You know, when this happens elsewhere in modern democracies/republics - i.e. no one gets a majority of the popular vote - there’s something called a runoff that occurs. They vote again with the two highest candidates until a majority is achieved.
However, it’s not part of the U.S. presidental election. Part of this is 1) there are only two major parties/candidates 2) a close race is extremely rare and 3) the founding fathers were obsessed with avoiding direct democracy and failed to see a day where a nation of over 250 million people and 50 states with amazingly high population ratios to each other would effectively tie at 48% for two guys.
I can’t see a valid agrument of how it would violate the will of the people if the entire nation voted again. Messy, sure, not constitutional, yes, but fair, definitely.
I think it’s abundantly clear the U.S. is extremely divided, and that the vote would have to swing one way of the other if all votes were recast.
Of course, if they followed the elimination model, Nader would be out of the running and Gore would have a definite advantage in a two-man race.
If you want to fix the EC you either have to 1) throw it out and go for a mass head count, unfair or 2) combine and cut up some of the states so they’re not so unbalanced. Slashing California in half, combining the Dakotas, etc. I’m afraid both ideas are impratical. We’re stuck.
Has anyone calculated the effect of throwing out all the votes from West Palm Beach, whether doublepunched or not? If the election there was improper by Florida law and a revote would unfairly redistribute the third party votes, maybe discounting the whole thing would be the fairest solution?
I hate to bring it up, since I support Gore and it looks like such a move would favor Gore. Not to mention the mass of voters in that county that would have lost their chance to participate because of some idiot that prepared the ballot without being aware of the state laws about how to do so. But has anyone done the math? Would that put the state firmly for Bush?
Has anyone calculated the effect of throwing out all the votes from West Palm Beach, whether doublepunched or not? If the election there was improper by Florida law and a revote would unfairly redistribute the third party votes, maybe discounting the whole thing would be the fairest solution?
I hate to bring it up, since I support Gore and it looks like such a move would favor Bush. Not to mention the mass of voters in that county that would have lost their chance to participate because of some idiot that prepared the ballot without being aware of the state laws about how to do so. But has anyone done the math? Would that put the state firmly for Bush?
Sorry for the double post. I tried to stop the submit when I saw that I’d mistyped the last word of the first sentence of the second paragraph. It’s correct in the second version, of course.
Many are worried that a Presidential election may be decided by one county in Florida should they be allowed to re-vote.
Actually, it’s worse than this.
The next President of the United States will be decided by a judge…one person (or perhaps several if the court that decides this is populated like the Supreme Court).
Either way it seems we’ll have one (or up to 7?) people decide the next president. It seems clear these are the two options facing them…
Deny a re-vote. With Bush’s current lead and overseas ballots likely to be strongly in his favor Bush wins.
Force a re-vote in the county. With the county seemingly strongly in favor of Gore and 19,000 votes there this would almost certainly make Gore the winner.
There is a third possibility that the entire state of Florida re-votes but I doubt that’s likely. If this were the case I’d be hard pressed to pick a winner but I imagine it’d go to Bush if this happened.
I sure would hate to be the judge who has to decide this! No matter which way he/she/they go they will get roughly 50% of the United States pissed at them.
Pinellas County (which includes St. Petersburg) is undergoing a SECOND re-count because the first one resulted in 400-vote swing in favor of Gore. This is because workers managed to somehow overlook more than 400 ballots on election night! (This is according to msnbc.com.)
Right now, it’s still 830 in favor of Bush. If it is dramatically cut by 400 or so, you’ll know why.
A number of dead people’s names were on the voter rolls, but no one is claiming that any votes were cast in their names. However, a couple of people said they went to vote and were told, “You can’t vote. You’re dead.”
Y’know, if either Gore or Bush had won Florida by 100,000 or so, these improprieties would have been mere footnotes in history books. Instead, Palm Beach County is now the most-watched county in the most-watched state in the country.
And the people in Oregon are probably saying, “What are we, chopped liver?” THEY’RE doing a re-count also, but no one outside of Oregon cares!
What everyone seems to keep forgetting is that in Florida there is no precident set for legal recourse in this matter outside of fraud. End of story. I have full confidence that both candidates will abide by today’s recount, perhaps with the absentess thrown in for good measure. Let us please stop assuming that NEITHER one of these men will behave in a decent and statesman-like fashion. We are selling them both short by the insistance from each camp that one or the other will behave ungraciously. Which up until this point neither have really done anything worthy of such strong criticism.
As a Democrat I already felt a strong measure of pride and satisfaction from this election. If you look at my state alone, Virginia, which is notoriously Republican the numbers show that we are not in such a vast minority after all. I voted this year for the first time in my life and I’m proud that I did so, I’ll never neglect this duty again. And I hope this election proves to everyone that their vote does count.
I believe that if the American people expect our leaders to behave in a dignified and decent manner we have no other option than to follow this ourselves. We are not really a country that is divided into “liberals” and “conservatives”. We’re a moderate country on the whole. Most of us do care deeply about many of the vary same things. Now is the time for all of us, American voters and our leaders, to put aside our petty feelings and live up to our own standards.
Let’s at least stop bashing at these guys until one of them actually does do something undeniably creepy.
One other thing brought up - if, for some reason, the presidency could not be determined by the Electoral College (perhaps Florida just doesn’t give its votes, or distributes them 50/50 or something, for example), the decision would go to the House of Representatives, and each state would get one vote. That being the case, what would happen - Bush carried more states than Gore electoral college-wise, so he might win; but if each state votes according to who won the popular vote, Gore would win.
Think about that statement. So the goal of this is to get Gore a win, then?
Or is the goal to have a legal election and legal results?
Jeff_42: What you are suggesting (a very real possibility) would be just as divisive and bad as a re-vote. The judges making the decision (be they the Florida Supreme Court or the U.S. Supreme Court) will be mostly conservative. If they gave the call to Bush, the Democratic freak-out would be as huge as the Republican one will be if they have any re-votes.
I give Gore credit for his measured response and urging of following the law to this point. I think it would behoove both Gore and Bush to declare right now that they will accept the results of the Florida recount, whatever they may be, without any further court action or complaint. They should also say they would refuse to serve if the outcome tilts to their favor as a result of any court action filed on their or their party’s behalf by some other individual or group.
And if you think this is a partisan sentiment, keep in mind that Bush’s lead is dwindling with every re-counted vote. It’s just what’s best for the country. Figure out everything that could have been done better in this election at a later time, and do it better next time. Court fights and unusual, unfair steps such as re-votes aren’t proper.
You’re right about the overseas ballots, but how many of those are there?
Re the recount math: The counties do not all have the same population, friend. It seems reasonable that the ones that were completed yesterday were the smaller-population, rural ones that one would expect to be Bush country - and he STILL lost ground. The big counties, due today, are more likely Gore country.
Now, if the total tonight has Gore winning, even with the PBC mess, what will Bush do? Go to the courts, or admit he lost both the electoral and popular vote and let the country get on with business? Call me a skeptic.
This is more GQish really, but since it may be relevant to the conversation at hand…
Does anyone know how closely the problem here in Florida matches the problems with deciding which electors should get to vote in the 1876 election? I believe that’s the right one, the election between Hayes and Tilden. My fairly sketchy understanding of that election is that which electors should be chosen was under dispute in several states, due to voting irregularities (read fraud), so that a special congressional committee ended up investigating and deciding which electors would be chosen in the disputed states. Now, I’m not advocating that this be done, especially since the 1876 election was far from one of the US’s proudest moments, but I do wonder if it creates a precedent that would be relevent for this election should Florida’s electorial votes remain disputed.
In 1996, they went 75% for Bob Dole; it’s expected they’ll go even heavier for Bush this year. So you’ll probably see Bush gain a net 1500 to 2500 votes.
Given that the recount’s two-thirds over and he’s still in the lead, I have little doubt he’ll be delcared the winner. Given that there’s absolutely no legal precedent for a “do over”, and legal precedent against it, I expect that Gore will have no real recourse. Whether that stops him from challenging things, well…
I don’t think anyone knows. (Many have yet to arrive). But they got about 2,300 in 1996.
Do you know this, or are you merely postulating? Actually the pace of the Gore advance seems to have slowed significantly today (46 of 67 districts; 793 behind).
Good question. Are the Republicans currently gathering info about Republican areas that lost out due to “irregularities”? If not, they will have no recourse in any event (again, barring absentees).
For a bit of humor in this otherwise humorless topic, see this from The Onion
Er, no. It seems reasonable the big cites have fast counting machines and the rural counties only have the local bridge club, thus the big cities would finish first.
If the Palm Beach county election results are voided we have a serious constitutional issue. I’m aware of no provision for voiding an election unless there is blatant corruption, fraud, or other illegal activities.
There’s no legal provision for a re-vote – by precinct, county, state, or country.
There’s no legal way to void the results – by precinct, country, state, or country.
There is only one constitutional way to determine this country’s president when an election fails to provide a clear winner – a vote by the House of Representatives. And since a vote by the house will likely result in a win for GWB, you just don’t hear the complainers talking about a legal and constitutional resolution.
The Democrats seem to be deliberately establishing an atmosphere that will make it difficult for Bush to unite the country. Hardy a noble act.
Well, JAG, it seems you are trying to be fair, but, you’re hopping the uninformed anti-liberal bandwagon. No one went “looking” for a Gore excuse in the form of the PBC debaucle or 400 disappeared votes, etc. You suggest that some extreme leftist liberals ran the media and, when that didn’t work, made up something to stall the final call until a better plan came up.
JC: I do not dispute that the vast majority of the overseas votes will be going to Bush. But you cannot just add 3000 votes to Bush’s total, as we have absolutely no idea how many of those votes have already arrived and been counted.
SS: Also, we don’t know that a House vote would “likely” be a Bush vote. Just because the GOP has the majority in the House doesn’t mean they have a majority of the states in their favor (its a caucus vote, not a one man-one vote vote). I’m trying to get a link on a list of Representatives, their affiliation, and their state, but the .gov’s aren’t cooperating right now.