Brett Coster
> 1. Like probably much of the world, I am astounded that you don't have a
> national system of voting and tabulation. Judging by an article in the NY
> Times (printed here in the Age
> http://www.theage.com.au/news/20001111/A41272-2000Nov10.html) your whole
> voting structure can be down to county level. Not even standard polling
> hours!
>
> To have the ballots designed at the local level, and the funding for both
> running the election and then counting is unbelievable. I guess that also
> means that voter registration is also done at the local level, too. I
think
> I now see why the south had some of the problems it did. Funny how it is
> when the brick finally drops. How in hell can you put up with a system so
> prone to corruption?
>
> Here, we have a national electoral commission that is publicly funded and
> applied nationwide. In fact, I think most places have just such a national
> organisation. Maybe you should consider such a one?
>
Cute idea but there is much more going on then just the presidential race.
Unless you are saying that the prsidential ballot should be just one piece
of paper and the local stuff would be another one? (Oregon had 26 pages)
> 3. Recounts are not automatic? Again, unbelievable. I don't just mean
where
> the margin is one percent or so, I mean for every electorate/state
whatever.
> Absolutely routine here, so that about 2-4 weeks after the election a full
> recount of every seat is done to confirm the original vote. If you want
> democracy, you've gotta pay for it to work.
>
That is a good idea and I'm sure it will come up now.
> 4. The electoral college is based on winner take all for the states? Don't
> you use proportional representation at all? That is, instead of say one
> candidate getting all 25 of Florida's votes once achieving 50% plus 1,
that
> Bush should get say 13 and Gore 12 and then you tote it all up at the end
on
> a national basis. That way everyone clearly gets their say. I know
> proportional representation is a radical idea, we've only been using it in
> Australia for about 80 years, but you just never know, it might work.
>
If it was done this way then Bush would be the winner by a much larger
margin, the large states would split and the small ones would be solid
republican. Or do you mean exact splits based on population, large areas in
the west like Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana would be combined for just one
point while LA or NY might have 10 points by themselves? Yeah that would
work.
> 5. So, because in 1996 over 15000 votes were ineligible in the county
noone
> should complain about the 19000 votes this year? That's over 4% of the
vote
> invalid isn't it? (based on Gore 269696+Bush 152954 = 422650, and rounded
> out to guessed 450000 total) Not to mention a 75%+ increase in the error
> rate. That's a pretty horrible error rate and should be minimised somehow.
> Something is wrong if 1 in every 25 votes is invalid.
>
75% increase in error rate? Where did that come from?
> 6. You can't wait a couple of weeks for every vote to be counted? near
> enough is good enough to declare the winner of the most powerful job in
the
> world? Give it a rest!
>
> You have 2 months to get this right, remember, and you currently have a
> President, fully empowered to make whatever decisions are needed. What's
the
> rush? If you believe in democracy, then give it the time needed to fully
> determine the will of the people.
>
> 7. Please don't expect me to ever take at face value a US government
> criticising another country's voting system. It stank of hubris before,
now
> it's just ... ridiculous.
>
> Brett
So the US bitching when other countries have government agents dump and burn
cast ballots is hurbis? I haven't heard of that happening on US soil (this
year).
Just heard that Bush is leading in New Mexico by.....13 votes. Recounts do
matter I guess.
Kevin Tarr
Trump high, lead low
