Adding the F-word to the N-word: A Washington Governors’ Race Update

96 thoughts on “Adding the F-word to the N-word: A Washington Governors’ Race Update”

1. Charles,
   First, the nature of the “fraud” you are describing is that the officials were sloppy, lazy, or inefficient, and that they “lied” by not volunteering this fact to the Election Board. They took a shortcut by “reconciling” to an unknown. I’ve been known to do this in balancing my checkbook upon ocassion. I know this is serious, but it is not malicious and…
   The effect of the “fraud” you have described, if continued, would have reduced the number of votes for the Democrat! Why atre the Republicans so incensed? The effect of finding the lost (misplaced) ballots was to provide more votes for the Democrat. It’s part of the reason why the results changed in the recount.
   This revelation shows that the original count was erroneous. That’s the one where the Rebublican won. Once all the ballots were counted, the Democrats gained the governorship. So why are the Republicans so concerned about this “fraud”?
   Since you aren’t arguing for either of these results to be counted, but to have a whole new vote, are you assuming that the “fraudulent” King County elections officials will do it right the next time? The evidence seems to be that they did it right the second time, and that’s the result we are living with.

2. Yea, the logic is odd. It seems that there was a problem and it was corrected. Bird doesn’t like the result of correcting the problem so therefore he’s demanding another election.

3. I live in King County, and I’ve attempted to follow this case. It is difficult because I am not a lawyer, I have not seen the depositions, and there is a hurricane force spin zone surrounding the political implications of the case.
   Having said that, I think it might be prudent to await the results of the civil trial before accusing persons who are not under endictment of criminal behavior.

4. While the N-word (negligence) has been used liberally and rightfully so in this mess, I had seen no evidence of the F-word (fraud).
   This is a hilarious admission, considering how much time up til now you’ve spent talking about fraud, and diligently reporting every half-baked, unsupported allegation that makes it onto right-wing talk radio.

5. The only fair solution at this point is to have a revote of the presidential election of 2000.

6. I would be in favor of a revote if evidence was found which indicated an effort to surpress Republican votes or keep Republicans away from the polls. As it is, the human error and human failings of election officials in a heavily Democratic area have been exposed. However, as Charles says, there is no evidence of an effort to influence the outcome of the election. Uncounted votes are more likely to be the votes of Democrats than Republicans. The Democratic party chose to live with the bad management practices of elections in Ohio and Florida which were intended to effect the election outcome. Republicans need to live with the sloppiness here which was not intended to effect the outcome.

7. Much better to buy into all the unsubstanctated allegations coming from left-wing talk radio (and prominent lefties).
   What Charles is pointing out is not that the election was a fraud, only that we shouldn’t have much confidence in the numbers thus far set forth. The whole motivation behind the “(S)elected Prez Bush” mantra was a lack of confidence in Florida’s ability to count all the valid ballots. And unless one is merely a partisan hack, the lack of confidence in Washington’s vote tally ought to be of equal concern now.

8. To paraphrase numerous republicans Get over it.

9. “The whole motivation behind the (S)elected Prez Bush’ mantra was a lack of confidence in Florida’s ability to count all the valid ballots. And unless one is merely a partisan hack, the lack of confidence in Washington’s vote tally ought to be of equal concern now.”
   And what do you think should now be done about each? (I rather suspect Charles isn’t going to sign on to the notion that he should have “equal concern” about the Florida election as he does with Washington State, but perhaps I’m wrong; are you calling him a “partisan hack” if he doesn’t agree?)

10. can we get a revote in Ohio, too ? (Bush’s 43% approval rating shouldn’t be of any concern)

11. Charles.
    Do you live in Washingtonm State?

12. Don Quijote: To paraphrase numerous republicans Get over it.
    Oh, for heaven’s sake. If Charles had serious qualms about the legality of the vote that elected the governor, no, he should not “get over it”. But, as others have already pointed out, he doesn’t: he just doesn’t like the result.
    That he does not appear to have any serious qualms about the fraudulent nature of the 2000 Presidential election in Florida – at least, none he’s ever written about – would seem to demonstrate that fear of fraud only kicks in when it’s a Republican who lost the election. But that’s not unexpected in someone as openly partisan as Charles Bird.
    The more important point is that, as he himself acknowledges, he has no real grounds to suspect fraud: he just doesn’t like it that a Republican lost.

13. Do you live in Washingtonm State?
    Since Charles isn’t around atm, AFAIK he lives in Seattle. What of it?

14. If he lives in Washington State it gives his comments a shade — just a shade — more legitimacy; I think we have enough idiots here of our own without inviting comment from outsiders.
    But I do think it’s pretty funny that our Republicans are now so solicitous of every little eentsy-teentsy administrative nicety. They just have no sense of humor about life and can’t take it when they haven’t been able to manipulate things in their favor.

15. Hey, get over it!

16. If Charles had serious qualms about the legality of the vote that elected the governor, no, he should not “get over it”.
    Absolutely.
    But, as others have already pointed out, he doesn’t: he just doesn’t like the result.
    I can’t really tell, tbh, whether he’s got serious qualms about the legality of the vote. There are certainly a few issues he’s raised that I think are deserving of more scrutiny — particularly those concerning ballots incorrectly to the mix — and which might qualify. That said, this particular problem seems to me to be a lot of hot air signifying nothing.
    I do, however, want to repeat that I support his right to continue investigating, at whatever level he feels personally appropriate, this issue; and that if genuine electoral irregularities are unearthed, I will offer what help I can to rectify them. I would ask, however, that he extend the same courtesy to me and mine.

17. Gary, the problem is that both sides have… loopholes… that they like to take advantage of. And if in fact, Charles only wants to close those of the other side, then I think that is the definition of party hack. Personally, I’d like to see the state legislators step up to the plate and enact unambiguous laws so that screwy courts, left or right, can’t interpret them on partisan behalf.
    Rife with troubles as they are, I still think this country has the most honest elections around. But it is incumbent upon us, as the beacon of democracy that we profess to be, to insure that our elections remain the most accessible, and verifiable. After all, just as the underlying currents of the discredited Newsweek story indicate, credulity is much easier if a tale has precedence.

18. Sorry, Charles, as pointed out above, it was not fraud. It may be some other form of malfesance (i.e., intentionally filling out the form improperly), but its not fraud.
    From reading Washington law, a revote does not seem to be an available remedy for this type of error. The trial seems more for the long-term political manuevering than anything else.
    At least this court is trying to follow the law, unlike Bush v. Gore when they just made it up as a fig leaf cover for a naked political decision.

19. It seems that there was a problem and it was corrected.
    No, Hal. The problem was never corrected. That’s the point.
    considering how much time up til now you’ve spent talking about fraud, and diligently reporting every half-baked, unsupported allegation that makes it onto right-wing talk radio.
    Unsupported? Catsy, King County election officials ‘fessed up to it in their own words in a deposition. By filing a false report under oath, these officials communicated untrue information to the Secretary of State and the voters of Washington State. They said in the Mail Ballot Report that the number of ballots and the number of voters reconciled exactly, to a T. That was a lie. What’s more, they unable to reconcile to a number that was even within the 129-vote margin of victory. In doing so, they failed to communicate that there were problems with the reconciliation process, and they let that lie go until they were deposed a week or so ago, basically until the eve of a trial, well after the election was certified and well after the point in time when should have attempted to make corrections or recounts or retallies. This is one of the most irresponsible things an election official can do.
    I rather suspect Charles isn’t going to sign on to the notion that he should have “equal concern” about the Florida election as he does with Washington State, but perhaps I’m wrong
    The difference between Florida 2000 and WA State 2004, Gary, is that (rightly or wrongly) the US Supreme Court made its decision and closed off all remedies. While I didn’t agree with how the Gore team conducted themselves after the election, they had every right to do so. In the WA State governor’s race, the remedies have yet to play out. Judge Bridges will make his decision, then it will go to the State Supreme Court. Whatever State Supreme Court decides, I will gladly accept the result and move on.
    Do you live in Washingtonm State?
    Yes, David, I do. Do you?
    One last thing. A couple of folks brought up Ohio, alluding that alleged voting irregularities may have changed the outcome to favor Bush. While many allegations have been made, I’ve seen no evidence that mistakes or irregularities occurred that exceeded the 118,000-or-so margin of victory. While mistakes were indeed made, the numbers of mistaken votes were a fraction of the margin of victory. Most of the allegations were in counties where the boards of election supervisors had Democratic majorities and were run by Democrats. Cuyahoga, for example. Why would it be in those superviors’ interests to oversee vote counts favoring Bush and going against Kerry? It makes no sense.

20. “Rife with troubles as they are, I still think this country has the most honest elections around.”
    The? What makes you sure that, say, Britain, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Sweden, and Denmark, all have more dishonest elections that we do? Do you have a cite for a study, or are you simply intuiting this, or what?

21. The? What makes you sure that, say, Britain, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Sweden, and Denmark, all have more dishonest elections that we do? Do you have a cite for a study, or are you simply intuiting this, or what?
    I’d be willing to bet good money that the US has more absolute corruption than any of these countries simply because we’re bigger and have more elections. Normalized, it’s anyone’s guess.

22. “What makes you sure that, say, Britain, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Sweden, and Denmark, all have more dishonest elections that we do?”
    Been paying attention to Canada and the Ad scandal the past three weeks? The Liberal party (thats the name I’m not being obnoxious) which is currently in power filtered vast sums of tax money through ad agencies which ended up siphoned back into Liberal party campaign coffers. And now that the government was on the verge of falling over the revelations, the prime minister bought off enough votes to narrowly avoid a successful no-confidence vote by offering lifetime appointments to government jobs. And Chirac would have been indicted if he hadn’t passed a law saying that he couldn’t be indicted.

23. BTW Gary, I answered your question on the out of bounds thread:

    Could you do me a favor, and name five Clinton appointees that are examples of this horrific politicization of the courts, so we have some specifics to discuss, please? (I’m sure you must have loads of specifics in mind, since the courts are so packed with these folks, according to you; presumably you can name dozens and dozens out of these “hundreds,” so five should be utterly reasonable to ask about.)

    with six judges. I hope you didn’t forget.

24. I live in the Seattle area too, and am deeply unimpressed by allegations of fraud or even massive negligence. I would, however, strongly support a standard of paper ballots tallied within 24 hours of the the polls closing. As Avedon Carol rightly points out, this works very well in the United Kingdom, with a large population and often long and involved ballots; there seems to be precisely no technical hurdle to its working here, and it would likely even be cheaper than the suspicious gadgetry and all. I think it very important that we have elections that are honest, and are known to be and seen to be honest.
    It would be nice if the party in power at the federal level were to agree.

25. Charles: While mistakes were indeed made, the numbers of mistaken votes were a fraction of the margin of victory.
    Which was not the case in Florida in 2000. There the uncounted ballots well outnumbered the margin of victory, and when all the ballots were counted (I recall the result being announced in October 2001) it turned out that a majority of those who voted in Florida, voted for Al Gore.
    I think (as one speaking from a distance) that at least a part of the problem with Ohio is that the state was called for Bush not only before all the votes had been counted, but even before everyone had been allowed to vote. I recall several accounts of people who had been queuing to vote for hours (as I understand it, once you’re in line to vote, you can vote, even after the polls officially close) hearing that Ohio had gone to Bush.
    Surely it would just straightforwardly be better to have a voting system that is set up to enable all votes to be counted before the result is announced, and for counting not to begin until the polls close? Further, a system of crosses-on-cards rather than complicated and vulnerable voting machines, would certainly mean that people would not have to stand in line to vote, and the polls could close when they are supposed to close.
    I know of no one with any experience of software design who argues that the voting software installed in the Ohio machines, which provides no valid means for a recount, is a good thing for elections which ought to be trustworthy and accountable.

26. As Avedon Carol rightly points out, this works very well in the United Kingdom, with a large population and often long and involved ballots; there seems to be precisely no technical hurdle to its working here, and it would likely even be cheaper than the suspicious gadgetry and all.
    Though, if I understand correctly, the process of making electoral rolls is fraught with problems. This Telegraph article popped up on Google (hope it is not behind a subscription fence)

    It was frighteningly easy. Within five days I was able to obtain postal ballot papers enabling me to vote 11 times in the general election – and in county council elections on the same day. No checks, no questions asked.
    I could, if I chose to, vote this week for candidates in areas ranging from London to York and from East Sussex to Cornwall.
    Of course, I will not do that. The point of The Telegraph’s investigation was not to steal votes, but to expose how flaws in the postal ballot system mean that the general election is, despite repeated warnings and subsequent reassurances, still wide open to vote-rigging.

27. “I would, however, strongly support a standard of paper ballots tallied within 24 hours of the the polls closing. As Avedon Carol rightly points out, this works very well in the United Kingdom, with a large population and often long and involved ballots.”
    Wait, Britain has “often long and involved ballots” the way America does: with multiple levels of voting on the same day, with the country divided in over 50 regions with different ballots, and then hundreds of subregions below that, and every subregion with different ballots, plus multiple initiatives, so that on each individual ballot anywhere from 20 to 60+ issues must be voted on? I wasn’t aware of that.
    Paper ballots, counted by hand, were mandated here in Boulder, Colorado, in the last election, and I’m glad they were. But here are the number of different ballots required in just one of the thousands of different ballots required in the U.S. on election day. Note the dozens of issues to be voted on per single ballot. It took over three weeks to count the results by hand. Which is fine. But doing it both “paper ballot” and “counted by hand” requires that amount of time, given the dozens of issues, at many levels, that US elections entail. I wasn’t aware the UK had anything like the federal system of multiple levels and countless offices and initiatives to vote on per ballot. (My understanding is that that’s because they don’t, but if you’d like to correct any misunderstanding I have, please do.) So over here, we can do paper ballot, hand counted, but we can’t combine with “tallied within 24 hours.” It’s not remotely physically possible. Pick one of the two.

28. So over here, we can do paper ballot, hand counted, but we can’t combine with “tallied within 24 hours.” It’s not remotely physically possible. Pick one of the two.
    The largest number of ballots I have ever had to complete at a single election is four. Theoretically, if there was also a referendum at the same time as the election, it could be five. But that’s the most it could possibly be. So, no, it’s not the same scale of problem in the UK as it is in the US.
    I do suspect that once it was accepted that all ballots are to be cards on which crosses are made by hand, and then counted by hand, means would be found to speed up the counting process. UK handcounts go very fast.

29. I’d like to see election machinery completely out of the hands of partisans, and in the hands of non-partisan folks. The idea that you can have the chair of a candidate’s campaign involved in interpreting election law, deciding where polls will be, how many machines will be there, etc. strikes me as a recipe for ugliness.
    As for WA, I have confidence that the law will be applied to the facts as put into evidence, and an appropriate result had from the suit. It’s a default position, but a safe one. I understand why involved people — partisans in WA especially — would be interested in the spin, but it seems to me that the time for me to care about whether it’s N or F or neither is after judgment is entered.

30. I couldn’t quickly find a sample 2004 Boulder ballot, but here is the 2000. Warning: it’s a PDF that seems to be at least 25 megabytes. Which is kinda the point: that’s how large a ballot gets when you have many dozens of issues to vote on, many with dozens of choices. Multiply that by the dozens of counties per state, times the 60+ larger jursisdictions (50 states, plus territories, Commonwealth, Districts, etc.). Hundreds of different kinds of ballots for many hundreds of different jurisdictions, all on the same day. This is not like Britain at all, so far as I understand.

31. WRT Ohio, I don’t know how many voters were affected by the Sec of State’s ruling (aff’d by the 6th Circuit) on voting in the wrong precinct. That is, how many people heard that you have to go to the right place, didn’t know where the right place was, and didn’t go vote. We also don’t know about people who didn’t want to stand in line — including places where there were not enough machines for the populace. How many votes weren’t cast?
    From my own election monitoring experience in November, it’s obvious to me that a great many people don’t know where they’re supposed to vote, some because they’ve been told the wrong place by campaign workers, others because precinct lines and polling places change from time to time. Luckily, unlike Ohio, in NM the Sup. Ct. had decreed that you could vote provisionally in the wrong precinct, so those votes were cast. I have no idea what would have happened if people had had to drive somewhere and stand in line.

32. “UK handcounts go very fast.”
    Yes, but that’s with a uniform ballot with four questions, if I understand correctly. It’s not with hundreds of different ballots, most with 20-60+ separate issues, some of which may have 15+ choices to be tallied. (I undercounted the size of the local ballot in 2000: it’s over 33 megabytes.) (Plus, we have more elections than you, including primaries and special elections, school districts and referenda, as well as having vastly more levels of office, vastly more offices per level, and in many jurisdictions, many, extremely long, initiatives.) See here for an example; notice how much time it will take you just to look through the different categories, let alone count the number of choices you need to make. Plus 50+ different state election laws, and sometimes different local ways of doing things in districts, counties, towns, or precints.
    Hell, it can take ten minutes just to read a single initiative. Let alone the arguments pro and con for it.

33. I couldn’t quickly find a sample 2004 Boulder ballot, but here is the 2000.
    Thanks, Gary. It certainly looks like a big problem, and I can understand a lot better why previous decisions have been to go for speed rather than accuracy or completism, but clearly the lack of accuracy is beginning to bother a lot of people – and the fact that there is a fair chance that you can vote in a US election and your ballot will never be counted, may well be influencing a lot of people in not bothering to vote.
    Of the three, I would say that completism and accuracy are more important than speed, to be honest. After all, the US system is still set up to allow candidates time to travel on horseback from their homes to the capital: that would seem to leave a fair margin for handcounting the votes.

34. The probblem in Ohio, as I see it, isn’r mistaken votes. The problem was that the highly partisan Secretary of State took one action after another clearly calcualted to affect the outcome of the election. For example, at the last minute he tried to surpress registration forms issued by the state and used by Democrats to register thousands of voters. The basis for his action was a never-before-remembered clause about the type of paper used. He let the registration forms go out, waited until one or two days before the deadline, and then suddenly decided it was important to regect the forms. A court forced him to accept the forms. It was a partisan act, intended to affect the outcome. Also the extraordinarily long voting lines happened only in Democratic neighborhoods. Rural Republican disricts had more voting machines than they used. The Democratic party decided not to act because the efforts to affect the election may not have actually affected the outcome. In this state no one deliberately tried to change the outcome and the area that failed to count all of the votes was a Democratic area. If a revote is necessary here, then it should be held in Ohio, too.

35. “Of the three, I would say that completism and accuracy are more important than speed, to be honest.”
    Oh, I agree. I have no great problem waiting two or three weeks for hand-tabulation, and prefer that to untrustworthy non-paper-ballots without the faintest hesitation or reservation. I’m all for it. I’m simply pointing out that Avedon must have completely forgotten the difference between US and UK ballots and balloting procedures, and issues, etc. over her past twenty years in Britain, and that, to the point, as I said, we can either go for paper ballots, hand counted, or we can go for overnight results, but that having both is simply not an option. Not in America for most places.
    Given, however, that here winners don’t take office, as a rule, until weeks, or even months, after the elections, and ditto for, as a rule, when initiatives take effect, the fact that many ballots will take days or weeks to be properly hand-counted is not really any kind of significant practical problem. It’s really only a small political problem of, basically, impatience alone, and the resulting uncertainty for a time. That can be lived with, it seems to me, and is a worthwhile trade-off to be able to have a trustworthy election, which is simply vastly more important than speed.

36. uh, Charles, did you read the front page story on the Seattle Times today? (remember they endorsed Rossi?)
    The SEattle Times says that even w/ or w/o the felon vote, Gregoire still wins.
    http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002284078_felons22m.html
    I say this as someone who voted for Rossi but am heartily sick of his behavior since the election and think that he should ‘get over it.’
    Oh, and as an attorney, my considered judgment is this does not rise to the level of fraud. You ever tried to prove a fraud case, Charles? I have. Seven separate elements have to be proven. It’s damn difficult.

37. FTR, I’m with Anarch on this. Charles has a right to raise questions about the procedures, not interminably, but as long as significant issues which might plausibly have affected the outcome remain unresolved. Like others, I find the situation confusing, so I can’t say if that is still the case.
    I don’t see why his attitude toward Ohio or Florida affects this. Let’s suppose, hypothetically, he is guilty of massive hypocrisy in his attitude towards these various situations. So what? Does that mean the WA election was kosher? Hypocrites are right some of the time too.

38. I too am with Anarch and Bernard Y.

39. Charles has a right to raise questions about the procedures, not interminably, but as long as significant issues which might plausibly have affected the outcome remain unresolved.
    Certainly he does. I’m just not convinced that he really feels this: from everything he’s written on it, I think his motivation is just that dammit, the Republican should have won.

40. Jes: for my part, I prefer to leave speculation about Charles’ motives to God, who knows the human heart. The fact that I don’t actually believe in God does not change this 😉

41. A story in today’s Seattle Times notes that the “felon vote” tactic won’t work for Republicans:
    Toss out felon vote, Gregoire still wins
    I expect that, since none of their challenges to the numbers will overturn the election result, the GOP is going to claim that the mere fact that “some” felons voted and “some” ballots were improperly handled means the entire election should be rerun.
    As the Times story points out, the GOP has some pretty high bars to get over before it can call for a special (re)election.

42. US elections
    Why clutter up the ballots if you want accuracy and speedy results? the two are incompatable.
    The simple solution is to isolate the time critical Federal ballots and have them hand counted. Federal ballots should conform to a Federal standard for the various voting methods to include a paper record to facilitate recounts. States should be able to select which Federaly mandated method they will use but should not be in the business of determining and developing their own unique methods which are open to abuse in application. Everything else should be on a seperate ballot which the States can determine for themselves.
    Everyone has to vote twice on seperate machines, once for Federal and once for everything else.
    It’s not rocket science.

43. Hilzoy: Jes: for my part, I prefer to leave speculation about Charles’ motives to God, who knows the human heart. The fact that I don’t actually believe in God does not change this 😉
    Heh. In any case, this thread has proved useful in educating me on exactly how complicated US ballots really are, which I’m duly appreciative of, both Charles for starting the thread and Gary for providing the PDF file.

44. The simple solution is to isolate the time critical Federal ballots and have them hand counted.
    I’m more or less with postit on this one. Heck, you could even have one ballot for “People getting elected” and another ballot for “Initiatives and other nonsense” and I think it would still turn out OK. The more I hear about our huge, clunky, unwieldy ballots, the more I’m convinced that this is a bug, not a feature.

45. “The simple solution is to isolate the time critical Federal ballots and have them hand counted. ”
    “Everyone has to vote twice on seperate machines, once for Federal and once for everything else.”
    What on earth makes ballots for “federal” offices — I assume you mean the House, Senate, and Presidential electors — more “time critical” than other offices and elections?
    I have no clue, myself.
    And, Jeebus, you want us to double the number of elections we already have!? Aieee! Holy-moley, I’ve already had to vote five times in the past 12 months alone! (Well, not “had to”; I could have abstained, but that’s besides the point.) City election, primary day, November, a special election, and another city election in March. Yeah, what we need to make it less complicated is more elections. Criminy!

46. “…and another ballot for ‘Initiatives and other nonsense….'”
    Anarch, you’re one of the posters here I have the highest ratio of agreement with, but initiatives in many states, if not most states, are either one of two things: law, or a change to the State Constitution. Sometimes they’re relatively trivial, but often they’re as basic as establishing or removing a Constitutional right, or as significant. I don’t know how they can, in many states (not all states; policies on initiatives vary wildly and widely), be dismissed as unimportant. Not to mention that low turnout and lack of voter attention paid to offices other than the top 3 or so are longstanding issues. I don’t think deliberately lowering the turnout with yet more elections that yet fewer people will bother with is remotely a positive step.

47. My ballot was about the size of a newspaper. (not the whole paper, just the first page, both sides) I feel like a bad citizen if I vote on issues and people about which I know nothing, but who has the time to get up to speed on all of it? I’m inclined to think some things just shouldn’t be on the ballot. Maybe Port Commissioners, Superintendents of Education, and Insurance Commissioners and so on should be appointed.

48. What on earth makes ballots for “federal” offices — I assume you mean the House, Senate, and Presidential electors — more “time critical” than other offices and elections?
    The national impact? The scope of people affected? I don’t have any trouble with that assertion in the slightest; why do you?
    And, Jeebus, you want us to double the number of elections we already have!?
    No, I think he means that we should have two separate ballots, one for “time-critical/Federal” issues and one for other issues. So you’d fill out two separate pieces of paper at the same time.
    Anarch, you’re one of the posters here I have the highest ratio of agreement with…
    Yay! And, um, oops.
    …but initiatives in many states, if not most states, are either one of two things: law, or a change to the State Constitution.
    Ah, I’ve never had to deal with a change to the State Constitution before, just laws. Most of which have been astonishingly stupid, or at least astonishingly trivial (yet surprisingly irritating). As I said above, I’m more and more convinced the plethora of bells-and-whistles on a given ballot is a bug, not a feature.

49. Gary,
    It’s not rocket science
    One election, two machines.
    Accepting that election results are ‘time critical’ which we must since the whole US election system is designed around that simple fact. It isn’t much of a stretch to determine that some are more ‘time critical’ than others.
    I would submit that Federal election results that occur at the same time as a Presidential election are the most ‘time critical’ of all, to be followed by Federal elections in non-Presidential election years and then local Senate/House elections, ballot initiatives and lastly other local elections.
    If results are ‘time critical’ accuracy is compromised under the present system. If you want accuracy with speedy results you have to make some compromise but you can mitigate the compromise by simplifying the most ‘time critical’ ballot.
    One election, two machines.

50. Is it “time critical”, though?
    And why advocate using machines, since their use in American elections is a strong factor in American elections being renowned as neither accurate nor completist – votes will not be reliably counted, nor will they necessarily be counted at all.

51. Yes Charles. I do live in Seattle.
    My sincere recommendation to you is deep breathing….calm yourself. The reality is that it was a close election and it could have come out either way.

52. One election, two machines.
    One country, two systems?
    …sorry. Bad flashback there. Carry on.

53. “One election, two machines.”
    To respond to just one small point, I’m pretty sure it’s difficult to have machines involved when Avedon’s mantra is “paper ballots, hand-counted on the day.” On the other hand, when Bruce Baugh cited Avedon in his comment of May 22, 2005 04:03 AM (hi, Bruce! Nice to see you!), he didn’t include the second part, and I recall it because Avedon has said it about a billion times. However, in the very next post, Jes responded with “Further, a system of crosses-on-cards rather than complicated and vulnerable voting machines…,” so that’s what’s been under discussion. I recognize that it’s not all that difficult to have missed that point.
    “No, I think he means that we should have two separate ballots, one for ‘time-critical/Federal’ issues and one for other issues. So you’d fill out two separate pieces of paper at the same time.”
    Ah, I see. That’s better than additional elections, certainly. What I still don’t understand is why it’s “time-critical” to find out if a Congressional Rep, or Senator, is elected that night, or a week or two later, given they won’t take office for two months. It’s not at all uncommon for such delays to happen in many cases, anyway. Where’s the “time-critical” coming from?
    And if it’s just a proposal for a separate ballot for Presidential electors alone, well, sure, those could be counted faster, at the expense of slowing down the counting in all the other races, and perhaps that’s worth while, but I’m not at all convinced of that. It’s not as if they still couldn’t end up with long delays in settling the Presidential results nonetheless, for one thing.
    “Accepting that election results are ‘time critical’ which we must since the whole US election system is designed around that simple fact.”
    I don’t see that that’s at all true. Could you elaborate on how that is so? And why it should be so, rather than having the most practically available accurate results, rather than the speediest?
    postit says: “I would submit that Federal election results that occur at the same time as a Presidential election are the most ‘time critical’ of all, to be followed by […] and then local Senate/House elections….”
    What’s a “Federal election result” that’s not electing the President, a Senator, or a House rep? Hoo-hah? Is this a riddle?
    Ah, I see that Jes and I are on the same page on accuracy over speed.

54. I do agree that accuracy is most important, and speed important only to the extent we can get it without sacrificing accuracy. Simplicity is a virtue throughout this.
    Back at the Washington situation, it was a close election that went through multiple rounds of review – more thorough examination than most of the close and contested elections of 2000 and 2004, in fact. At some point I think it’s very important to say “the procedures basically worked, and the solution to having fewer contests is to more thoroughly win public support”. I’d rather have a system I find reliable than outcomes I want every time but no trust in the thing’s honesty or credibility.

55. I too prefer accuracy over speed and would consider paper ballots, hand counted to be the most accurate method of determining election results.
    However, in the real world, intense public interest in the results (for Federal office elections, particularly in a Presidential election year) drives the process toward speed over accuracy, why else would we use machines at all?
    Until recently this hasn’t really been much of a factor as the winning margins have been large enough to discount a certain amount of precision in favor of speedy results, hence machines. The close Presidential elections of 2000 and 2004 have clearly exposed this weakness in our electoral system and what I propose would bring back some needed accuracy which of course would involve some compromise on the speed of calculating results. In order to mitigate this I propose splitting out Federal elections because I submit we are much more tolerant of the idea that we may have to wait a few days or weeks to find out who has been elected dog catcher than we are to find out who has been elected President. An easy way to split out Federal elections would be to have a seperate ballot.
    That’s all I’m saying.

56. Separate ballots sound nice but wouldn’t they be logistically awful?
    Say you have voters who only want to vote for the Federal offices, and voters who only wanted to vote on the local stuff. You’d have mismatched totals in the number of ballots returned, and that strikes me as being vulnerable to fraud.
    How about staggering voting days, between elections and initiatives? Make voting day for initiatives be in odd-numbered years. A nice side benefit would be eliminating the use of hot-button initiatives as part of the GOTV strategy.

57. Look, we can’t even move the election to a weekend, so I don’t think there is any way to implement CaseyL logical suggestion of staggered voting days. Also, as Clausewitz pointed out “war is merely the continuation of policy by other means”, and this will serve to create a 24/7 atmosphere of politics even worse than the one we have no. While I hate the gormless nature of Japanese politics, the incredibly strict restrictions on campaigning is a real blessing.

58. Lily
    but who has the time to get up to speed on all of it?
    No offense, but, you know, please make the time. Pretty please…with your choice of sweetening agent on top.

59. “No offense, but, you know, please make the time.”
    I agree with Lily on this one. There are quite a few elective offices where few people are in any good position to judge the suitability of the candidates, and there are too many of those. I’m not very enamored of electing judges, either, although not oblivious to the positive arguments for it.

60. In order to vote intelligently for Port Commissioner I would first have to become famililar with the workings of the Port–an area of extensive study. Ditto for Insurance Commissioner. I can’t rely on endorsements because these positions seek endorsements from people and organizations that are not familiar to me. I’m sure some voters have the same dilemna in regard to Superintendent of Education or Commissioner of Public Lands. Maybe other states don’t have this problem, but my state, Washington, has a ballot cluttered up with jobs that are essentially cabinet positions that ought to be filled by the governor. If you have one.

61. Oops, sorry, my point was about issues not people so much.

62. I feel genuinely unsure about making comments on this thread, as it’s really completely out of my area of interest (like the issue about the US Social Security system: in an abstract sort of way, I feel it would undoubtedly be a good thing to stop Bush dismantling it, but it’s fundamentally not my problem nor ever going to be my problem). How Americans elect their President affects me and many others round the world: how you elect or appoint your judges, port commissioners, or superintendents of education, really doesn’t.
    That out the way…
    I think one advantage of separate ballots for each post being voted on might well be that only those with a direct interest in that post would vote. At present, I imagine a good many of these candidates must be voted on by people who are simply opting to vote “the straight Democrat ticket” or “the straight Republican ticket” – they not only do not research who would be the best candidate, they may not even be aware that they are voting in a port commissioner. Having to place a cross on each ballot – or discard into a shredding machine the ballots you do not intend to vote in – at least requires you to be aware of the elections in which you are participating. And there could be a specified order in which elected offices are counted (President, Senator, Representative, and so on).
    And if there are offices that pretty much no one votes for, well, maybe that’s a sign they ought to be appointed rather than elected, if no one’s interested enough to vote for the office.

63. I’m with Lily on this one. I had never devoted a lot of thought to electing judges before I moved to California, since I had never lived in a state in which judges were elected. I tried very hard to find out about the various judges. The Supreme Court justices I could usually find out something about, but the District Court judges were impossible. And I had friends who were lawyers, but while they’d know something about the odd judge here or there, they were surprisingly unhelpful as a whole. I ended up leaving most of the ballots blank, thinking as I did so about those awful stories where no one bothers to vote for some down-ballot office and as a result some complete loon gets elected.
    And I really tried. I think that whatever the arguments for electing officials in general, they really only work when there’s some chance that an ordinary person can actually find out something about the candidates.

64. “At present, I imagine a good many of these candidates must be voted on by people who are simply opting to vote “the straight Democrat ticket” or ‘the straight Republican ticket”‘- they not only do not research who would be the best candidate, they may not even be aware that they are voting in a port commissioner. ”
    It depends. A fair number of cities have non-partisan elections (yet another way our elections can be complicated, in terms of variance), including up to Mayor. (And many cities feature a “strong hired city manager/weak mayor” system where the CM, who is not hired by the mayor, has the important decision-making powers, and the City Council, whether partisan or “nonpartisan,” sets the agenda, and the Mayor is relatively powerless. In Boulder, there’s about a 3/4 version of this. The City Council positions are all city-wide, not by district, which means that in practice, it’s pretty much Democratic; Republicans want to switch to a district system, so they’ll at least get a couple of near-guaranteed seats, and they do have a reasonable argument; meanwhile, the Mayor is elected by the City Council, and his role is pretty much just to persuade the City Council; the City Manager actually runs the city, though at the direction of the Council; this is not necessarily a more common system in America than a strong mayor system, of which Chicago is the prime example, but NYC is another, somewhat lesser, example. LA is kind of in between.
    On your original point, it’s not uncommon for many to leave blank slots on their ballot where they don’t have opinion, but just as common or more seems to be voting for people because their name sounds familiar (and it’s another politician they’re thinking of), or even dumber reasoning, including, of course, liking the ethnicity of the name, and that’s all. Yes, in some ways we sometimes have a little too much democracy, since democracy isn’t intended to be an effective lottery of names, but a democracy of people educated about their choices, and frankly, that’s just not practical in many places for all things we choose to vote on, and I don’t think any amount of hectoring could ever possibly be a solution. (Nor just urging people to “educate themselves better,” since, truly, some positions would require simply vast amounts of research to truly be in an educated position to judge.) In my opinion.

65. Oh, but although I have no figures at hand, Jes, nor feel energized to go look for some just now, it’s my sense that with the phasing out of the old lever-style voting machines, which are largely now obsolete, that the number of places that allow straight-ticket voting, in any literal sense where you just can pull one lever, or push one button, to vote a literal “party line,” are relatively few. If you want to vote a ticket, at the least, you have to run through each question manually in most US voting systems nowadays, it is — and I stress again that I don’t have numbers — my impression.

66. Gotta admit, a lot of what I think I know about the mechanics of US elections comes from novels. And not new novels either. (The earliest novel I remember reading which included a US election was A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, which I now have two copies of: the old one which I read nearly to death, and a newer hardcover which I bought to save the old one wear-and-tear.) Plus a fair amount of research I did into the mechanics of the Florida Presidential election in 2000, helped by a fairly massive amount of research other people were doing, but that was local information to the extreme. 😉 (And a lot of the poorer counties in Florida do, or did then, still have lever voting machines.)

67. “A Tree Grows In Brooklyn.”
    For the record, although I was born in Flatbush, and thus if I’m in a war movie, I’m doomed to be one of the guys in the platoon who dies, and Flatbush has a relative paucity of trees, we moved when I was 3 to the neighboring (more or less, if we’re a bit fuzzy in usage) neighborhood of Midwood, where all but main thoroughfares (and some of them, such as Ocean Parkway) are quite thoroughly lined with trees (this without getting into the many parks). Just thought you might need to know. (Tens of thousands of trees grow In Brooklyn!)
    😉
    (Heck, for that matter, not even counting parks, outsiders tend to not realize that Manhattan has large wooded areas remaining, such as in Inwood/Washington Heights, where despite most buildings being apartments, large areas of ravines exist; when I was living on 191st St., or Fairview Avenue, I’d regularly walk past raccoons from the woods who had come out to enjoy their nightly feast of our garbage at night.)

68. Some may want to check out the Election Process Information Collection (EPIC) project, with lots of info about different countries.
    In Japan, the ballot is blank and you have to write the name of the candidates. There is evidently a huge procedure to determine how legible choices are and what counts as a vote. Politicians will often register their names in hiragana (the phonetic alphabet) rather than chinese characters so no one has any problems writing their name in.
    Always been fascinated by the Hare-Clarke system, which this article gives a taste and Wired reports is being prepared for e-voting. Oz also has mandatory voting.
    The mechanics of US elections are (at least until 2000) been taken to be relatively simple, so much so that Americans often have a hard time wrapping their heads around the fact that there are a lot of ways to do an election and a lot of intricacies. It’s always been a pleasure to watch the look of disbelief when an American is told about some of the alternative systems.

69. uh, Charles, did you read the front page story on the Seattle Times today?
    No, I didn’t moe, so thanks for heads up. The problem with the Times piece is that they’re assuming that the list of 746 felon votes picked up by the Democrats is accurate. It’s not, by a long shot.
    You ever tried to prove a fraud case, Charles?
    No, and I’m not sure the Republicans need to prove the seven steps anyway.
    I’m just not convinced that he really feels this: from everything he’s written on it, I think his motivation is just that dammit, the Republican should have won.
    I don’t recall ever writing that, Jes, and I don’t know if Rossi had the votes to win. The problem is that no one knows. The issue with me is accuracy. Must be the CPA in me. Before the provisional ballot problem, before the felon vote problem and before the ballot-voter reconciliation problem, I was reticent about Rossi standing up and contesting the election. What persuaded me was the evidence. King County’s incompetence was such that they made it unable to discern what the will of the people was. Not that I agree with Bridges’ ruling, but Republicans have a high threshhold to cross in proving that Rossi had the votes to win. I’ll be happy to let the courts sort it all out. Today’s trial is just the beginning.
    At some point I think it’s very important to say “the procedures basically worked, and the solution to having fewer contests is to more thoroughly win public support”.
    We depart, Bruce. The procedures did not work, hence the contest of the election. The solution is better procedures, not better PR.

70. Mm. I kind of grew up in active science fiction fandom, which I participated in from the age of 12 or so and on for a couple of decades thereafter (though not particularly in recent years), where the single-transfer system was the standard for the “fan funds” which elected a popular representative to be given the money to cross the Atlantic (Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund, aka “TAFF”) or between North America and Australia (Down Under Fan Fund, DUFF) and Europe and Australia (GUFF) and spend a month or so traveling around visiting fan groups and conventions and then come home and write a report enjoyed by all and serve as co-administrator until the next election. So I’ve been voting with single transferable vote systems since long before (age 12) I could vote in “real” elections.
    There are plenty of ways to have elections, of course. And a famous theorem, Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem that proves none can be perfect.

71. (And a lot of the poorer counties in Florida do, or did then, still have lever voting machines.)

    If by “a lot”, you meant “one”, you’d have my full agreement.

72. Oh, and that “poorer” county that had lever-style machines back in 2000 is 90% white and is number 8 in rank for per-capita income for Florida.

73. Charles: I don’t recall ever writing that, Jes, and I don’t know if Rossi had the votes to win. The problem is that no one knows. The issue with me is accuracy.
    *shrug* When any Republican claims this, I have to ask: so why did you accept the results of the Florida 2000 election, which was publicly and shamefully not accurate? And generally speaking, the answer tells me that they don’t care a whit about inaccurate elections, so long as they deliver the right results.
    Now, quite possibly you have a lengthy track record of protesting Bush’s installation as President and the shameful election in Florida that allowed him to be so installed, and I’ve just managed to miss it. Or – if you were not online as Charles Bird or Bird Dog until so long after October 2001 you thought of it as old news, I’ll take your word for it that you considered it to be a shameful travesty and think Bush was wrongfully appointed.

74. Jesurgliac has just saved me the effort of writing out that same question and surrounding concerns, and done it better than I was going to do it.

75. And probably with much more unintended irony than you might have managed, too. Nothing underscores a claim of inaccuracy better than a fresh example.

76. it’s my sense that with the phasing out of the old lever-style voting machines, which are largely now obsolete, that the number of places that allow straight-ticket voting, in any literal sense where you just can pull one lever, or push one button, to vote a literal “party line,” are relatively few.
    A data point. Here in southern Wisconsin, where we’re on Scantron systems, there is a quite literal “party line”: you put a big black line next to Democrat or Republican and you’ll have just voted the straight party ticket.
    I have to say, btw, that the Scantron systems we use here are the best I’ve ever seen anywhere in the US. They’re dead simple to use, there’s never been any confusion whatsoever about how to vote — barring, of course, the confusion about how or what to vote for — they’re phenomenally easy to count by hand if you have to… they’re the best. I think they’re reasonably cheap, too, so I’m somewhat amazed that more counties don’t have them.

77. err, who or what to vote for. Sorry ’bout that.

78. An election as close as ours is probably uncountable to perfection. Human error will always be present, and given the importance of fifty votes one way or the other, no result will ever be acceptable if the standard is the absence of enough human error to affect the result. All elections have human error. It just doesn’t matter much if one candidate has thousands of votes over the other. Our election could be counted and recounted and recounted ….and every result would be slightly different. Whoever lost could start in about human error.
    I can’t see the point of a revote, partly because it means a higher standard for our state than what Republicans accepted in Florida, but also because there will be human error in the revote and another too-close-to call election. So what’s the point? The votes got counted. Errors were found and corrected and the votes were counted again. The Democrats paid for another count, an option which I think the Republicans had but rejected. So enough already.

79. Lily is absolutely right. If you figure a margin of error of even a tenth of a percent on a couple million votes, thats 2000 votes. Given the cost involved in attempting to have zero margin of error, even if it were possible, it would never happen. Therefore, what the Republicans are really arguing for is that any time the vote is very close, you would need a re-vote, because there would be uncertainty as to who won. That is the precedent that would be established by them, because the losing party in a very close race will always be able to establish some degree of uncertainty, if they really want to spend the effort and money to do so.

80. Therefore, what the Republicans are really arguing for is that any time the vote is very close, you would need a re-vote, because there would be uncertainty as to who won.
    It’s not just the Republicans: I’ve advocated similar policies in the past. The problem is that, thanks to the scale of modern elections, we simply can’t guarantee error-bars that are small enough. As such, I hate to say it, but we need to modify our concept of an election to include the notion of (and the remedy for) a tie.

81. Excellent sense, Anarch.

82. Agreed, Anarch, except for this part:

    The problem is that, thanks to the scale of modern elections, we simply can’t guarantee error-bars that are small enough.

    I doubt the error bars have gotten any larger, as a fraction of the voting population. When speaking of balloting error, it’s almost a given that it’s going to be a scale factor times the total number of voters. In short, the scale of modern elections itself only affects the number of spoiled ballots, not the percentage of total votes that number represents.

83. so why did you accept the results of the Florida 2000 election, which was publicly and shamefully not accurate?
    Because I’m a rule of law sort of a guy. I will “accept” the WA Supreme Court’s ruling in 2005 (as I’ve said many a time) the same way I accepted the US Supreme Court’s ruling in 2000. Why so many liberals are not respecting and not accepting of the USSC decision is a mystery. It’s over.

84. Therefore, what the Republicans are really arguing for is that any time the vote is very close, you would need a re-vote, because there would be uncertainty as to who won.
    That would be a wrong conclusion. This would never have come up if King County officials had dumped over 700 illegal provisional ballots into the mix (which happened to be identical to regular ballots), or that they weren’t so slipshod in keeping felons on the voter rolls, or that their accounting procedures weren’t so bad that they cannot reconcile the numbers of voters to the numbers of ballots. If they had decent, reliable and trustworthy procedures and internal controls, the margin could’ve been nine votes and I wouldn’t have complained. Why? Because there would have been no evidence to cause me to think otherwise. Conversely, if the margin were 2,000 but the procedures so bad that the will of the people could not be discerned, a revote would be necessary.

85. Multiple full recounts conducted in accord with established state law are not the rule of law, but interrupted recounts deliberately overriding state law are. It’s very difficult for me to see this as anything but outcome-justified law.

86. Charles: If they had decent, reliable and trustworthy procedures and internal controls, the margin could’ve been nine votes and I wouldn’t have complained. Why? Because there would have been no evidence to cause me to think otherwise. Conversely, if the margin were 2,000 but the procedures so bad that the will of the people could not be discerned, a revote would be necessary.
    Again, Charles, did any of this trouble you with regard to the Florida Presidential election in 2000, where the margin was 537, and 44,233 ballots were not counted*? cite? Had every ballot been counted in Florida, as was established in October 2001, the majority of those who voted, voted for Gore. Bush was appointed against the will of the electorate. But I haven’t seen you ever protest that appointment.
    (*Indeed, it’s not even just in Florida where this is a problem – it’s endemic.)

87. I doubt the error bars have gotten any larger, as a fraction of the voting population. When speaking of balloting error, it’s almost a given that it’s going to be a scale factor times the total number of voters.
    Provided the means of casting and counting votes remains constant, sure. The point is that that hasn’t been the case: we’re not using the same voting techniques as they were using in 1789, nor as in 1889. [Though, interestingly, some 20% of us are using much the same technology as in 1892.] Throw in the age (and therefore presumably the disrepair) of various older systems and the untested nature of some of the newer ones — as well as the fraction of spoiled ballots, like you said — and I think the scale factor has almost certainly increased over the last century, let alone over the last two. Throw in a modern population that’s two orders of magnitude larger than in 1789 and factor in various forms of fatigue — metal fatigue, poll-worker fatigue, individual fatigue — and I’ll bet that scale factor goes even higher.
    [Finally, and this is somewhat tangential to my main point, add a population that’s a) primarily apathetic but b) is evenly split where energized and you’ve got a recipe for elections that aren’t capable of being determined to the accuracy that is needed.]

88. where the margin was 537, and 44,233 ballots were not counted*?

    Your cite doesn’t show that. It does make a claim that’s nearly what you’re saying, but it doesn’t substantiate. And, I must say, I take a dim view of this sort of superficial analysis. It’s basically saying that punch ballots are just like optical ballots, and so any undervotes must be due to machine error in tallying the ballots. Which completely ignores, among other things, any additional pilot error.

    Bush was appointed against the will of the electorate.

    Two errors in a nine-word sentence. Kudos.

89. Because I’m a rule of law sort of a guy. I will “accept” the WA Supreme Court’s ruling in 2005 (as I’ve said many a time) the same way I accepted the US Supreme Court’s ruling in 2000. Why so many liberals are not respecting and not accepting of the USSC decision is a mystery. It’s over.
    Every liberal I know, and every liberal I know of, is “accepting” Bush v. Gore in the sense that they aren’t attempting to overthrow Bush by main force, or engaging in civil disobedience and refusing to recognize his authority, or whatever “non-acceptance” of the ruling might mean. As for not “respecting” the decision… good lord, man, after all the Republican jeremiads against activist judges,* I can’t believe you have the chutzpah to accuse the Democrats of “not respecting” a Supreme Court decision. Mote, beam, thy eye, see you in a couple of hours.
    [Speaking for myself, I don’t “respect” the decision in Bush v. Gore because I think it was crap law and badly decided, if not outright politically motivated in the worst of ways. I do, however, both accept the right of the Supreme Court to decide as it did and accept the outcome that it produced.]
    * I’ll spare you the use of the term “fellow traveller” here although it was quite tempting.

90. For what it’s worth, the Seattle Times is also reporting that the judge hearing the case finds some Republican tactics unappealing, at a minimum:
    WENATCHEE — The first-ever trial to settle a disputed Washington governor’s election opened yesterday with Republicans launching a broad and bold attack on King County, alleging that “sinister” fraud and corruption “up the food chain” robbed Dino Rossi of the governor’s office.
    Judge John Bridges was quick to rein in such talk. He said fraud charges, which could make it easier for Republicans to get the November election thrown out, have not been part of the Republican case and can’t simply be added now.
    Bridges said he would allow Republicans to introduce evidence against King County, but as of now it won’t be considered fraud in his courtroom. That matters because a fraud claim would not require Republicans to show that King County’s actions specifically cost Rossi votes or gave Democrat Christine Gregoire her winning margin of 129 votes.
    Without that, Republicans are required to show how actions by election workers, as well as illegal votes by felons and others, directly affected the candidates’ vote totals.
    Tactical maneuvering like that usually makes me suspect lack of solid footing; possibly the preeminent example in action right now is SCO v. IBM, as covered at Groklaw.

91. Slarti: Two errors in a nine-word sentence. Kudos
    You really don’t like the facts of the Florida election, do you, Slarti? I’ve noticed that every time I bring them up, you claim that facts are “errors” – even if it drives you into arguing that Bush was not appointed (and presumably, we all hallucinated the past 5 years), and that the electorate did not, as a majority, decide for Al Gore. (Which is so for 2000, as even most Republicans have to concede.)

92. You really don’t like the facts of the Florida election, do you, Slarti?

    No, what I really don’t like is when you say things that you refuse to substantiate, or provide pathetically poor substantiation for. I also have rather low regard for your evidently low standards for tabbing something as “fact”.

    even if it drives you into arguing that Bush was not appointed

    He wasn’t. There was no court action appointing Bush as President, and your serial assertions to the contrary are simply delusional.

    and that the electorate did not, as a majority, decide for Al Gore

    You really ought to stop commenting on this until you’ve acquainted yourself with our election laws, Jesurgislac.

93. 1. Would Bush have won in Florida, and thus the Presidency, if the Florida recount had been completed?
    No.
    2. Why wasn’t the Florida recount completed?
    Because the SCOTUS stopped the recount. It didn’t resolve the recount issue; it just stopped the recount on 14th Amendment grounds.
    3. What does that mean?
    It means the parties would normally have had to come up with a way to do the recount that was compliant with the 14th Amendment.
    4. Was this done?
    No. The SCOTUS made no provision in its decision for allowing a delay of the national election certification deadline; therefore, there was no time for a remedy.
    5. So, what happens then? What does the Constitution say about a disputed Presidential election?
    In event of a flawed vote count, both candidates may send their electoral delegations to be counted and certified. In event of two state elector slates, the Consitution says that the House of Representatives decides, by simple majority vote, which slate to accept.
    4. Is that what happened?
    No. The SCOTUS decision, by denying Gore recourse, effectively decided the election.
    So, if you mean the SCOTUS appointed Bush the same way the College of Cardinals appoints a Pope, then no: the SCOTUS didn’t appoint Bush President.
    If, however, the question is whether the SCOTUS made up an extra-Constitutional provision in order to stop the Constitutionally-devised remedy for resolving disputed electoral slates, and thus short-circuited Constitutional law, and effectively handed the election to Bush, then yes: the SCOTUS did appoint Bush President.
    It never fails to amaze me how conservatives, who go on and on about how awful judicial activism is, and how judges shouldn’t legislate from the bench, had no trouble at all with that decision.

94. Broken link in your post, Slart.

95. 1. Would Bush have won in Florida, and thus the Presidency, if the Florida recount had been completed?
    No.

    Wow, you’ve convinced me. “No.” Why didn’t I see it before? It was all so staggeringly simple, and here I was all wrapped around the axle on the issue that maybe Bush winning after an unasked-for total recount was something that we’d never know without that recount ever having taken place.

    2. Why wasn’t the Florida recount completed?
    Because the SCOTUS stopped the recount. It didn’t resolve the recount issue; it just stopped the recount on 14th Amendment grounds.

    Completely glossing over the facts that the recount was being done at the behest of SCOFL, despite there being no one actually requesting a statewide recount, or that SCOFL was making up the rules for the recount, or that SCOFL was overruling the state legislature in the matter of time requirements. A succinct summary can be found here, or you can go ahead and read the entire decision. For the record, I wouldn’t have been against a statewide recount if ordered by SCOTUS or SCOFL. But that’s not what happened, and there’s no way to know what the results of such a recount might have been.

    5. So, what happens then? What does the Constitution say about a disputed Presidential election?
    In event of a flawed vote count, both candidates may send their electoral delegations to be counted and certified. In event of two state elector slates, the Consitution says that the House of Representatives decides, by simple majority vote, which slate to accept.

    Is this Florida state statute you’re referring to? If so, please give me a cite. If you’re referring to part of the Constitution, please tell me which part and why you think it applies. It’s my understanding that states are responsible for resolving their own balloting issues, mostly because the Constitution doesn’t, as far as I can see, say otherwise.

    4. Is that what happened?
    No. The SCOTUS decision, by denying Gore recourse, effectively decided the election.

    Actually, SCOFL gave Gore the recourse he requested. Then they added in a whole bunch of extra recourse. Then they started meddling in what constitutes a vote, and instructing those doing the counting what constitutes a vote and what doesn’t. Even the liberal side of SCOTUS thinks that SCOFL helped Gore out a bit more than is appropriate; what they disagreed on is whether that was a suitable case for SCOTUS to consider. That may be a fair point, but I don’t see many people making it as a key component of their outrage.

    So, if you mean the SCOTUS appointed Bush the same way the College of Cardinals appoints a Pope, then no: the SCOTUS didn’t appoint Bush President.

    So then it would be highly inaccurate to use language suggesting they did, yes?

    yes: the SCOTUS did appoint Bush President

    I wish you’d make up your mind. And I’d like to point out that this sort of argument has disturbing logical parallels to the “objectively pro-Saddam” argument.

    It never fails to amaze me how conservatives, who go on and on about how awful judicial activism is, and how judges shouldn’t legislate from the bench, had no trouble at all with that decision.

    Then you ought to take it up with the conservatives who are doing that. I’d guess the justification would be that what SCOTUS did was to counter judicial activism on the part of SCOFL.

    Broken link in your post, Slart.

    Sorry, Gary. What I meant to link to was here.

96. Sorry, lost track. Whose turn is it to bring the popcorn?

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