Actually, the recount in Broward added votes for Scott, so going back to the original count was not only better for Nelson, but I believe quite intentional.
The recount was less accurate than the original count:
Scott gained 700 votes because they screwed up with 2500 ballots or so. See how awesome recounts are?
Any reasoning behind that, or just feel it in your gut?
Yes, why count votes at all? Some mistakes were made, therefore let’s burn down the entire democratic process.
Also, we all enjoyed your little unsupported insinuation of malfeasance.
I personally think that precisely because it is not a game it is even more important to have the rules be clear ahead of time and to have them enforced consistently, not at someone’s discretion.
Broward county’s lack of ability to do this stuff right has hurt “my team” consistently. I think the rules should be inclusive of not having such local incompetence (such as crap ballot designs) be able to impact results as much as it does. Should be changed for the future. But the rules are clear and the fact that they fall against my desired result does not change that.
I agree. The need for a recount should have a time limit! It is important that everyone’s vote is counted. Anything that interferes with that (such as having an artificial deadline) should be ignored.
Do you have a reason for trying to undermine public confidence in democracy? Other than the obvious one, that is.
On whose part? Who decided to be a stickler about those 2 extra minutes? Guess it was deliberate self-sabotage by the Republicans controlling the state government.
Not that it matters: it looks like Broward’s turning up a shit-ton of ‘no vote’ ballots in the Senate race. So it’s almost certainly over.
I think there should be clear rules about when and how to vote. But after that, IMHO it’s the duty of the state to count the votes.
The counties are legally creations of the state, so what we really have here is part of the state enforcing arbitrary rules on other parts of the state, with the voters being bystanders to the whole thing. Squabbles amongst those entities, and deadlines that one entity imposes on another, shouldn’t be detrimental to the voters or the candidates they voted for.
It does matter. If the problem is poor ballot design and voters missed out, that’s unfortunate and reason to do better next time but not disenfranchisement (unless it’s really bad and/or deliberate misdesign). If there are votes submitted but not counted (or not counted correctly), that’s effectively negating or altering those votes which is much worse.
If the votes are counted and it turns out that a lot of people simply didn’t mark a vote for Senate, them’s the breaks.
Perhaps it is time for the US Congress to take over the Federal election process, under the authority of Article 1, Section 4 “The times, places and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing Senators.” It works in other countries, even ones which don’t have 2 years of prep time before each election.
we need 1 state to be a laughingstock and FL is glad to play that role. For a lot of stuff, not just elections. Even Mississippi laughs at FL.
I think it’s overdue; I’ve had enough of this sort of horseshit.
Not only could Congress mandate a uniform national ballot format for Federal offices, but it could outlaw the application of state voter ID laws and the like to Federal elections, require that states allow same-day registration, and mandate that any U.S. citizen not incarcerated 24/7 could vote.
If states and counties want to screw up voting for state and county offices, there’s nothing Congress can do about that, short of a Constitutional amendment. But as you point out, the Constitution empowers Congress to regulate Federal elections as they see fit.
Your given might possibly by an inaccurate representation of reality. Why you’d post such apparent hyperbole is enigmatic.
With regards to Florida, how hard is it to fill in a bubble and then tally the results? Why don’t we have national standards for ballots?
There is nothing intrinsically democratic about a recount. It’s just a method of counting votes, and an unscientifically supported one at that. If recounts were meant to actually be scientific, they’d be best 2 of 3, rather than the 2nd one counting. Given that all vote counts have a margin of error, if you have one winner on your first count and a different winner on your second count, a third count is called for.
THat’s fine, just don’t think it will solve anything. It’ll just mean most elections will go well, and then you’ll get one that’s FUBARd nationwide and a constitutional crisis. There’s a reason decentralization is a virtue.
You really don’t think counting all the votes, and as accurately as possible, is democratic?
Tell us more about “scientifically” too, please.
- They’re *not *random events, and 2. A recount means completing the count, one time, as accurately as possible. Why does that even require explanation?
Again, why are you disparaging the concept of getting it right, unless you’d prefer the wrong answer? Please remember that there are still lots of people, perhaps not in your sphere, who do still believe that democracy is important.
Hear, hear
What RTF said.
In a previous post, I suggested to you that more testing of a voting system is better than less, and this is exactly what we should do. Thus, create a uniform system for federal voting, and test it heavily before release to ensure that it is as fair and accurate as possible. Further, the system would be monitored after each election to continually improve how it works. Imagine a sample size of literally tens of millions of votes that would be used for this purpose. What is wrong with that?