The day after the election

[strandinthewind]

Let's start this now to allow everyone a chance to get on the record

Many of the commie liberals on this board (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE ) bitched, complained, and cried FOUL when Gore won the popular vote and W won the electoral vote and, thus, the election. Will these same people still feel the same if W wins the popular vote and Kerry wins the electoral vote? Comments

Here are some sites on the Electoral College and how the process works

http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_elec.html

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclop...ctoral-College

http://www.vote-smart.org/election_p...al_college.php

[amber]

no, i won't feel the same, but i may still think it's unfair...
Amber

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

Let's start this now to allow everyone a chance to get on the record

Many of the commie liberals on this board (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE ) bitched, complained, and cried FOUL when Gore won the popular vote and W won the electoral vote and, thus, the election. Will these same people still feel the same if W wins the popular vote and Kerry wins the electoral vote? Comments

I'm not sure I understand your question. Gore won Florida,thereby winning the electoral and popular vote.
I think it might be better to ask if the Supreme Court should have taken Bush v. Gore.

[DeeGeMe]

Originally Posted by gldstwmn

I'm not sure I understand your question. Gore won Florida,thereby winning the electoral and popular vote.
I think it might be better to ask if the Supreme Court should have taken Bush v. Gore.

You tell 'em Goldie! We won Florida. We couldn't win the Supreme Court, if you recall and we Democrats do recall--they say that Elephants have the long memories but I believe it's the Democrats who have the correct memories!

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by gldstwmn

I'm not sure I understand your question. Gore won Florida,thereby winning the electoral and popular vote.
I think it might be better to ask if the Supreme Court should have taken Bush v. Gore.

Please prove that Gore won Florida because every credible recount I read in the places GORE chose to selectively recount (again, only in counties he had a chance of winning - I guess every other Floridian's vote was not worth recounting ) indicates he did not. Moreover, once the USSC determines something, that is it. That is the way it is - period - end of discussion. I mean if it is not, then Roe has no application just because someone may not agree with it a la the Bush/Gore decision

BUT - let's say the Ct. determines it for Kerry this time under the same set of facts. Will the D's say Oh No No No No No - the USSC has no right to det. this, etc., blah blah blah



But, I digress, let's just assume W wins the popular vote and Kerry gets the electoral vote. Many people said that was unfair. Would those same people still say it is unfair?

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by DeeGeMe

You tell 'em Goldie! We won Florida. We couldn't win the Supreme Court, if you recall and we Democrats do recall--they say that Elephants have the long memories but I believe it's the Democrats who have the correct memories!

Prove it

You cannot and you know you cannot

Plus, that recount was the biggest hoodwink I ever saw. I still maintain that a dimpled chad is not a vote. If you are too stupid to push the chad all of the way through then you are too stupid to vote IMO

[DeeGeMe]

OH--and commie liberal???? WTF is that supposed to mean? I assure you that I am not a communist.

I would suggest to you that your beloved president seems to be the one who is practicing communist like activities by limiting the constitutional rights of the citizens of the United States and taking away freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and any number of civil liberties away from us.

It's pretty bad when the Feds can come into your home, without a search warrant, and without even telling you that they've searched your home and take what they want and never give you a reason for doing so. What is it called when they can round you up and arrest you and hold you without charging you all in the supposed cause of "national security?"

I'm sorry, but that doesn't sound like a free, and open, and democratic society to me. Those are not the principals that this country was founded upon and anyone who supports them seems to me to be the one who would more likely to be called a communist or more correctly, communist enabler!

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by DeeGeMe

OH--and commie liberal???? WTF is that supposed to mean? I assure you that I am not a communist.

I would suggest to you that your beloved president seems to be the one who is practicing communist like activities by limiting the constitutional rights of the citizens of the United States and taking away freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and any number of civil liberties away from us.

It's pretty bad when the Feds can come into your home, without a search warrant, and without even telling you that they've searched your home and take what they want and never give you a reason for doing so. What is it called when they can round you up and arrest you and hold you without charging you all in the supposed cause of "national security?"

I'm sorry, but that doesn't sound like a free, and open, and democratic society to me. Those are not the principals that this country was founded upon and anyone who supports them seems to me to be the one who would more likely to be called a communist or more correctly, communist enabler!

I was joking silly - I know you are not a commie - Dissention on the other hadn

AND - W is not my "beloved president" - I did not vote for him

I also think you mean facist, not communist, when describing the current administration

from www.merriamwebster.com

Main Entry: fas·cism
Pronunciation: 'fa-"shi-z&m also 'fa-"si-
Function: noun
Etymology: Italian fascismo, from fascio bundle, fasces, group, from Latin fascis bundle & fasces fasces
1 often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
2 : a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control
- fas·cist /-shist also -sist/ noun or adjective, often capitalized
- fas·cis·tic /fa-'shis-tik also -'sis-/ adjective, often capitalized
- fas·cis·ti·cal·ly /-ti-k(&-)lE/ adverb, often capitalized

Main Entry: com·mu·nism
Pronunciation: 'käm-y&-"ni-z&m
Function: noun
Etymology: French communisme, from commun common
1 a : a theory advocating elimination of private property b : a system in which goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed
2 capitalized a : a doctrine based on revolutionary Marxian socialism and Marxism-Leninism that was the official ideology of the U.S.S.R. b : a totalitarian system of government in which a single authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production c : a final stage of society in Marxist theory in which the state has withered away and economic goods are distributed equitably d : communist systems collectively

P.S. the feds did not need the PA to do what you say, they had that authority way before that under a myriad of Acts, most significantly RICO. But why take my word for it

http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/Safe...ID=12161&c=206

http://quicksitebuilder.cnet.com/sartre/VIEW/id35.html

http://slate.msn.com/id/2087984/

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclop...SA-PATRIOT-Act

BTW - I hate the PA and think it is too broad. But, it has some good things in it like the money reporting provisions I suppose you want no one to have to report anything ever. I submit that would make law enforcement impossible, which I assume is not your goal - even though you are a commie (JUST JOKING!!!!!! )

[DeeGeMe]

A group of the largest news organizations in the United States selected NORC to provide the definitive picture of the Florida ballots in the uncertified presidential election of November 2000. The media group chose NORC for this work because of NORC's long-standing reputation for nonpartisan, objective, and analytically rigorous data collection and analysis. Kirk Wolter, NORC’s Senior Vice President of Statistics and Methodology and Professor of Statistics at the University of Chicago, has directed NORC's effort on the project.Approximately 180,000 ballots in Florida’s 67 counties are uncertified because they failed to register a “valid” vote for President. These ballots include those in which no vote was recorded (undervotes) and those in which people voted for more than one candidate (overvotes). NORC is examining the undervotes and overvotes.
The goal of the project is not to declare a “winner,” but rather to carefully examine the ballots to assess the relative reliability of the three major types of ballot systems used in Florida. The results of this assessment will help state legislatures, other decision-makers, and developers of ballot systems to work toward more reliable ballot systems in the future. The data archive containing the results of NORC’s work will be available for use by the news organizations, and by sponsoring the public soon thereafter. The investigation took 8 months and cost $900,000. No matter what standard for judging ballots is applied, Gore wins. The results of which can be found here:
http://www.amstat.org/misc/President...ionBallots.pdf

and here's a fine article from NY Newsday:

Published on Thursday, November 15, 2001 in the Long Island, NY
Newsday

Not That It Was Reported, but Gore Won
by Jim Naureckas

IN JOURNALISM, it's called "burying the lead": A story starts off with what everyone already knows, while the real news - the most surprising, significant or never-been-told-before information - gets pushed down where people are less likely to see it.
That's what happened to the findings of the media study of the uncounted votes from last year's Florida presidential vote. A consortium of news outlets - including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Tribune Co. (Newsday's parent company), The Wall Street Journal, Associated Press and CNN - spent nearly a year and $900,000 reexamining every disputed ballot.

The consortium determined that if the U.S. Supreme Court had allowed the ongoing recount to go through, George W. Bush would still likely have ended up in the White House. That's because the recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court - as well as the more limited recount asked for by Democratic candidate Al Gore - only involved so-called undervotes, ballots that when counted mechanically registered no choice for president.

Gore and the Florida Supreme Court ignored overvotes - votes where mechanical counting registered more than one vote - on the assumption that there would be no way to tell which of the multiple candidates the voter actually intended to pick.

But as the consortium found when it actually looked at the overvotes, one often could tell what the voter's intent was. Many of the overvotes involved, for example, a voter punching the hole next to a candidate's name, and then writing in the same candidate's name.

Since the intent of the voter is clear, these are clearly valid votes under Florida law. And Gore picked up enough of such votes that it almost didn't matter what standard you used when looking at undervotes - whether you counted every dimple or insisted on a fully punched chad, the consortium found that Gore ended up the winner of virtually any full reexamination of rejected ballots.

So there are two main findings: The Supreme Court's intervention probably did not affect the outcome of the limited recounts then under way, and more people probably cast valid votes for Gore than for Bush.

If the first finding was the important news, the consortium was scooped long ago: The Miami Herald and USA Today, working as a separate team, published stories in April that argued persuasively that the particular recounts that were halted by the Supreme Court probably would have produced a Bush victory.

What's new is the finding that, since voters are supposed to decide elections rather than lawyers or judges, the state's electoral votes appear to have gone to the wrong candidate. Given that the outcome in Florida determined the national victor, this is not just news but a critical challenge to the legitimacy of the presidency.

So how did the media report the results of the ballot reexamination?Overwhelmingly, they chose to lead with the news that was comfortable, uncontroversial - and seven months old. "In Election Review, Bush Wins Without Supreme Court Help," was The Wall Street Journal's headline on its story, paralleling The New York Times' "Study of Disputed Florida Ballots Finds Justices Did Not Cast the Deciding Vote." That angle would be fine if you believed that the Supreme Court was the most important aspect of the story; but what about the presidency?

Other members of the consortium emphasized the most Bush-friendly aspects of the story: "Bush Still Had Votes to Win in a Recount, Study Finds," was the Tribune Co.'s Los Angeles Times' main headline on its report, matching The Washington Post's "Florida Recounts Would Have Favored Bush" and CNN.com's "Florida Recount Study: Bush Still Wins." The St. Petersburg Times' Web site put it succinctly: "Recount: Bush." While some of these outlets tried to convey greater complexity in subheads, all these headlines obscure the fact that the outlets' most comprehensive recount put Gore ahead of Bush.

Emphasizing the old and conventional while playing down the new and controversial is a recipe for being ignored, and sure enough, few outlets that were not part of the consortium did much with the findings. A story that may well be mentioned in high school history classes a hundred years from now didn't even merit an editorial comment from most newspapers.

It's tempting to attribute this coyness to Sept. 11, and news outlets' reluctance to undermine the legitimacy of the presidency when the country is at war. But the coverage of the consortium's findings is similar to the way earlier media recounts were handled; even the most preliminary Miami Herald/USA Today ballot stories prompted "Bush Really Won" stories across the country. Similarly, when Bush's inauguration was greeted by raucous marchers contesting his victory, many outlets played down the significance of the protests. The New York Times virtually ignored them.

War or no war, many journalists are instinctively protective of the legitimacy of the institutions they cover, but the job of a journalist is not to promote but to question. The theory behind the First Amendment is that the system will be strengthened by an unflinching look at the system's flaws. In looking back at the results of the Florida election, the media flinched.

Please go back to the Ghost Story Thread and tell some tales on there--I like you better when you don't post political nonsense such as "Bush won Florida".

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

Prove it

Easy. I'm watching the Red Sox right now but this is long and I will post later. I came here to post something else.

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by DeeGeMe

You tell 'em Goldie! We won Florida. We couldn't win the Supreme Court, if you recall and we Democrats do recall--they say that Elephants have the long memories but I believe it's the Democrats who have the correct memories!

That's right. And you and I both know that we can support this point.

[strandinthewind]

BULLSH*T

Gore requested a limited recount in limited counties and then did not ask for the same standard in each county. If he had asked for the whole state or even those counties under the same standard, then the Court could not have reached the Equal Protection argument it did. But, Gore was slimey about it and he thought he was being clever by ignoring the Repub. friendly panhandle and requesting recounts in D friendly south Florida.

and HELLO:

The consortium determined that if the U.S. Supreme Court had allowed the ongoing recount to go through, George W. Bush would still likely have ended up in the White House. That's because the recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court - as well as the more limited recount asked for by Democratic candidate Al Gore - only involved so-called undervotes, ballots that when counted mechanically registered no choice for president.

Gore lost Florida for himself - period. He was a fool and it showed. AND - we have paid the price.

Interestingly, don't you think that if we went back to the many states that each candidate won by only 1,000 or so votes and recounted those, it could have made a difference. I submit it could.

But, in any event, the Court determined it and Gore gave them the way to do so. So, by law, Gore lost Florida - period end of dicussion no matter what anyone says. Again, if we do not respect the Court and its controversial decisions, then Roe has no application

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by gldstwmn

Easy. I'm watching the Red Sox right now but this is long and I will post later. I came here to post something else.

DO not bother - we have had the discussion 1,000 times I am still right at the end of the day But, if you must . . . .

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

Please prove that Gore won Florida because every credible recount I read in the places GORE chose to selectively recount (again, only in counties he had a chance of winning - I guess every other Floridian's vote was not worth recounting ) indicates he did not.

He could only recount in certain Florida counties if he was going to have a case at all. That was the LAW IN FLORIDA. I will go get the article which refers to this specifically and quote it for you. he would have loved to have had the whole state recount but in order to put his case before the Florida Supreme Court he could only ask for recounts in certain counties. that is the LAW in Florida.

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by gldstwmn

He could only recount in certain Florida counties if he was going to have a case at all. That was the LAW IN FLORIDA. I will go get the article which refers to this specifically and quote it for you. he would have loved to have had the whole state recount but in order to put his case before the Florida Supreme Court he could only ask for recounts in certain counties. that is the LAW in Florida.

No here is the law in Florida

http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-949.ZPC.html



I am just joking (although that is the law now )

I read nothing in Fla. Stat. §102.166 (2000) that says Gore could not ask for manual recounts in all of Florida. But, I will keep looking.