This arrived in my e-mail, uncredited. I’m sure it will arrive in yours soon enough…
I now live in a country where I have no president but I do have …
a dead Senator from Missouri going to Congress.
a fake President played on TV by Martin Sheen.
a new Senator from New York who used to be the wife of the boss of
the man who may be president.
a Governor from Florida who is the brother of the man who may be
president.
a sitting President whose wife now will be hanging around the same
men who voted to remove him from office.
a senior Senator from South Carolina who, under our current
Constitution rules, could be appointed to be President in this standoff
despite the fact that he is 98.
a potential Vice President who, because he did not take his name off
the Connecticut Senate race, could end up being the deciding factor in
how the Senate is composed.
And finally …
A state where a Republican Secretary of State and a Democratic
Attorney General try to determine the outcome of 25 electoral votes
without appearing to be partisan.
{:-)-[
Peace …
Mods: Because this is simply a wry observation, not a debate, I put it here, in spite of the political nature. Put it wherever you like.
Not to mention 5.75 billion people outside your borders laughing our asses off at the fact that “the richest and most powerful country in the world” can’t even pick a fucking president.
Well, when we do have an election, at least we know who won within an hour of the polls closing. And what do you know - this may have something to do with the fact that we mark our ballots with a pencil. We make an X in the appropriate circle. Wowee! Simple, easy, low-tech, foolproof, and (best of all) no fucking chads.
(Don’t get me wrong. I like fucking Chads. And Gregs, and Bruces, and Erics…)
You have a point, matt–that kind of ballot is straight-forward, simple, and hard to screw up. And it’s the most difficult system to practice fraud with.
But I’m sure we can both think of scenarios in which a Canadian federal election took awhile to decide–extremely close races for a number of seats, compounded by smaller parties winning seats, for instance. It may not have happened yet…but I don’t think anybody down here envisioned our election coming down to a single state with so small of a margin between the candidates. So don’t get smug yet–the day may come when you don’t know for sure who’s gonna be Prime Minister for a few weeks after an election.
(It’s worth noting that there was a school bond vote somewhere this year–Minnesota or Wisconsin, I’m thinking–where the vote was actually tied. Such things can happen.)
I’m proud of the way our country has handled this:
No violence.
The military isn’t involved.
The current administration hasn’t threatened to void the election or to stay in place.
No assassinations.
The judicial system is reviewing the facts and the law and is making an objective legal decision, which, I am quite confident, will be honored by the losing party.
So laff it up. We had a virtual tie and we’re handling it in a fair, correct and civilized way. What a bunch of buffoons we are.
I disagree with you based on three points: (1) the nature of the Canadian parliamentary system is such that a federal election is not all or nothing for the prime minister as it is for the American president; (2) the voting and appeal procedure in Canada is both more simple and more cleanly deliniated than in the US; and (3) generally Canadians are not as passionate about politics as Americans.
(1) The nature of Canada’s parliamentary system is such that no one votes for the prime minister. One votes for a local member of parliament. Yes, the political party which holds the greatest number of seats forms the government, and the leader of that party will be the prime minister (assuming that he or she is elected as a local member of parliament), but this does not require a majority.
Minority governments are quite common. If a minority government is unable to work with the opposition parties (who usually have their leaders also sitting as members of parliament) to a reasonable degree, then the opposition parties will call for a vote of non-confidence, the minority government will fall, and back to the poles we go. Quite simply, the stakes in a Canadian Federal election are not nearly as high for the leaders of the various parties as they are in the US.
After a presidential election, the loser is out of the picture for a few years, whereas in Canada, usually all the leaders are all returned to parliament, or if they are not, they simply wait a bit and get back in through a by-election. Similarly, if a party forms a majority govenment by the smallest of margins, by-elections for vacated seats will either firm up the majority, or establish a minority government, or the government will fall and a new election will be held. Whichever way, it remains business as usual.
(2) The legislation is a lot simpler. The Canada Elections Act sets out the procedure (which is pretty basic), includes very strong checks and balances (including party observers during the count), and most importantly, sets out a definitive appeal process.
Counting is simple because ridings are small and can be easily counted in a few hours. Recounts are automatic if there is a 1/1000 margin, otherwise the returning officer has four days to apply to the court for a recount. After this four days anyone can apply for a recount. Delays for any reason are given a total of three weeks to be remedied, and if it still goes to hell and a handbasket, any voter can apply within 30 days to the courts to contest the matter. There is no time pressure, and it is easy to have the courts address any problems. In contrast, the process in Forida has been severely challenged due to time constraints.
The appeal procedure in Canada is very straightforward. March on up to Superior Court (or Federal Court if you are not in a province), and bring it before a judge. Further appeal is directly to the Supreme Court of Canada, and does not require its leave. Again, in the US presidential election in Florida, the process has been severely challenged due to unclear appeal paths.
(3) Finally, on a general level, there are some fundamental differences between Canadians and Americans. From the Canadian perspective, Americans tend to be much more passionate over god, guns, and government. Per capita, more Canadians are eligible to vote than Americans, and of those eligible to vote, again per capita more Canadians come out to vote, so obviously elections are meaningful to Canadians, but the underlying passion for politics simply is not there in Canadians the way it is in Americans. When there are close heats in Canada, there is not nearly as much rhetoric as there is in the US. There is no talk of constitutional crisis, no storming of counting areas, no poitioning of transition teams. In short, even in the worst of Canadian elections there is little of the hype and upset which acompanies even the best of US elections.
Are there problems in Canadian elections? Yes. This week when we went to the polls to elect our federal parliament, some blank ballots were stolen (no one knows who did it), a full ballot box was tossed in a river (everyone who had voted in that box was called and asked to re-vote), and a number of polling station attendants got so bored that they either did not show or wandered off (additional staff were called in and poll closing time was extended). Canadians even had recounts in some ridings due to narrow margins. The net result? Just another day in the life. No big deal.
Quite frankly, from a Canadian perspective, the American inability to elect a president without a great deal of difficulty is rather amusing, and for the reasons which I set out above, is not something which has happened or will happen in Canada even in the closest of elections.
(By the way, the US now has a president elect: Jean Cretien. Having been elected to Parliament earler this week, and being the Prime Minister of Canada, he is set to take over the reigns from President Clinton based on the “next best thing in a jam” priniple that permits the wife of the dead guy from Missouri to be put into place on his behalf despite his being dead before the vote.)
No, there is no “next best thing principle”. The Constitution says that if someone elected to the Senate cannot serve, the governor of the state can appoint someone to take the job. If for some bizarre reason we haven’t settled the election by Innauguration Day, we have laws that say who becomes President.
Besides, the Constitution only allows natural born US Citizens who have lived in the US at least 14 years to be President.
Uh, point of order! I would like to draw attention to the fact that while the newly elected Senator from Missouri is in fact, dead, he’s not the first one to be elected to office in that state.
Both Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond have been brain dead for several years now, but keep getting re-elected to office. Yes, they do walk around and their mouths do open and noises come out, but to not classify them as dead would simply be discrimination of the highest sort! We must demonstrate to the world that we DO NOT discriminate against those who are metabolically challenged!
Muffin: I can still envision scenarios in which it could occur, but I’ll concede that you know far more about Canadian elections than I do.
waterj2 said:
For the record, for our Canadian friends, next in line of succession after the vice president is the Speaker of the House of Representatives–currently J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL).
Well, you had best start impeachment proceedings against Cretien immediately, for you can be sure that one of the first things he will do is change the rules as to who can be prez. Trust me on this one, once he is in power, he tends to stick around.
Have you ever had to impeach a foreign usurper before, or will this be a first?
