I saw the “if” and should have included it in my quote. The point I was trying to make is that acrimoniously disputing the results of a presidential election has precedence in the history of this country, and will not necessarily tear apart the system. From what I’ve read in the threads on the SDMB, most people are unaware (or only very vaguely cognizant) of the bitter fighting over votes in 1960. Elections in the USA were not forever “tainted” by that dispute.
David:
I don’t think anyone, even the most rabid of Bush partisans is saying that we shouldn’t have a recount. Of course we should have a recount, Florida’s law requires it. IF the recount shows Gore ahead, then Gore will get Florida’s electoral votes.
What people are worried about are the non-recount remedies. Jesse Jackson says that the recount is useless since there wasn’t a first count. (I heard him say it on the radio, so this isn’t an exact quote. I’m sure it’s written down somewhere). What happens when/if the Gore camp says that even though the recount shows Bush ahead, there are other issues that invalidate the vote?
Sure, we can have an investigation…but for how long?
actually at this point, and at the point that Mr. Bush is making these transition team decisions, he’s behind in both popular and electoral votes. The counts in both Oregon and Florida have yet to be certified, and Florida will NOT be until next Friday at the earliest. Given that the entire state of Florida may hinge on the overseas ballots that are still in the mail, it’s premature of EITHER camp to declare and act victorious.
While I may believe that the overseas votes will probably put him over the top, the fact is, we have no way of knowing at this point how many there are and how those folks voted. Yes, there’s a lot of military folks and many generally believe that they’d vote Bush, but there’s also a great number in Israel, and we simply don’t know at this point.
To date, the total actions of teh Gore campaign with respect to the Florida vote has been to ask for a hand recount in 4 counties. Given teh significant disparities in the machine counts for those counties, this seems entirely reasonable and prudent. I have little respect for the position that it is unimportant for there to be a reliable accounting of valid ballots in a closely contested election.
Now, there has been an escalation of rhetoric from both sides in the campaign which I find disturbing. The Gore campaign was foolsih to state that it might lend support to any suits in state or federal courts. The Bush campaign has been presumptive and arrogant to act as if he is the winner of an election that is still in doubt.
I have little sympathy for either campaign.
I do, however, have a passionate belief that it is at least mildly important in a democratic election for the votes to be counted accurately and reliably.
Frankly, I am amzed that there is not more shared outrage against the flaws in the process. The citizens of this country have every right to expect their valid ballots to be properly counted.
damn human error, we should get rid of it
The fatal error rate on the Palm Beach County ballots was over 4% (19,120/461,988) that’s a lot higher than we find acceptable in Nebraska ! They need to fix this so that the guy who won can get on with things, and the guy who lost can go slinking back to Texas.
Wow, you really do live in a parallel universe from us! Give me a break. As a Gore partisan, I am willing to agree with Spiritus that some of the rhetoric on the Gore side has been too inflammatory (and even some of the numbers flying out of there have been somewhat deceiving). However, your claim that the Republicans are taking the high road is, frankly, BS. There are plenty of distortions, half-truths, and rhetoric coming out of the Bush camp. If that’s the high road, I hate to see what the low road looks like!
I have to disagree a bit on the technicalities here…For one thing, while the current margin in popular votes stands at 0.4%, the margin in Florida before the recount was only 0.03%. So, assuming the popular vote doesn’t tighten up a lot, that’s a pretty big difference.
Also, one can argue that if there are unbiased errors being produced at a small scale, their net effect would tend to go like sqrt(N), which means that a 0.0075% difference in 100 million nationwide votes would probably shift under recount with the same probability as the 0.03% difference in the 6 million Florida votes. In other words, a vote on a larger scale can probably be trusted down to a somewhat smaller percentage. (Trusted in the sense of not changing under a recount…Not trusted in the sense of meaning anything in terms of a mandate.)
This whole issue comes down to Gore beleiving his destiny is to become President. The popular vote is just a number. THere is no “National” vote, it’s a vote within 50 different states. The Federalist Papers called for an EC and later called for in the Constitution. I understand that a man who uses “No controlling legal authority” as a defense to breaking one of many laws might want the backbone of our great nation to bend to his will, this is expected of Gore. Florida (along with all other 49 states) state that any ballot with more than 1 Pres vote is discarded. I don’t care how confusing a ballot might seem after it was approved, that is the law. Do you know of anyone that thinks they can vote twice? (Not including those receiving 2 ballots in WI)
As far as who can work with an almost bilateral Congress? Think to yourself who is less polarizing? Bush has proven that he can get Texas Dems to support at least some of his legislation. When is the last time you heard Gore say anything non-vitriolic about the GOP?
And last, we are not in a Constitutional crisis. Our country’s law is specific. If a President is not elected by the EC, the Speaker is sworn in. Unless Rich Daly is exhumed to pay of the Electors. Gore, you have till 1/20/01 to find the witch doctor.
To qoute “Boss” Daly (Dem) “Vote early, vote often, even if you’re already dead”
Boy, wastelands, you really oughtta read a little. Gore has suffered no end of abuse in many of the threads around here for having had a less than perfect voting record on the environment when he was a senator, among many other complaints about him, all pointing to the fact that his voting record in the Senate was far less partisan than your average Democrat’s.
As to Bush’s character: anyone who can defend a death penalty that puts to death one person every two weeks on average, and seriously claim that no innocent man has died, has no character in my book. I consider it a moral travesty of the highest order that he should be seriously considered for our highest national office.
Wastelands, you might also try looking at the text of Al Gore’s statements on Wednesday. I think he said it as clearly and explicitly as it can be said (I’m paraphrasing here): The Constitution says the President is determined by the electoral college, not the total popular vote, and the basis of our whole democracy is our Constitution.
Who then are you arguing against here? If you want to see a discussion of why the popular vote is getting any mention, see my comments in the “Popular Vote is Irrelevant” thread. As I said there, some of the rhetoric from the Gore camp may have been not as nuisanced on the popular vote thing as it should be…But, I think Al Gore’s own statement on the matter is clear and unambiguous.
As others have pointed out, there are countless times in which Al Gore has broken ranks with the Democrats on major policy issues, including the war with Iraq to name just one.
As for the fact that George can get along with Dems in Texas, I think Cokie Roberts or someone like that on NPR said it best: Some of the so-called “Democrats” in Texas are, for all intents and purposes, Republicans…at least by Washington standards. So, getting along with them is very different than getting along with Democrats in the U.S. Congress. Gore, by contrast, has shown that he can work with Republicans in Congress and the executive branch in Washington, and in fact, some of us think he is willing to go along with them a bit too much!