This whole voting business is so insane. The electronic companies claim that a ‘perfect’ voting machine has no paper. Yet, the very act of removing the paper sends verifiability and reproducibility down the tubes!

Here in Seattle, we have SAT-like ballots with a computerized scanner. If will immediately reject ‘bad’ ballots.

IMNSHO this is pretty good. ‘Best’ would perhaps be a ‘touch screen’ that itself generates a paper ballot for your review. None of the names for the non-chosen candidates need even appear on this ballot - just a list of who you’ve chosen. Then that piece of paper is sent into the actual voting machine.

If someone demands a hand recount - all of the original ballots are on hand.

If someone votes for an odd combination of people, it is clearly spelled out - you can vote for Senator and yet choose not to vote for President without having your ballot rejected or ‘interpreted’.

A ‘ballot’ that is going to giving the scanner problems is rejected immediately - and can be reprinted! The ‘touch-screen’ isn’t a voting machine. It is a ‘ballot preparation aid’.

Posted by: Al at June 14, 2004 12:38 PM

as the Pentagon discovered, electronic voting machines can be hacked easily and quickly.

There are close elections. Hard copies are the Only useful way of dealing with them.

But first and foremost, All the votes must be recounted, if that’s necessary. Don’t bother doing that, and all that other discussion doesn’t matter anyway.

Posted by: Don at June 14, 2004 12:55 PM

Slashdot.org has had plenty of commentary on the various voter machines, most of it by technical people.

Posted by: Brian at June 14, 2004 02:08 PM

mm was right,dang I never thought I would ever agree with “him”, ;-(((

Posted by: Rob..NC at June 14, 2004 03:35 PM

Thought everyone might get a kick out of this - Bush Country Ketchup .

Posted by: Bush Country Ketchup at June 14, 2004 07:18 PM

Has everyone forgotten the “lever” type of machine?

You step into the booth, then you flip a bunch of little levers for your candidate, then you look at the board and make sure you did what you were trying to do, then you vote by pulling one big lever, which tabulates all the votes mechanically and simultaneously opens the curtain and re-sets the board.

No electronics to be “hacked”, and if the machine breaks down, it preserves all the votes already taken, unlike a computer crash. You cannot tamper with the machine without physically laying your hands on it.

No chads to hang or be pregnant, either.

Posted by: eric at June 14, 2004 09:58 PM

Diebold machines have been at least temporarily banned in California after their use in some local elections. It seems that the company was downloading the votes and monitoring the election independently of California State electoral officials. They claimed it was for “debugging purposes”, but there is some civil litigation pending which seems to allege that the information found its way into the hands of third-parties.

Does anyone yet know of the outcome of several criminal investigations that were launched upon the public having become aware of what happened during their first use.

Paper trails do not provide an infallible security solution, since electronic machines can be programmed to produce a paper receipt, but also programmed to send a totally different vote to the official tally. It will also be necessary that there be a way for voters to assure themselves that the vote they cast actually went to the party/candidate intended.

Perhaps we need the death penalty for anyone found guilty of any electoral infraction involving manipulation of electronic voting or conspiracy to cover up improper manipulation. Regardless of what side of what issue you are on, it seems hard to imagine that anyone would want the electoral process to be damaged further than it has been following the 2000 year cycle.

Posted by: sgposs at June 14, 2004 10:44 PM

…poor `o chad he thought he was off the hook…

Posted by: Rob..NC at June 14, 2004 11:10 PM

…poor `o chad he thought he was off the hook…

Posted by: Rob..NC at June 14, 2004 11:10 PM

I find it troubling that people don’t have the common sense to correctly use a punch ballot. This entire matter is being staged on purpose. Don’t ask me, who by. Tell me.

People don’t have the right to vote if they don’t have the simple common sense of how to punch a hole in a ballot. Are democrats really that dumb? If so, they should lose. Not having a little common sense is the problem. A problem that democrats should be willing to resolve through a little education.

They will not be happy with any voting method as long as they can’t win. It’s that simple. Those who say otherwise as just as dumb or dumber. They are part of the problem themselves.

Posted by: Eugene at June 14, 2004 11:42 PM

Eugene — you really should have to manage a federal recount sometime. It would be a great education. I managed two of them in successive years — 1986 and 1988 — for congressional races in MN and OR.

The technical problem with the punchcard ballot is embedded in its technology. The problem has been known since before 1987, when the US Bureau of Standards published its now famous report on the basic problem with punchcards.

The Hanging Chad is a real phenomenon. It really does exist. It’s not the Fault of the voter — it’s just built in to the nature of the paper punch card itself.
The BoS report noted that in each and every election, just the hanging chad alone is responsible for an error factor of about a half a percent. Running and re-running the cards through the counter’s light beam repeatedly doesn’t resolve the error.

Mostly it doesn’t matter, since most elections are determined with final margin counts above a half a percent. So long as the Outcome call is correct, the precision of the Margin is unimportant — Provided that the overall margin is greater than half a percent. So if an election gives a final outcome call for an R, and the margin call is 52-48, you may be reasonable certain that the Outcome call is correct. The Margin call may be 52.5 to 47.5, or it may be 51.5 to 48.5, but since it doesn’t matter which it is, and the Outcome call is correct, there’s no real sense in spending public money on a needless precision.

It’s when the final margin gets down within half a percent that the problem Must be resolved with precision. A manual recount is the only known way to do that.

Most state election laws require an automatic state-paid Manual recount of all cast ballots if the margin falls within a half a percent. Some states have more stringent percentages — OR, for example, requires an automatic paid recount if the margin falls within 2 tenths of 1 percent. That was done to lessen the expense to the political subdivision for the recount, if the legislative record is correct. But a contending party to the election may request a recount at a higher margin, provided (a) that the party pays for the recount, but that (b) the affected political subdivision will pay for it if the result is reversed.

The Hanging Chad certainly does not accrue only to D voters. R voters are every bit as likely to have a card on which some of the chads hang, and it has essentially nothing to do with how they punch the card. All sorts of extraneous factors can influence the number of hanging chads on a card — from alignment in the voting device to the length of the stylus used to punch the card to the random distribution of the fibers that attach the chad to the rest of the card.

In my experience, in which I personally handled well over 10,000 individual punch cards, I found chads hanging on ballots that were counted for R’s, for D’s, were overvotes, undervotes or third party votes. Even write-ins (which is difficult, but possible in some locations). Chads not only hang — they also come loose and stick crossways in the hole punched in the ballot. When that happens, the chads must be manuall removed and the cards re-run. But it’s far too difficult to visually inspect each and every punch card in a stack of several thousand inserted in a machine. So the cards are usually run just as they come from the precinct or the ballot boxes.

Your silly presumption that Only D voters end up with hanging chads is obviously based more on Polemic than on evidence. But it’s entirely content-free. Indeed, it’s simply Wrong on its face, and is one of those Urban Myths the Wingnut contingent has been pleased to foster endlessly ‘round the Net for the past four years.

Whatever your preferred political rant is, it’s misplaced in this discussion. There is actual Technical Knowledge floating around out there that belies your underlying assumption.

In short, you have No idea wth you’re talking about on this one. Get some education before you start spouting off on matters of which you demonstrably know Nothing of actual substance.

Posted by: Don at June 15, 2004 12:50 AM

I am totally in agreement with Al on this, having come up with a similar idea myself. If the two of us can see the reason in it, it can’t be a terribly inobvious solution.

Posted by: TBox at June 15, 2004 02:57 AM

This is a load of bull crap!

I am using a computer now, and when I push it I may get a crash. One thing is for sure, I never, never, never have any doubt that it can add 1+1+1+1+, etc.

These Democrats are incredible. If you say it is red they say it is blue. If you say a calculator can add some votes, they say hell no.

How is this technology more complicated than an ATM, a Kisoks to buy movie tickets, the Metro Card dispenser, automated check-out machines in your grocer or home depot?

The Democrats think people are stupid. Maybe their right. It is just a shame they have decided that is their base.

Posted by: Agrippa at June 15, 2004 10:07 AM

Al and TB have now proven that Two people can be wrong simultaneously.

Touch Screen voting technology is Not being pushed as a “ballot preparation aid.” No machine now out there uses it to print a paper ballot.

Electronic machine manufacturers have always pushed these devices as the terminal (npi) voting device — and not an intermediate step to a paper ballot.

Posted by: Don at June 15, 2004 10:25 AM

Don did not realize he was criticizing a suggestion of how things should be, not a statement of how things are. Also concerning the “lever system”, there is no paper trail, and at the end of the day, it’s left up to two hard-of-seeing 5 foot tall seniors (God bless ‘em) to read the tally at the top back of the machine and record it for election HQ. Sometimes it’s two of the same party. Oops, was that a “5” or an “8”? a “7” or a “1”? No one will ever know.

It’s easy enough to run test data through these new machines before and after elections and see how accurately they fare. This isn’t the same as hard-copy recounts, but if test results, run by partisans and independents alike, are basically 100% accurate, then there can be high confidence in the election’s integrity.

Posted by: alfonso at June 15, 2004 10:57 AM

Don realized full well what he was saying. The implicit criticism leveled at D voters in the discussion was not about a future means of voting, but about present means of voting.

As for the lever-actuated machines being supposedly tamper-proof, try that one again. That technology goes back to the 30’s, and it has been demonstrated many times over the years that simply setting the counters, or fooling with the ratchets that spin as votes are counted, is more than sufficient to skew the count any way an elections office would prefer. Indeed, that is one of the reasons that the punch card ballot was introduced - to reduce that problem. It mostly worked — save for the embedded error factor.

We can have high confidence in the Outcome call of an election, provided that the Margin call lies outside the embedded margin of error within the technology. Since exactly No voting technology is wever 100% accurate and simultaneously entirely tamper-proof, it is necessary to manually recount, using the most precise technology we have available — the Mk1 Human Eyeball.

The procedure by which a manual recount is undertaken is known, and may be discussed later if there are folks hereon who don’t quite grasp how having both R’s and D’s look at the same ballots pretty much ensures that neither side takes an advantage in the process.

It’s not as though these things haven’t been Known for decades. It’s just that a group of Instant Experts arose who got their information from partisan blogs, talk rayjo and political polemicists four years ago. Elections administration just isn’t all that difficult in concept. It’s only difficult when the Adamantly Ignorant get into it.

Posted by: Don at June 15, 2004 11:26 AM

What’s new. Florida had a contraversy in 2002 over misusing the new machines, so they’re just continuing a fine tradition of trying to make the country think they’re the world’s dumbest voters (and I’m not saying they are).

Many have latched onto the crux of the electronic voting issue: confidence. We trust the ATM because we keep our hard-copy check book balanced (hopefully) and get our monthly statements confirming transactions. This lack of confidence is either founded in legitimate concerns or (more commonly) unfounded based upon fear of something new. With the proper process and verification, though, electronic voting is infinitely more accurate.

Throughout the 2000 FLorida recount I had to keep shaking my head at all the people calling for manual recount after manual recount to get a “more accurate” tally. When you consider that a 10% manual error rate is within industry standards, the idea that any manual recount could be repeatable, much less accurate, is nothing less than laughable. Somehow, though, we believe if a person is doing it they can do it better by concentrating their attention. Of course, it is better to get something that does not require attention in order to count to do the job.

Posted by: submandave at June 15, 2004 11:33 AM

agrippa, you have no idea what you are talking about. atms go through a rigorous security audit any time any feature is added to them, and the atm is a 20-year-old technology. electronic voting is barely 5 years old, and has been proven time and time again to be insecure.

it would take diebold very very little engineering effort to create a machine that spits out a piece of paper with a barcode and a gigantic “YOU VOTED FOR (X)” in 72pt font. keep that piece of paper, and if anything goes wrong in your precinct, then they tally up the pieces of paper. they won’t do that, though, because it would add additional cost to every single machine, and they’re unwilling to eat that cost.

“I never, never, never have any doubt that it can add 1+1+1+1+, etc.”

that’s pretty funny, considering that back in 1997, a bug in the pentium 2 would cause that 1+1+1+1+… to fail under certain conditions.

i’d be willing to bet 100-1 odds that your windows box is loaded with spyware, and is probably a zombie for spam that the rest of us are receiving. thanks a lot.

Posted by: x at June 15, 2004 07:19 PM

Thank you for your comments. They don’t mean a hill of beans. Please don’t be so audacious as to infer a person can’t punch a hole in a ballot.
To say otherwise is your stupidity. Whether you were involved in 2 or 200 federal elections.
If I’m silly, its because of silly people as yourself. The truth about a Democrat really gets some of you perturbed. Thats because of your hatred for the truth. You only know how to elude the true facts.
Thankfully, I did not rant a tenth of how you have. I use common sense. I’ve met the George Washington crowd. Lots of book sense and no common sense. And that is the problem in America.
Deny it and you live a life of denial. The worst possible life. A life that is as screwed up as it possibly could be. I don’t mind being corrected. I do mind your tone of exalting yourself above me and many others on here.
You are no smarter than many whom could talk circles around you. Finally, don’t be so arrogrant and tell me what to do.

Posted by: Eugene at June 15, 2004 10:42 PM

Eugene — get and read the 1987 Bureau of Standards report on the embedded problems with punchcard technology. Better yet — get and read the manufacturers’ instruction books predating 1987, several of which referred to the embedded problems involving punch cards as deployed out there in the Real™ World.

Clearly you have done neither of those things, nor do you have Any actual experience with observing punchcard ballots after they have been cast.

You have no True Facts to offer here. You endlessly repeat the same nonsense you’ve merely heard from others, who are as equally Adamantly Ignorant on the matter as you. There is no Common Sense that can trump Actual Knowledge of how punchcard technology actually works and further the appropriate workarounds for handling those problems.

It’s not Arrogant to suggest that you educate yourself. Indeed, it’s about the kindest sort of suggestion there can be, else you continue demonstrating the Adamant Ignorance on this matter into the future. Adamant Ignorance is easy to cure — Facts handle it nicely. Those suffering inadvertently from it are not to blame, if they are willing to deal with the condition.

But if the person suffering from it is Really Adamant and rather likes being Ignorant, then the cure will remain sadly forever out of reach.

Cop an Actual Clue here, Eugene. You’ll be the better for even the attempt.

Posted by: Don at June 16, 2004 12:36 PM

I firstly said that it takes common sense to punch a hole in a ballot. You refute this, and by asking me to read a book, you are asking all Americans to do the same. Perhaps it is a good idea. Providing it is read with an open mind and that common sense is administered.

How did actual technolgy evolve Don? Please be so kind as to contemplate the question.

Actual technology has been trumped by men who put common sense to a test. Books now available to readers would otherwise not be available had it not been for great men of common sense.

Such men of common sense blazed the trail to what is now America. They are the very men who opened the doorway to technology. They gave you the priviledge of reading about and studying technology. Not the priviledge of casting common sense to the four winds of the earth. Not the priviledge of disavowing common sense.

I do not argue that book sense is of no need. It is indeed a great need. I simply maintain that the use of common sense is instrumental, and a neccesity. Reading from books is greatly usefull. Reading from books and not using common sense is the recipe for an entire host of zombies. The cure is then “indeed sadly forever out of reach”.

I will gladly cop a clue Don. Will you do the same? A small footnote. The Florida election ended up as it did because of an early call. Bob Beckel has himself admitted this to be true. Beckel has a great deal of knowledge in politics. Beckel knows the answer to the 2000 Florida disaster. Beckel has publicly stated that the early call cost G.W. Bush a net gain of 15,000 votes.

Such a narrow win would still have forced a recount. A 15,000 vote difference would not have dragged a Presidential election out as the early networks call did. The networks are the ones to blame for the disaster in Florida. Those words come straight from the mouth of Bob Beckel. I for one will not refute Beckel’s knowledge. Nor will I refer to his knowledge as nonsense.
I refuse to comment on your calling my writing nonsense. I am far above and have far greater respect.
Good Day Sir.

Posted by: Eugene at June 16, 2004 03:36 PM

Clearly, Eugene, you are a Legend In Your Own Mind on matters of which you demonstrably know substantially Nothing.

The question is not how Technology evolved in the instant matter — it is how punchcard technology evolved, and the way it is has been used.

In the millions of punchcard votes that have been cast using that technology since it was first introduced (as an Improvement on previous technologies — and it probably was that), each and Every election has had its precise Margin off by something within a half a percent or thereabouts. Each and every one! Most folks don’t know that, but it’s simply a Fact.

The “fault” here does not reside within The Voters. In fact, the numerous manual recounts of punchcard ballots further demonstrate Clearly that the problems are not unique only to Ds, but fall across all parties and participants in the election randomly. Including R’s, just obtw.

The manufacturers of the punchcards and readers made that clear in their own initial instruction manuals on how to use the things. I have read them; you have not. It matters. The US Bureau of Standards researched the use of punchcards for a little over two years nationwide, and published a study on the embedded technical problems in 1987. I have read it; you have not. That matters as well. Indeed, it matters so much that I know of several County Clerks hereabouts who switched from punchcards to optical scanners in the 1988 and 1990 elections, simply because the BoS report was so convincing.

Elections administrators have known about it for years, but they know something else as well — that the Most Critical call in an election is the Outcome — who wins — and not the precise Margin. If — and therein resides the entire focus of the question — the final Margin falls outside the embedded technical error of the technology, then making a precise call isn’t important, because it doesn’t change the Outcome call. Spending public money to try to come up with precision in such instances would be a case of True Gubmint Waste. I would object to that, and I assume you would as well. Which is why we mostly don’t do it — it simply Doesn’t Matter.

But in those instances where the final Margin falls within the embedded technology error factor — and in this case, that is generally conceded to fall within a half a percent (and the distribution of the error within that half percent is open for discussion), then discerning the precision of the Margin is a sine qua non, if the final Outcome call is to be credible.

That, and Only that, is the reason why most states (I am familiar with 34, but there are more) have Automatic Manual Recount Statutes when the final margin is within a half a percent. There are individual State differences, and that’s OK. Point is, they pretty much all do it.

One percent of a million votes is ten thousand. How many million votes were there in Florida in 2000, Eugene? Do the math. In fact, have Bob Beckel do the math too. The relevant political subdivision in Florida was the entire state. You will find, when you sort it all out, that your argument is, on its face, simply Wrong. Beckel is spouting nonsense — a 15,000 vote difference just in FL would indeed have required a statewide manual recount, had folks been paying attention and done the One and Only thing that was ever necessary — Just Count The Votes. All of them. Manually. It was and remains the Only way in which a close election can be resolved.

It simply didn’t happen. Clearly the R’s never wanted it to happen and moved with alacrity to stop it from happening every chance they had; clearly the D’s screwed up in the way they approached it. Which is why in most states, the statutes apply Automatically — and do not await the actions of either campaign committee. It is also why Cooler Heads should have simply stepped in early on, and instructed Florida to have a statewide manual recount and be done with it. Such a recount could easily have been accomplished within two weeks at the outside, had everyone involved been paying attention.

As for the “early call,” there was no Early Call on the results in Florida. The FL call was made only After the FL polls closed. Whether that influenced the total votes in the rest of the nation is problematic. Research indicates that if there is a falloff, it affects each candidate more or less equally on a nationwide basis, but its effect on specific states has a greater variance, the magnitude of which is not known.

As you report Beckel’s statement, the 15,000 vote differential would have affected Only Dubya, but you don’t mention how Gore would have been affected. It’s a “convenient oversight” that you really should consider. But the networks are Not to blame for the Florida fiasco.

These assertions, whether from Beckel or from you, really are Nonsense. Your assertions are belied by what is Known out there among elections administrators and genuine professionals in elections technology.

There is still time for you to get an education on these matters. There are websites devoted to publications that discuss elections administration technology with up-to-date news selections of how it is enacted, and how it actually works. Google is your friend. But predictably, you will avoid increased Knowledge. The Adamantly Ignorant generally do.

Still, you are advised to avail yourself of those opportunities. Use them as a checkpoint when you find the clueless spouting off about these matters. Occasionally a Reality™ check is a good and useful tool.

But ferpete’ssakes — rid yourself of that outmoded notion that Your take on Common Sense is a substitute for Actual Knowledge. Only the Adamantly Ignorant demonstrate that lamentable trait. The Extremely Adamantly Ignorant even attempt to defend it as a Superior trait. It is not.

Push comes to shove, it’s still Ignorance, regardless of how you try to defend it.

Posted by: Don at June 16, 2004 04:19 PM

I will not touch on anything you said concerning me. The debate is yours on a silver plater. Talking to you would be talking to an oak tree.

As for Bob Beckel, ” you take your disagreement to Bob Beckel”. You’d be so confused as to slither off stage like a snake.

Posted by: Eugene at June 16, 2004 08:29 PM

I have respect for you my friend. But let us talk about nonsense for a second or two. Don, that is nonsense if there ever was.
Let me carry you back to 2000. On Election night 2000, FL was the only state in which most but not all of its polls closed at 7PM EST. The networks were well aware that up to half a million voters would still have another hour to cast their votes. Each network had received a news release dated October 30 from Florida’s Secretary of State.

It said, “The last thing we need is to have our citizens in the Central Time Zone think their vote doesn’t count’. “We ask the networks to refrain from predicting a winner untill after 8PM EST, the closing time for polls in the western panhandle”.

NBC pulled the trigger at precisely 7:49 EST. Tom Brokaw, “We’re going to now project an important win for Vice Presdential Gore, NBC news projects that he wins the 25 electoral votes in Florida. 96% of Florida’s votes remained uncounted. Not a single vote in the western panhandle, a Bush stronghold, had been counted.” This is not Beckel nor me talking. This is original video, taped on election night 2000. Neither is it nonsense that Bush led 52%- 48% when Brokaw made the 7:49 EST call. It’s nonsense for anyone to refute the original video, ” taped on that night.” That 2000 election night coverage of Florida is in my possession.
Dan Rather called Florida for Gore less than a minute ater Brokaw at NBC. The news media made it very clear that they would attempt to steal the 2000 election. They tried their very best to influence the voters. And almost pulled it off.

Voters walked away from the polls in the western panhandle after receiving word that Brokaw, Rather, Greenfield, and FOX News called Gore the winner of Florida. Many simply turned around and headed back home. Radios were on, people were receiving cell phone calls, and others got the word one or the other way. And here is where Bob Beckel enters. 15,000 votes that would have put Bush in a larger lead would have come from the western panhandle of FL. Not from across the entire state as you inferred. Or to have me fall for that particular theory. A theory that indeed calls for all of Florida to be involved. Another small footnote. A manual recount did take place in Florida. The problem seems to be that not enough manual recounts were taken. A manual recount took place that involved almost 64 methods of divining a vote. This problem the Democrats cared little about. Their interest was the Presidency

This is America, Don, The Constitution of the United States says, “Voting is expressive and associational activity protected by the First Admendment. (Williams vs Rhodes, 393, US 23 (1968) The arbitrary and standardless recounting regime approved by the Florida State Supremes violated the First Admendment rights of those Floridans who voted. It raised some citizens voices above others, and would have drown out still others. It distorted and diluted the expression of free will that the people of Florida made on Nov. 7, 2000.

It threatned to subvert the views of the many to the few, whose votes after being reviewed to no discernible, much less articlable standands could have been deemed by interested officials to have more value than those cast in the rest of Florida. The First Admendment can’t withstand such governmental overreaching.

Posted by: Eugene at June 17, 2004 01:43 AM

Don posted … “In my experience, in which I personally handled well over 10,000 individual punch cards…”

I dont know about you guys but I dont think Don should be allowed anywhere near the ballots!

Posted by: hound at June 17, 2004 11:19 AM

The Electoral College is a joke. The people of the United States of America voted in favor of Al Gore. The electoral college voted in favor of George W. Bush.

Democrats did plenty wrong in 2000, and if they are not careful, it can happen again. But that doesn’t excuse the Republicans for doing what they did.

Democrats had the right to have the vote recounted, and the Supreme Court stepped in and halted that.

Let me not mention the voters who were turned away at the polls (in some cases with the threat of force) because thanks to sweeps ordered by Kathrine Harris ® to eliminate felons from the voting record, they mistakenly (sure) eliminated people with the legal right to vote. Many of these people were African American, and somewhere around 90% of African Americans voted for Gore in 2000.

Democrats screwed up. Republicans stole the election. It will be interesting to see if Democrats learn from their mistakes and to see if the Republicans will once again try and cause chaos in Florida.

Your friend,

p.s. Some of those people who weren’t permitted to vote in 2000, still haven’t had their right restored. And guess what? We’re (Florida Election Board) sorry, it can’t be done in time for 2004.

Posted by: jp at June 20, 2004 07:01 AM

THE VOTE WAS RECOUNTED. IT SIMPLY WAS NOT RECOUNTED ENOUGH TO SATISFY MANY. And what did they do? I told Don, and I’ll tell you.

Firstly some history needs to be put in order. jp, read the First Admendment to the Constituion of the United States. Don was wrong about the closing of the polls in FL. You have now attempted to disprove the Constitution to The United States of America.

You can’t do it “jp”. No more than Felons can do so. The First Admendment precisely says, “Voting is expressive and associational activity. (Williams vs Rhodes, 393, US 23, (1968) Felons did not possess such expressive and associational activity in 2000. That is precisely why their vote did not count in 2000. The law is now being changed to allow certain Felons to vote. You call the electoral college a joke. If a joke, its a joke only because both D and R have not move adamantly enough to repeal it.
And it should not ever be repealed. A canidate could barely win the states of NY, NJ, WI, PA, MI, IL, CA, OH, FL and a small hanfull of other states and win the presidency by popular vote. This in itself would trump the voters in many states. It would trounce upon their rights. It would send the message that they may as well stay home.
The electoral college is not perfect but it does one simple thing. It represents the voters of the United States. It represents the entire column of States of the United States. Anything less would be unconstitutional.

The U.S. Supreme Court asked the Florida State Supreme Court to tell counties to set one standard in recounting votes. The Florida Supremes would not acknowledge the highest court of the land. They practically slapped the U.S. Spremes in the face. The U.S. Supremes took notice of this fact. It was the biggest mistake that the Florida Supremes made.
I am convinced that had the Florida Supremes taken the advice of the U.S. Supremes, results may have very well indeed turned out differently. Vice President Gore first said, “The Florida State Supreme Court will decide this election”. Those were his words. Words that he thought woud trump the U.S. States Supreme Court.
Why didn’t Vice President Gore and his advisers ask the Florida Supremes to set standards as the U.S. Supremes had asked? Bush went to the U.S Supremes for what he saw as recounting but yet doing so in a standardless method. That was his constitutioal right. Gore had the constitutional right to respond. Did he respond as he should have? Did he himself offer or order that constitutional standards be applied and used in the fairness of all Floridan voters?

Notice how Vice President Gore chose to make Bush fight in the courts. Vice President Gore himself actually forced the U.S. Supreme Court to make the final decesion of the day. It should not have happened in the manner it did. I totally agree that the U.S. Supreme Court should not be deciding State elections. They did not decide a State election.

The U.S. Supreme Court decided a Federal election because they being the Supreme law of the land were forced to settle the dispute in Florida. The Florida State Supreme Court was admonished and they themselves failed to set standards by which votes were to be counted. The Supremes of Florida effectively said, “We are going to do this our way”. They were doomed from that very day. Vice President Gore’s words, “The Florida State Supreme Court will decide this election” were doomed.” The party was over. Count the votes using standards or cut off the lights. The latter took place.
The arbitrary and standardless counting regime allowed by the Florida State Supreme Court violated the First Admendment rights of those Floridans who voted statewide. It raised some citizens voices aboved others. It distorted and diluted the expression of free will. It threatned to subvert the views of the many to the few, whose votes after being reviewed to no discernable , much less articuable standards could have been deemed by interested officials to have more value than than the rest of those cast in Florida. This is clearly a violation of the First Admendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Posted by: Eugene at June 21, 2004 05:54 PM