Comments on: Time Machine

By: somecallmetim

somecallmetim — Thu, 19 Aug 2004 15:07:15 +0000

How ‘bout this. You read this instructions, you fill the ballot out properly, and you don’t blame anybody else if your troglodyte brain screws up that ubersimple task. That goes for both sides. A little personal responsibility here, folks.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Wed, 18 Aug 2004 14:21:30 +0000

Joshua—It’s true that Gore made that offer, but he made the offer after the expiration of the statutory period for requesting a recount. It’s not clear to me how it would have been given any legal effect. The original claim stands: If Gore had wanted a full recount, he could have requested it. He did not.

By: Joshua W. Burton

Joshua W. Burton — Wed, 18 Aug 2004 13:32:59 +0000

I think there was a bit of poetic justice to it, as upset as I was at the time with it: had Gore done what any narrowly defeated candidate should do — that is, call for a single full recount by hand in the whole state, instead of gaming it — he would now be President of the United States. Ben, it’s not that hand recounts take too long, it’s that Gore waited so long before requesting them, in an effort to preclude Bush having a chance to request them in counties where it would benefit HIM. And then the courts ate up a bunch of time on half-measures. There would have been plenty of time for a full manual recount over the entire state if it had been requested promptly. Here, in both its canonical forms, is the most infuriating howler to come out of the entire mess. In his very first public appearance after the election, http://www.sptimes.com/News/111600/Election2000/Transcript_of_Gore_s_.shtml the vice-president made the following offer. I am also prepared, if Gov. Bush prefers, to include in this recount all the counties in the entire state of Florida. I would also be willing to abide by that result and agree not to take any legal action to challenge that result. If there are no further interruptions to the process, we believe the count can be completed within seven days of the time it starts. It’s worth reading that speech in full, if only for a glimpse of the chance that was lost. Had that proposed meeting between the candidates taken place, several million of us would have withdrawn all objection to a Bush outcome, however corruptly contrived. Because, you see, a President Bush who just once admitted that he had to work with his opponents to further the interests of his country could have…what? Kept Jeffords? Focused on Osama? Read a security briefing? Built a coalition? We’ll never know, but I will go to my grave with a strong opinion. The Hayes-Tilden compromise ended a rift in the national polity.

By: Alaska Jack

Alaska Jack — Wed, 18 Aug 2004 01:48:25 +0000

Coming in kind of late, I have two points that I thought might be of interest. 1. Someone in this thread noted that the results were so close that any number of factors influenced the results, from voters who were disenfranchised to those who were improperly allowed to vote. I would just add that it wasn’t only in Florida—several other states had results that were in this margin of error as well. Also, I just wanted to repeat something that stuck in my mind from the recount period. I was reading an account of someone who was either a recounter or observer. He or she observed, almost offhandedly, that there were chad all over the floor from the ballots. Simply the act of recounting altered the results, and no one will ever know exactly what the original vote was. As far as I’m concerned, the moral of the whole sad story is: 1. Pen 2. Paper 3. Further assistance for those few who need it. So the counting is a little slower. So what? – Alaska Jack

By: Thomas

Thomas — Wed, 18 Aug 2004 01:33:36 +0000

It seems to me that the US Supreme Court got it right in Bush v. Gore, and right in a predictable way. The question presented is, in a sense, what counts as an unreasonable interpretation of a state election statute?, and the split followed the conventional lines of cases involving statutory interpretation, with the swing justices, not bound by any interpretive theory, refusing to offering a reasoned judgment but carrying the day. Something we’ve all seen countless times. Those who object that there is a constitutional scheme in place to handle such disputes seem to ignore the fact that Bush v. Gore left those processes undisturbed: Congress and the state of Florida could continue to wage the partisan war. Only the SCOFLA was barred from entering the fray. Finally, regarding John’s post, it is important to remember that there was never a recount of all the ballots in Florida, only a recount of certain disputed ballots (tendentiously referred to in the Times as “uncounted” ballots). The numbers given still don’t tell us anything about what a recount by hand of every ballot would show.

By: Matt Weiner

Matt Weiner — Tue, 17 Aug 2004 19:14:04 +0000

Jay, I have one extremely overpessimistic suggestion—nobody on either side, and certainly not on the Gore side, thought at the time that what was at stake was worth physically fighting for. I reckon that even the “bourgeois riot” folks would have backed down had it come to a question of busting heads, or getting their heads busted.
As I say, I think that’s overpessimistic. Our basic respect for the rule of law had a lot to do with what was going on. But it’s also important to remember that most of the 2000 presidential campaign was predicated on the idea that there wasn’t that much difference between Gush and Bore.

By: Jay

Jay — Tue, 17 Aug 2004 17:52:28 +0000

Adam, you remind me of something I’ve been wondering about. Following the Florida debacle, what we DIDN’T see was people taking to the streets with guns and bombs, or people ensconcing themselves in highly visible churches, or say maybe Disney World with an armed militia. I’d really like to know why that is. Attributing it to some inherent virtue of the Europeans is bunk. Pointing to differences in religion is insufficient. How DID we manage to instill in our population such a universal sense of “give up the best for the sake of the good”? It seems really important that we figure this out.

By: Adam Kotsko

Adam Kotsko — Tue, 17 Aug 2004 05:14:21 +0000

The important thing to remember as we parse out the incredibly complicated details of what went on in 2000 is that it was resounding proof that our system works! If we repeat that enough, I think we’re supposed to be able to start thinking about believing it.

By: james

james — Mon, 16 Aug 2004 22:24:57 +0000

SCOTUS ruled on the case twice. The first time was on the strictly constitutional basis of equal counting practices across all Florida counties. The Florida Supreme Court had set up a grossly unconstitutional system of using what ever counting process each district wanted. The second SCOTUS ruling was as much about the Florida Supreme Court ignoring the remand of the first ruling as it was about stopping the recount.

By: Jim Henley

Jim Henley — Mon, 16 Aug 2004 20:32:54 +0000

The Florida election was a statistical tie. Gore tried to game the system by cherry-picking issues and counties where a recount was statistically likely to help him. The State Supreme Court went along for the ride. Then the federal Supremes pulled a status quo ante out of their ass with nothing resembling a legitimate, principled basis. Far better than the Repubs tossing over the federalist principles they pretend to hold and the Supreme Court writing a “just this once, and just coincidentally on behalf of our guy” embarrassment would have been to resort to the actual constitution. The Fla Supremes/Board of Elections certifies a pro-Gore slate; the Fla House sends the pro-Bush one they’d have favored and the US House decides which delegation to sit. You know, the way it’s supposed to freaking work. Bush would still be President and Dems would still be outraged. But the target of their outrage would be different – the Republican House – and at least the target of their outrage would have been performing its constitutionally-mandated function as designed.

By: obeah

obeah — Mon, 16 Aug 2004 19:19:03 +0000

The vote was effectively a dead heat. I think that that in order to avoid a situation in which the choice of counting methods determined who would become President, the Florida electors should have split 12 for Bush and 12 for Gore, with one abstention (or, if they aren’t allowed to abstain, one for someone else. I’d make a suggestion, but people would just throw things.) Instead of a coin toss, they could have just taken themselves out of the equation.

By: Matt Weiner

Matt Weiner — Mon, 16 Aug 2004 16:37:23 +0000

This suggests that neither party really understood which counting rules would help them. I contend that is a good thing, since it is harder for either side to cheat if they can’t figure out which rules would help them. Sebastian, I agree; that’s part of the reason that it’s so deeply unfortunate that the Supreme Court chose a rule whose outcome was certain to benefit the side that those five justices politically favored. It removed even the pretense of fairness from the outcome.

By: harry

harry — Mon, 16 Aug 2004 16:13:54 +0000

That’s interesting Sebastian. You might (or might not, since I’m going to tell you the pay-off) want to check out the introduction to Michael Dummett’s book Voting Procedures, in which he describes the Labour Party National Executive Committee deliberations in 1981 concerning the new electoral college which was going to elect the Deputy leader. There was a very fierce fight that year between the left-wing Tony Benn, and the right-wing Denis Healey, both of whom had supporters on the NEC. The questions was: whether abstentions should be counted into the or not. The right pushed for them to be counted into the percentages., but the left rejected discussion of the point on the grounds that it was an irrelevant detail. The outcome? The abstentions weren’t counted and Healey won by a whisker. Count the abstentions and Benn would have won by a whisker.

By: Brett Bellmore

Brett Bellmore — Mon, 16 Aug 2004 01:45:21 +0000

MY theory regarding the lack of fixes: It’s a “bugs” vs “features” problem. What people who want honest elections see as bugs, incumbant politicians, who by definition got elected under the current system, see as features.

By: Adam Kotsko

Adam Kotsko — Sun, 15 Aug 2004 15:47:01 +0000

My theory re: lack of real reform—everyone wanted to forget the whole mess. Everyone wanted, as quickly as possible, to forget the unpleasant things that the entire controversy revealed about our electoral process. It seems to me that most of the governing and media elites in this country—including the ever-dwindling “liberal elite”—may have thought that having a shitty president would be a better bet than having a quasi-illegitimate president.