posted
(Was a plea for donations to the Kerry legal fund)
Obviously that plan is now defunct. Kudos to Kerry for having the integrity to concede early. Presumably, he had access to better information than I did. I do wonder where my money has gone, although the site said something about it being used to cover outstanding past legal expenses.
posted
Because it's a pain in the butt and Bush won the popular vote by 3%. Just let it die for goodness sake. I was sick of this election yesterday, I don't want to be sick of it tomorrow. (As a side note, Kennedy did a lot of scummy things in 1960, was there all this crap then? No!) JUST LIVE WITH IT!!!
Posts: 3003 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
Slashing tires isn't right... But somehow trying to undermine democracy is hundreds of times worse. If that is the case... Hell must be raised... Seriously. It doesn't matter in this case if you are Republican or a Democrat. If they are interfering with votes it's wrong.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Okay, so all this time I've been hearing people gripe and complain about the electoral college and how crappy it is. I DOUBT that across the country there were enough "scummy" occurances to bridge a 3 million vote gap, so you're effectively saying that you now support ONLY the electoral college, and as such, are willing to fight for all the voters in a single state in the dim hope the election would swing your way. THAT is scummy in my opinion.
Posts: 3003 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
Don't worry, the poll watchers were still able to make it to their designated places in time to challenge college students and poor minorities despite their tires being slashed.
Posts: 4292 | Registered: Jan 2001
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quote:Republicans did a heck of a lot, some illegal and some just scummy, to suppress voter turnout, and you're seeing the result. We can't let them get away with it out of laziness, or a desire for unity--why bother having elections if we let people cheat?
Let's see. What have Republicans done that was unequivocally illegal, exactly?
And wait a second, let me understand this. Slashing tires of vehicles so voters can't make it to vote is somehow not undermining democracy? That is laughably hypocritical.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:Don't worry, the poll watchers were still able to make it to their designated places in time to challenge college students and poor minorities despite their tires being slashed.
First off, I wholeheartedly agree that arbitrary challenging of likely Kerry voters at the polls is scummy. I wish I could say it's beneath the GOP, but I wouldn't go nearly so far.
But there's another part of this issue, something I think needs to be said. What American is so spineless, so inept, so stupid, or just so unlucky as to let their enemy's lackeys stop them from voting?
That's what bothers me about all the talk of 'intimidation'. I try to picture an American being threatened however subtly by someone in an attempt to stop them from voting, and every time I imagine that, the victims always ends up angrier and more determined to vote-telling his or her friends to go out and do the same-than anything else.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
Of course, the challenges stopped no one from voting. It's a ridiculous charge. If anyone's provisional ballot is discarded, it will be because that person is not eligible to vote.
posted
No, it'll be cuz Ohio's Secretary of State purged the voting rolls and voting precincts were shifted without notifiying folks that they were purged or that their precincts were changed.
posted
Frankly, I think Kerry should concede. Even if there were widespread voter fraud in Ohio, it's not enough to make up the gap -- and with a loss in the popular vote as well, he's simply not going to garner the same kind of sympathy that Bush's freakish electoral college win over Gore inspired.
It's not worth a long court battle, unless there's some compelling piece of information out there -- which I highly doubt -- that can demonstrate tampering on a massive scale. And given the mechanics of the vote in Ohio, even if there were massive tampering, there'd be no real record of fraud. So I'd suggest that Kerry do the classy thing.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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I'm puzzled by all the people "refuting" my post by saying that Democrats pulled dirty tricks too. Never said they hadn't. What does that have to do with whether we should challenge the election results?
Posts: 535 | Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
I also highly doubt anyone was intimidated into not voting, at least by any significant numbers. That doesn't make it acceptable to have partisan poll watchers. They can challenge registered voters beforehand, but once election day comes the poll workers should be trained enough to identify any possible problems themselves.
Besides, it should be about getting out the vote and changing the vote. Preventing the vote is, in my opinion, "scummy."
Posts: 4292 | Registered: Jan 2001
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For those of you who want to get rid of it: If it wasn't for the existence of the Electoral College, we would probably still be doing a recount of the 2000 election.
With the E/C, if there is a state where the margin of victory is larger that the possible change due to error/fraud/absentee/provisional ballots, than you can count that state. Because Florida in 2000 was within that limit, there was a contestation (sp?). In Ohio in 2004, the margin of victory is larger than the number of contested ballots, so no reason to challenge.
Imagine the scene if there hadn't been an Electoral College in 2000. We would be recounting every absentee ballot, reviewing every hanging chad, in EVERY SINGLE precinct in the US. Since a recount almost always increases the count for the person who was leading (unless there is fraud, the probability of a miscount is just as likely for each candidate, so the "new" votes are usually split up along the same proportions), the Democrats would be trying to recount in all "their" precincts and the Republicans would be doing the same in theirs. Complete and utter chaos.
A good solution: Have the entire nation adopt the approach that is used in Maine and Nebraska. Give 2 electoral votes to the overall winner in each state, and then give one electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district. No Constitutional admentment needed since there would still be the Electoral College, we would eliminate the national recount scenario, and you would have a much more representative electoral college.
Posts: 258 | Registered: Jun 1999
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posted
Your complaint about a popular vote recount taking significantly longer than an electorial vote is entirely unwarranted. All that would have to be done would be to keep each state's votes seperate. This really wouldn't be difficult, since we can already keeping tab of each presincts popular votes. The only difference, as far as I can see, between an electoral or a popular election is that one is more focused on geographic seperations, while the other is focused on majority rules. One can debate the mmerits of the two all you want, but the time neccesary for a recount would be equal in either case.
Posts: 129 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
You know, our system of electing a president was designed on the theory that the looser would humbly congratulate the winner and gracefully bow out. At that time many countries would have armies in the streets if the party in power was about to loose power for any reason. But our founding fathers gracefully handed power over when the time came, or quietly disappeared into the background if they failed to win an election.
I'm glad that Kerry didn't choose to prolong his loss. But all of the whining I'm hearing from democrats about republicans cheating just pisses me off. I was a poll watcher for the democratic party yesterday and i at no point in time saw or heard of any republican in my county doing anything shady until this morning, now even though Indiana is clearly a republican state, everyone is claiming that republicans are low down dirty dogs who use both illegal and legal tricks to win.
Bottom line, Our system is as close to fair as humanly possible and it lowers my opinion of people when they stoop to accusations in an attempt to get rid of the other party. In todays age we don't have an angry mob trying to change the parties power, we have a mob of legal loophole hunting lawyers.
Posts: 1094 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
well, considering what happend last time... its hard for people to know whats up. I dont really blame them for saying somthing illegale was going on... because in all likely hood it is, probably for both partys. And in the end i much rather have people complaining and sending accusations then staying silent, again, for both partys. Stalker, you are really right about armys in the street. Its a really good point. Haveing been a poll watcher in a swing state this past election, i can say it is deffinitly different then it is in indiana (although its going to be different depending on the size etc. of the town). Federal politics is suddently much more real here. People were more tence, and shameful things did go on. Although it was very civalised for the most part. There was so much more attention payed by both sides, that i suspect this election was more fair then elections have been in a long time. Strker, you also right that no matter what somthing is always going to happen that should not have. We are not as purfect as we could be, but we are getting closer.
Posts: 264 | Registered: Apr 2004
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