"John D. Giorgis" wrote:
> I am not aware of a single person who
> split the ballot for President down the middle for Gore and Bush.
> Instead, most Americans were *solidly* in favor of one or the other.
or solidly *opposed* to one of them.
> All New Mexico's procedure says is that it is unknown what the will of a
> plurality of the voters is. Thus, a game of random chance is as likely as
> not to determine the "true" the will of the plurality of New Mexico's
> voters.
no, the 'game of random chance' won't determine the will of a
plurality of voters, it will only determine a winner of the election.
given the imprecision of voting methods in many places it might be
that the winner of the game would also be the choice of a plurality of
the voters - but it might not. regardless, if playing a hand of poker
is the legally approved method of settling an apparently 'deadlocked'
election then the winner is the legitimate victor. (assuming, of
course, that there was no cheating in the poker game....)
(((and - to go beyond your above analysis and statements - it
certainly won't determine 'the will of the electorate'. some people
vote only for one party, some people sometimes vote for one party and
sometimes for the other - or even another. the aggregated results do
not represent some mystic 'will of the people'. all too often we are
told that we have a Congress of one party and a President of another
because 'the people want it that way' - even though it only happens
that way because different people made different decisions in
different parts of the ballot, or even in different elections. we are
a politically divided people and we should work productively from that
perspective instead of trying to sanctify and institutionalize the
resulting acrimony as 'the will of the people'.)))
there are a number of bright, well-informed and thoughtful people on
this list - with some significant political differences. would it be
appropriate to try starting a thread on what can be done to reduce the
acrimony in U.S. politics, increase political participation, and
ensure that elections clearly are 'fair'?
cheers,
christopher
--
Christopher Gwyn
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
