I note that Hively can’t explain why electing someone via straight majority vote is tyrannical either. I disagree with Whack-a-Mole about the article. In my experience those who read it come away less informed about the Electoral College. Here in GD and in other online forums people I have argued with folks who have read it and come away with the impression that Prof. Natapoff had shown that everyone has about an equal vote under the EC. This is untrue and Natapoff makes no such assertion. Hively though dances around enough to confuse the point. It’s long on colourful language and melodrama but short on facts. Mere propaganda I’m afraid.
Contrary to Hively’s claims the EC doesn’t use the same logic as the baseball metaphor. In the World Series each game counts the same. Win more games and win the Series. In the EC the states are assigned varying numbers of electoral votes. It is quite possible for a candidate to win more states and still lose in the EC. In fact, had Florida gone as it should then Bush would have lost with 29 states to Gore’s 21. Now I could shoehorn my preferences into a sports metaphor “intuitively” demonstrating the superiority of my position. I could, that is, if I had as little integrity as those 2 clowns.
This is wrong. The 20th Amendment specifically addresses the possibility that no president has been elected by that date:
I’d say that elucidator has the right of it. This nonexistent deadline is no reason to rush to the conclusion that the candidate no one can show deserved to win must be enthroned. There was still plenty of time to figure out who more Floridians voted for.
Nor am I aware of any provision in the Florida Constitution that mandates the time of certification of the presidential vote. My understanding is that it is governed by statute. Even if I am wrong the US Constitution trumps the Florida Constitution. An equal protection finding based on the former would overrule any certification date requirement no matter how the state enacted it.
And isn’t that what, in fact, we do with our representational system? Every citizen doesn’t vote on a new law, we elect people to vote for us in Congress and at the State level. The difference between an EC elector and a representative or senator is length of term, not difference in concept.
So? I can’t use the term in a non-traditional sense?
You left out other officals like mayors - Mr. Daley of Chicago having recently earned the nickname “Saddam Daley”. No matter how you run an election there is always the possbility of ending up with a tyrant.
It would be foolish to think that the President doesn’t have a large impact on policy, and with the Chief Executive in recent decades being able to fight wars without going to Congress for a formal declaration (which is the way it’s supposed to be done) it makes an enormous difference who sits in the Oval Office. Bush is certainly taking on an imperial appearance, and I for one do not approve - not that it matters, since he considers himself above criticism and his cronies are all too ready to yell “treason!” over a questioning of policies that may not be in the best interests of the country.
And this is different than Congress how…?
For Congress we elect representatives to do our voting for us. To elect these people we divide into districts. In the case of the EC, the districts are individuals states.
Yet, those states which you say were “ignored” have a much larger pull in the House than others because of their population. And that’s only in this one election - in other elections those state have been fierce battlegrounds.
Ridiculous. Vote tallies are kept. It’s known when the popular votes matches the EC and when it doesn’t.
Yeah, because they didn’t get the government structure right the first time.
Given that only white male landowners were permitted to vote at all, “government of the people” wasn’t defined at all like it is today. Do we want to go back to that?
I’m afraid you’ve ryanized my post into unintelligibility. A line by line refutation would just probably just create more confusion so I won’t attempt one. Instead I will just try to show how you have repeatedly missed the point.
You are the one claiming that simple majority vote constitutes a tyranny of the majority. While this isn’t how the term is traditionally used you are free to do so. But if you expect to be taken seriously you need to provide some basis for us to go along. How exactly is it tyrannical for the most popular candidate to win the election? And if it is tyrannical for the POTUS then is it not also tyrannical for every other official elected in this manner? Notice that we are not talking about individuals you believe might be tyrants but all popularly elected officials.
You are the one claiming that under a popular vote a few regions could control national policy. I am not claiming that the POTUS doesn’t influence policy I am merely pointing out that you have failed to make your case. And totally ignoring that I’ve shown how your badly numbers fail to add up doesn’t help your case either, of course. Changing the subject to Bush’s imperial attitude adds nothing to your assertion. How about you try again only this time without ignoring my argument that the EC makes regional domination of the election easier rather than harder? If you could refute that and then demonstrate how popular elections are tyrannical then you would have a solid argument.
Also notice that I have made no arguments about Congress at all, other than using its members to point out the sillyness of your concept of tyranny. When I say that you are wrong about presidential hopefulls being forced to pay attention to the entire nation that is precisely what I mean. You are wrong. Changing the subject to Congress doesn’t make you any less wrong. Quoting my assertions and then going on about something else doesn’t make my assertions go away. They remain and your failure to address them only makes your position seem weaker.
Oh and go and actually read IUHomer’s post and you will see what I mean about us not knowing if the EC has ever selected the man that would have won a popular vote.
Ok, I’ll give you the benefit if believing that you just don’t know any better.
This is your ‘partisan hack’ speaking in bold there. Note that this is a Judge, who quite clearly states that Harris has discretion to reject or accept late filed returns.
There is, in fact, a specific penalty mentioned for late filing.
Do your homework and you will cease to be amazed. Or rather, you will begin to be amazed at the continual dishonesty of most republicans on this issue.
Ahh, but if only that were true. A Sam Stone post, usually containing misinformation, can be found in any of the election threads of any duration. Please feel free to address that problem in the future, though.
Look up “Math Against Tyranny” in Discover’s archive if you’re inclined to read it. It shows how the EC clearly is a superior system to a simple plurality as it relates to the tyranny of the majority:
**If you require more convincing, try looking up “May the Best Man Lose,” from the Discover “recent issues” archive (November 2000), which shows how a simple plurality, which is generally the recommended replacement of the EC, is an extremely flawed system for selecting candidates. Interesting reading.
Katherine Harris, the (former) Florida Secretary of State who oh-so-eagerly certified Bush as the winner of Florida’s electoral votes in the 2000 presidential election, also served as co-chairperson of Bush’s Florida election campaign, went door-to-door for Bush during the New Hampshire primary, was a delegate for Bush in the Republican convention, and even used state computers to generate, store, and dissiminate Bush-endorsement election materials.
Given all the ensuing dispute over the Florida recount, doesn’t any of this constitute a conflict of interest?
(Ah, but what am I saying? Right up to the decision in Bush v. Gore, Scalia’s two lawyer sons were both working for Bush, and Clarence Thomas’s wife was collecting applications for people who want to work in the Bush administration. If the Repubbies won’t admit to any conflicts in those cases, I’m sure they can continue the denials here…)
What did I tell you about the article? It has left Bob Cos less well informed about things. Natapoff and Hively blur the line between electoral power and the power of the office being filled. It is the latter that makes elections important no matter the scheme used to fill it. And, for what seems like the dozenth time recently here in GD, I must point out that you can’t justify the EC with the spector of a tyrannyminded combination of voters because the EC makes it easier for them to combine against everyone else. Surely a tyrannical minority isn’t to be feared less?
Thanks for the heads up on the Discover article though, Bob. I’m reading it.
