sweet Lyl sent me this yesterday, and it's spot-on right... to quote from part of my response to her about it:
"I've always thought the overvotes were the biggest problem. They were the chief consequence of the bad design of the Palm Beach County butterfly ballot, for example, and the reason why thousands of votes there were thrown out even before all the legal maneuvering got underway. The Gore people can probably be forgiven for not pressing that issue sooner, because when you have two clear punches for candidates in the same race, it really is impossible to tell with certainty what people's intentions were... all that hanging chad bullshit doesn't even come into play. But the ludicrous, improbable tallies for Pat Buchanan in a heavily Democratic Jewish jurisdiction fairly screamed the pivotal importance of the overvote, nonetheless.
"Given all of that, and the other imponderables as well, I really think the only truly equitable solutions - ones that were politically impossible, but would have been fair - would have been either a) to take the unprecedented step of having a statewide re-vote in FL, with redesigned and uniform ballots, or b) to simply set aside and disqualify all 25 electoral votes from FL for either candidate, and award the election to the candidate who was ahead in electoral votes without FL's - who, of course, was Al.
"Of course, as I say, this latter course would have been politically impossible and challengeable on very straightforward legal grounds, since it would have amounted to disenfranchisement of the entire population of the state - but since the race was statistically a toss-up there anyway, I don't think it would have been wrong to do it. The re-vote would have been an unholy mess as well, but at least it would have produced a clear outcome, which the actual "result" didn't do.
"And all of that begs the question of the Electoral College, of course - if that Goldbergian monstrosity hadn't been around to derail democracy, the rightful, i.e. popularly-selected, winner would be in the Oval Office today."
i also sent the following to my brother recently, regarding the electoral college and its effect on this (and potentially other) election outcomes... he was arguing that doing away with the EC would give politicians additional incentive to court urban votes at the expense of rural dwellers:
"I guess I'm with Churchill, or whoever it was, who said something along the lines of "democracy is the worst political system in the world - except for all the others." Sure, direct democracy would promote demagogy as far as courting of large urban populations is concerned... and what's new about that, by the way? As it is, though, politicians practice demagogy in the storied "heartland" since that benefits them... as Dubya did in Smalltown USA. What's the difference?
"Of course, despite living in Hicktown myself at the moment, I identify with the sinful, secular, sophisticated, relativist urban world... which is none of those things necessarily, but to the extent that it is, is so because the presence of large, diverse populations tends to encourage adoption of the most broad, liberal standards for acceptance of diversity in behavior, beliefs and worldviews. I'm very comfortable with that... because I'm a social libertarian. I have no use for blue laws, dry counties, "wars on drugs," strictures on "decency" (now there's a silly word) preventing me from walking around starkers if I want to, etc. If people in smaller communities want to live by absolutist values IN THEIR INDIVIDUAL LIVES, fine - just don't push them on me... or, more to the point here, allow them to influence national politics by granting such areas a voice disproportionate to their numbers."
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timeasmymeasure
YES!!!
Date: 2001-11-15 03:42 pm (UTC)"I've always thought the overvotes were the biggest problem. They were the chief consequence of the bad design of the Palm Beach County butterfly ballot, for example, and the reason why thousands of votes there were thrown out even before all the legal maneuvering got underway. The Gore people can probably be forgiven for not pressing that issue sooner, because when you have two clear punches for candidates in the same race, it really is impossible to tell with certainty what people's intentions were... all that hanging chad bullshit doesn't even come into play. But the ludicrous, improbable tallies for Pat Buchanan in a heavily Democratic Jewish jurisdiction fairly screamed the pivotal importance of the overvote, nonetheless.
"Given all of that, and the other imponderables as well, I really think the only truly equitable solutions - ones that were politically impossible, but would have been fair - would have been either a) to take the unprecedented step of having a statewide re-vote in FL, with redesigned and uniform ballots, or b) to simply set aside and disqualify all 25 electoral votes from FL for either candidate, and award the election to the candidate who was ahead in electoral votes without FL's - who, of course, was Al.
"Of course, as I say, this latter course would have been politically impossible and challengeable on very straightforward legal grounds, since it would have amounted to disenfranchisement of the entire population of the state - but since the race was statistically a toss-up there anyway, I don't think it would have been wrong to do it. The re-vote would have been an unholy mess as well, but at least it would have produced a clear outcome, which the actual "result" didn't do.
"And all of that begs the question of the Electoral College, of course - if that Goldbergian monstrosity hadn't been around to derail democracy, the rightful, i.e. popularly-selected, winner would be in the Oval Office today."
i also sent the following to my brother recently, regarding the electoral college and its effect on this (and potentially other) election outcomes... he was arguing that doing away with the EC would give politicians additional incentive to court urban votes at the expense of rural dwellers:
"I guess I'm with Churchill, or whoever it was, who said something along the lines of "democracy is the worst political system in the world - except for all the others." Sure, direct democracy would promote demagogy as far as courting of large urban populations is concerned... and what's new about that, by the way? As it is, though, politicians practice demagogy in the storied "heartland" since that benefits them... as Dubya did in Smalltown USA. What's the difference?
"Of course, despite living in Hicktown myself at the moment, I identify with the sinful, secular, sophisticated, relativist urban world... which is none of those things necessarily, but to the extent that it is, is so because the presence of large, diverse populations tends to encourage adoption of the most broad, liberal standards for acceptance of diversity in behavior, beliefs and worldviews. I'm very comfortable with that... because I'm a social libertarian. I have no use for blue laws, dry counties, "wars on drugs," strictures on "decency" (now there's a silly word) preventing me from walking around starkers if I want to, etc. If people in smaller communities want to live by absolutist values IN THEIR INDIVIDUAL LIVES, fine - just don't push them on me... or, more to the point here, allow them to influence national politics by granting such areas a voice disproportionate to their numbers."
Re: YES!!!
Date: 2001-11-15 03:53 pm (UTC)