Yet another thread on the election, this one about the question above.
Let me start with by stating that I have no axe to grind in this election. I am Canadian, and furthermore I personally reject the whole idea of representative ‘democracy’ as a travesty of true, Athenian-style democracy. In addition, I find neither of the two main candidates to be ‘worthy’ of the office of President of the USA. What I am interested in is finding out what exactly happened in Palm Beach, Florida.
The first question is: did a significant fraction of votors, intending to vote for Al Gore, instead mistakenly vote for Pat Buchannen? Clearly there were a very high number of Buchannen votes in that county. The argument has been made that even more people voted for him in 1996, and that, therefore, the 2000 vote was in line with expectations. This argument is clearly spurious. Buchannen got many more votes in 1996 Florida than 2000 Florida. As a percentage of total votes cast, 1996 Palm Beach was right in line with 1996 Florida, while 2000 Palm Beach had several times more Buchannen votes than projected from the rest of 2000 Florida. I urge you to visit this site for charts showing the effect that I am talking about.
So some Gore voters may have voted for Buchannen by mistake, and thereby given the Presidency to G. W. Bush. Should something be done to rectify this? After all, you have to be fairly stupid to vote for Buchannen, thinking that he was Gore, right? And if you’re that stupid, then tough luck, you should pay more attention next time, right? That seems to be a common reaction in these threads, but is it justified?
Remember that there is no IQ requirement to vote in the USA. If you are a citizen of the USA and are legally an adult, you can vote. (please correct me if there are other requirements - I am from Canada, after all) It is clear that almost everyone can successfully register their vote, even on the so-called ‘butterfly’ ballots. However, the lowest 1% or so of voters, ranked by intelligence, would only just be able to do this successfully, even with a crystal-clear ballot. If there were an additional impediment to the process, such as the (admittedly minor) effort to understand the ballots in question in Palm Beach, then those particular voters would be much more likely to make a mistake while voting. The impediment in question applied to the Gore voters, with their candidate #2 on the listing, but #3 among the punch-holes, but not the Bush voters, who had their candidate at the top of the listing, and at the top of the punch-holes.
So 100 % of the Bush supporters who vote in that county do in fact vote for Bush, while 99 % of the Gore supporters vote for Gore, and 1 % for Buchannen. That 1% decides the Presidency. I am guessing about the percentages. But the idea is the same, whatever the actual numbers are.
So what is to be done? Realistically, I see 4 options:
-
Do nothing. Accept that Bush wins the Presidency because of a poorly-designed ballot in one Florida county. The Republicans are all for this option, of course. The main argument for this is that normally, once a vote is cast, it stands, whatever the intentions of the voter. It should not matter whether the election is for Mayor of East Bumblefuck, New Hampshire, or President of the USA. The main argument against it is that it goes directly contrary to the idea that every voter is equal: in this case, 100 Gore supporters are worth 99 Bush supporters, for the purposes of the voting results.
-
Re-allocate the Buchannen votes to the candidates according to statistical analysis of the relative votes in other counties in Florida. The main argument for this is that we would end up with the closest approximation to the intended vote. The main argument against it is that we lose the connection between voter and vote, since nobody actually casts the votes in question.
-
Have a re-vote among those citizens in Palm Beach who voted the first time. The main argument for this is that every voter would know that their vote has been cast for the person that they intended to vote for. The main argument against it is that people would certainly change their votes, in the knowledge that their personal votes have a huge influence on the election results. In particular, any Nader voters would have a strong incentive to switch to Gore.
-
Re-do the entire national presidential election. The main arguments are the same as in option 3) above.
So what do you think? Please, I am interested in a reasoned, logical argument, not a rant.
Bill