Big Brother is watching you..

[Memnoch]

Originally posted by Magness: quote: Originally posted by Timber Loftis: Tell 'em they're more than welcome. We need to do everything we can to avoid the shame of being a country that demands fair elections from others but can't properly run its own. In my mind, the 2000 election was the biggest shame for this country during my lifetime. We need to live up to every shred of scrutiny the world can muster. We are a country that polices elections -- we have a reputation to regain.

If you want to improve things, tell the Dems to bring extra people to help with the recounts and leave the paid whiners, aka the lawyers, back home.

If I see some UN asshole at my precinct, I intend to give them a royal verbal reaming I'll tell'em to get the f*k out of the US and that they have no moral right to tell anyone what to do given the current level of extreme corruption in the US. [/QUOTE]Magness, the next time you use a cuss word in anger in this forum you'll be in the sin bin for a couple of weeks. No need to raise the temperature level and lower the courtesy level. Keep a bit of self-control please. Cheers mate.

[Dreamer128]

Originally posted by Donut: quote: Originally posted by Magness: [ before allowing even one bleeping UN bass**** sets foot in a polling place. The UN has absolutely no frickin' moral authority to judge anyone, let alone the US. Before they think that they should judge anyone they should be dealing with their own dirty laundry, like the food-for-bribes ... I mean oil scandal. Or maybe the Rwandan UN worker who ended up joining in with the genocide, sued (succcessfully) for back pay, and now is hiding out in France. No, the UN would do better to organizationally eat a gun, than to think that they have any right to judge the US.

You do know that the OSCE are not part of the UN don't you? Perhaps you should do some research before firing with all of your guns at once. [/QUOTE]
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is the largest regional security organization in the world with 55 participating States from Europe, Central Asia and North America. It is active in early warning, conflict prevention, crisis management and post-conflict rehabilitation.

The OSCE approach to security is comprehensive and co-operative: comprehensive in dealing with a wide range of security-related issues including arms control, preventive diplomacy, confidence- and security-building measures, human rights, democratization, election monitoring and economic and environmental security; co-operative in the sense that all OSCE participating States have equal status, and decisions are based on consensus.

(OSCE.ORG)

[Thoran]

I personally think the whole 2000 election 'fiasco' was blown out of proportion. Sure it was important to the politicians, but as far as America is concerned, she voted and was essentially evenly split between the two candidates. Frankly I think they should have tossed a coin, it would have been every bit as valid as the multi-million dollar legal showdown.

If a solid majority of the electoral collage was behind one candidate and hanky panky put the other into the White House then I'd be peeved, but in this case it was the luck of the throw (or the lawyers) who got the big chair. If Gore had won the legal battles you'd be hearing the exact same whining from the R's as you do from the D's.


The votes in question represent about 0.0001% of the US population. Any complex system will find it very difficult to maintain accuracy to that level... the result is in the noise. I'd be surprised if the voting system of ANY country performs with more than 99% accuracy, much less 99.999%.

If there were a real concern about fairness in any election, then if the vote is closer than the measurement accuracy (a value which can be determined to a reasonable degree), they should flip a coin to determine the result. But then the lawyers wouldn't get to play their games. And any country that points and laughs at what happened here is just one close vote away from the exact same situation... because NO voting system is perfect.

Personally I don't have a problem with OSCE coming over, we have no right to ask others to do something we're unwilling to do.

[Timber Loftis]

I agree Thoran -- the problem in 2000 was simple: the margin of victory was smaller than the margin of error. I'd propose something other than a coin toss to solve the problem, of course. Maybe have the candidates arm wrestle or play jeopardy. We wouldn't have had this problem without the electoral college.

[Aerich]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: I agree Thoran -- the problem in 2000 was simple: the margin of victory was smaller than the margin of error. I'd propose something other than a coin toss to solve the problem, of course. Maybe have the candidates arm wrestle or play jeopardy. We wouldn't have had this problem without the electoral college.

Now there's an idea! How about a good ol' fashioned boxing match between the candidates? That would be a lot more honest than their normal verbal sparring, and much more interesting. And just think about how high the ratings would go if they included a fight in with the leadership debates!

And I should note in passing that I do not like the electoral college at all. It means that many people in many states (those who would vote for the overwhelming loser in their state) might as well not vote. A first-past-the-post system for the entire country would be better, IMO. That way every vote counts for something.

Edit: word additions for clarity.

[ 08-11-2004, 12:45 PM: Message edited by: Aerich ]

[Thoran]

I disagree regarding the electoral college. The intent of the college is to insure that densely populated states can't dictate policy at the federal level by controlling the election of federal officials.

The 2000 election was a triumph of the electoral college, if the election was decided on the basis of square miles , Bush would have won in a landslide. Gore won on the coasts and some inland states, but Bush won over a significantly larger area. Densely populated states along the coasts would have won the election for Gore if it'd been a straight vote, which is exactly why the electoral college was created. It's a states rights thing.

I support the concept of the electoral college even thoguh I'm one of the people who's votes are typically negated, Upstate NY is usually overwhelmed by NYC voters. The last couple elections I've voted either Repub. or Independant. In either case I might as well not have bother voting at all since I live in a very Dem. state.

[Timber Loftis]

I don't see your reasoning, Thoran. The bicameral legislature was able to address the states' rights concern by using two houses, one where population counted and one where it didn't. However, the electoral college is based primarily on population, so I don't see how it makes that much of a difference regarding states' rights. I mean no matter how you slice it, California will have over 50 votes and Wisconsin will have 5.

[ 08-11-2004, 03:44 PM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

[Seraph]

Yes, but Wisconsin will have more votes per capita (California has ~600k people per vote, Wisconsin has ~525k people per vote), so the small states get a boost that they otherwise wouldn't have.

[Timber Loftis]

Okay, Seraph, thanks for that bit of info. However, I still am not buying that it would be unfair. We're talking about parties here, not states. Nixing the electoral college would allow each individual vote to count. All those Republican votes in central and southern Illinois and upstate New York would finally get a voice, rather than being squelched by big cities like NYC and Chicago. The democrats in N. Florida and the republicans in S. Florida would finally get factored in equally into the calculation, and would quit vying to tip all the state's votes to one party or the other by a margin of less than 1000 votes. The Republicans in Northern California would finally get a voice, as would the Southern Democrats.

I'm not dropping my argument yet. If you want the big cities to quit dragging around the votes of their entire states, you'll get rid of the E.C. Right now, the only rural communities that matter are those in the south and the "square states" because all over New England, the West Coast, and the Midwest, the big cities determine which way the whole state votes.

[Thoran]

I understand your point TL and agree with it, there are a lot of voters who's votes don't have an impact on the election at all (mine is often the case as I said), but without the electoral college cities like New York and LA would have even more influence. You'd end up with a situation where the megacities along both coasts would have either enormous or decisive control over elections. Certainly the E.C. isn't an optimum solution, but it was designed in a day when there weren't a lot of options (even popular vote would've been tough back then).

It sounds to me that an acceptable solution you might envision would perhaps apply the delegates of a state in proportion to the states vote as opposed to all or nothing. This sort of scheme I think would probably work even better than the current scheme, I'm not an expert on the E.C. so I'm not sure why it was designed as an all or nothing thing... but I'd certainly support that. What I don't think is a good idea is a straight 1:1 popular vote.