Okay, I've kept quiet but I feel compelled to mention a few things.
First, the US national election of our president has little to do with the
teaching of psychology as I see it. I would ask that those who continue to
feel compelled to debate this issue, please let us know how we can
integrate this debate in with our courses. (I commend those individuals who
have already attempted to relate the issues to psychology, but the vast
majority of posts do not seem to do that...including this one strangely
enough)
Buchanan had a black female (Ezola Foster) as a running mate (see the
reform party website at http://www.buchananreform.com/) so some black votes
might not be as far fetched as it seems. According to one report I heard,
he received around 8000 votes in Palm Beach during the republican primary
and around 3500 on election day. Does this seem that unreasonable? I admit
that there might have been a few mistaken votes for him, but...
If you make a mistake voting, I'm sorry. Life isn't fair. You can't have a
"do over" unless you let everyone participate in it. Some of the Florida
voters might change their votes from how they voted the first time,
especially that they would control the election at this point. Likewise,
voters in other states would probably change as well. Do we really want to
go through the entire election process again this year so that a few
Florida residents can control the election? I have students make mistakes
in marking answers on scantrons. Should I give them a second chance at the
question, even though they've had several days to go and find the answer to
the question? How will I know for sure that they really made the mistake
the first time?
19000 people marked two canidates. Florida TV stations are receiving calls
from people who thought they had to vote for both Gore AND Lieberman. It
wasn't that they tried to correct an incorrect vote, they simply didn't
understand what to do. The ballot had been published in several places
prior to election day. Both the democractic and repulican parties had
agreed to the format of the ballot. It seems that in some cases the error
was because people didn't take the time to figure out what to do and just
screwed up.
There is a Florida law about marking an X to the right of the canidates
name. But, in this case no one wrote an X anywhere on the ballot. There are
questions as to whether that law really applies given the nature of the
ballot in question. There are other laws that might come into play, but
those are for the people and courts of Florida to sort out...
Also, forget the fact that the US is a democracy, because it isn't. It is a
republic. We don't vote in federal elections only state elections. When we
cast a vote for Gore or Bush for president, we are electing members of the
electoral college in our state who then cast their votes for president at
the federal level. Our elected members of the electoral college serve as
our representatives at the national level. Under our current laws, the
popular vote at the national level makes little difference. I'm sorry if
this doesn't sit well with some of you, but it is the law of the land at
the moment. Perhaps those among us who are more familiar with the electoral
college process can elaborate further on this, because I admit to not being
an expert on the issue.
Florida has a long history of voting irregularities and fruad. This is
nothing new for Florida. The only difference is that national attention is
being focused on it right now. Other states also have problems. I recently
heard an NBC report that California still has about 3 million uncounted
votes from largely republican areas. The vote counts in several other
states are close enough that a recount of those votes could be called as
well. In fact, my understanding is that several states still have uncounted
ballots (especially absentee votes). If anything, this makes me curious
about the accuracy of voting in all of the other states as well AND why we
think that the election is really over on election day. Most of the time
the votes are fully counted until several days later. The difference is
that this year those votes could make a difference because the election is
so close, but it isn't anything new. We don't have a perfect system and
sometimes things don't turn out the way we want.
With the situation before us now, we have 3 options as I see it:
1) accept that our system isn't perfect, but agree that it works better
than anything else, continue on to the next election with the system as is;
2) accept that our system isn't perfect, accept the current results
(regardless of who wins), and try to change the system through legal
actions in the future; or,
3) throw the system out the window, declare mob rule for a while, riot in
the streets, and hope that the body count remains low until one side
concedes defeat
I will not respond to comments on this message (or other political oriented
messages) on-list unless I can see a clear relation to the teaching of
psychology.
My 3.5 cents...
- Marc
G. Marc Turner, MEd
Lecturer & Head of Computer Operations
Department of Psychology
Southwest Texas State University
San Marcos, TX 78666
phone: (512)245-2526
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
