Among honorable men, there would be no such problem, the ostensible winner would recognize that there was no mandate, he would not issue any pious bloviations about the will of the people.
Who can forget GeeDubya’s highpoint of statesmanship, when, having lost the popular vote by half a milion…gave that speech about how he didn’t really win, but felt compelled by law to fill the position. And promised to be guided by the spirit of compromise, as befit his actual political approval.
What happened with Bush is why we need tiebreaker rules for close races, rather than recounts, the results of which almost never satisfy anyone but the winner. At least if the rules are known beforehand, everyone knows what happens.
In the case of 2000, I remember that among Gore supporters, there was call for a revote, even though this legally wasn’t possible. It should have been. Since most close races feature no one with a majority due to third parties, Bush-Gore in Florida should have seen a December runoff vote.
Or, if one is worried about costs and feasibility, just declare that the winner of a too close to call race is the challenging party. If an incumbent party can’t win a solid majority, with all the advantages that incumbency entails, they don’t deserve to continue in office.
That may not be quite it, but clearly we must take whatever urgent steps are required to address the desperate question of the ultra-close election. How we have managed to lurch and stumble along for better than two hundred years is a mystery.
But clearly this must be our most urgent priority, and no sacrifice is to great for the Democratic Party to bear!
What I proposed – though knowing it had no chance of coming to pass – was negotiating a komi. Thus Gore might offer Bush “I’ll spot you 50,000 votes if you agree to a revote in Florida.” (In fact Gore would have won a revote even giving up a very large komi so, if nothing else, the offer would have been a propaganda victory.
It was mind-boggling how The World’s Most Wonderful Democracy™® reacted to the close election of 2000. Despite that the election-to-inauguration delay is far longer than in most countries, there seemed to be a perception that some horrific paralysis are even Selden Crisis had occurred. One Brit wrote “In U.K. what we do is … are you sitting down? … recount the votes!” One American wrote back “That’s easy for you small countries to say … Do you have any idea how many people live in Florida?” :smack:
I wouldn’t be so sure. Democratic turnout problems existed even then. You can bring 'em out on Election day, but for a second one? I think the Bush voters would have proven more reliable in a revote.
Not really. Less is at stake in US elections than in most other countries, so there’s naturally more apathy. This is a feature, not a bug. If you want more turnout, then make us like other countries where the government can take away a lot more and give a lot more depending on who the ruling party’s friends and enemies are.
If only we had known! Why didn’t they tell us right off the bat that it was all about solving the grim crisis of ultra-close elections? All across this great nation, the people rejoice to hear the glad news, the ghastly spectre of ultra-close elections has been banished!
BrainGlutton, I have identified ultra-close elections as the problem that Voter ID is well-positioned to help solve every time I discuss voter confidence. That’s the genesis of what I mean when I discuss voter confidence. But despite your recitation of the phrase “voter confidence,” when dismissing my argument, you now say you’ve never before heard them called a problem. How is this possible?
Trinopus, I don’t contend that Voter ID prevents ultra-close elections. I contend that in the event of an ultra-close elections, the presence of voter ID helps ensure confidence in the narrow result’s accuracy. As has been repeatedly pointed out, incidents of in-person voter fraud are so rare that they generally can be safely said to not influence the result of an election. But in ultra-close races, that’s not true.
That’s what I have repeatedly said about voter confidence and Voter ID.
A recount was started in Florida, and gave rise to debates about hanging chads, dimpled chads, pregnant chads, the “intent of the voter,” and how to count the vote for “the Lizard People,” that also had a mark next to a candidate’s name, but no perforation. The Gore people contended that all of these indicated an intent of the voter to vote for Gore; the Bush people similarly contended that each of these ambiguous ballots were intended for Bush. Election boards dominated by Democrats resolved these question for the most part on favor of Gore; election boards with majority Republican members resolved the questions for the most part in favor of Bush.
It got a little bit of news at the time – remember?
But, that was all about votes actually cast. A voter ID requirement would have done nothing to help prevent that situation, the problems were all at other stages in the process, ballot-design and mechanics and so on. And don’t forget that it was Jeb Bush’s voter-roll purge, an idea closely if tangentially linked to that of ID requirements, that added an extra layer of stench and sleaze and illegitimacy to the whole thing.
Bricker, according the the SDMB search function, you mentioned this central concern first on 10/31/2013, and once again, on the same day. And then not again until yesterday.
Did you use some other phrase to convey your desperate worry about…what?..“squeekers”? Was it “super-dooper close” elections? Because “ultra close” wasn’t it.
From the wiki link above on voter turnout:
“On the other hand, countries with a two party system can experience low turnout if large numbers of potential voters perceive little real difference between the main parties.”
For those of us looking in, we don’t see a hell of a lot of difference in the actions of your government from one party being in control to the next. I suspect it is pretty much how your fellow citizens perceive it as well. They don’t vote because it doesn’t make a darned bit of difference as to who is in power. You perceive that as a positive?
Putting aside weasel words like “slightly”, what if the number of very few people unable to cast votes is historically larger than than the number of very few known cases of voter fraud?
At least originally, it wasn’t about making it impossible to vote, it was about making it harder to vote, impeding rather than preventing. It was about gaining just a point or two in turnout. The other stuff…curtailing early voting, harassing voter registration projects…those came later.
Had to guess, I’d guess that somebody on that side can add, and realized that one or two points wasn’t going to cut it. But I hesitate to peer into the Republican mindset, it is writhing, squamous, and tentacled.