Re: CHAT (POLITICS!!!): Putting the duh in Florida

Christophe Grandsire wrote:
>Well, that post gives me the opportunity of asking a question about all
this. I
>know it's way off-topic, but it's only a genuine question from a French
point of
>view. Well, if I understood correctly, not only the machines didn't count
votes
>correctly, but also the vote ballots themselves were ambiguous and the
whole
>thing went wrong in some counties of Florida. So, my question is: instead
of
>endlessly counting and recounting ballots, which each time gives a
different
>result, and is subject of all those political and judiciary problems, why
didn't
>the authorities of the counties where the problems appeared consider simply
that
>the vote process had been irregular, and that they would organize a new
voting
>day? If they had done that as soon as the first week, by now the elections
could
>have been done again and the results (this time undebatable) would be known
by
>now and not subject to those endless complains. This already happened in
some
>places in France for MP elections, and the problems were solved simply this
way.>
        A very logical proposal, as we might expect from a Frenchman ;-))
however, logic and politics seem to be mutually incompatible........There
usually are provisions for run-off, or new, elections at the state and local
levels.

>Well, don't take me wrong. I'm just asking why this seems not to be even a
>possibility. Is there a constitutional or legal reason why they cannot even
>propose such a solution?>
As I understand it, there is indeed a constitutional problem, in that the
Const. says the election shall be held on such-and-such a day in November.
There is no provision for run-off elections at the presidential level-- such
matters were supposed to be settled in the Electoral College, by
"negotiation", as happened, IIRC when there was a tied vote in the E.C.  in
the 1800 election.  The result was that Jefferson was elected president, the
runner-up Aaron Burr became V.P. (he was of a different party than
Jefferson)--- Now that political parties are more organized than they were
then, it's questionable whether that could happen again.

As parties developed in the 19th Cent., tied votes in the E.C. became highly
unlikely; but there were a couple cases when the man who lost the popular
vote nevertheless received a majority of electoral votes, and went on to
enjoy generally disatrous presidencies.  As will probably happen this time
around.

My _logical_ proposal, if we retain the Electoral College system, would be
to award the votes on a propotional basis in those cases, like Florida,
where the vote is a statistical tie (attention lawyers:  define statistical
tie).  So whoever prevails in Fla., even by 1 vote, he gets 13 of the 25
electoral votes.  (If there were an even number involved, they could just
split them 50/50.)

Whether we get rid of the E.C. system and go to direct vote will be debated
(yet once more) for the next several years.  Personally, I hope it's
abolished.  And personally, I wish that Mr. Gore (for whom I voted) had
followed Richard Nixon's gentlemanly precedent and conceded long ago. Tacky
tacky tacky. And hopefully by 2004 a more worthy Democrat will have emerged,
and Mr. Bush can carry on  his family tradition of being a one-term
president.