🚀 go-pugleaf

In pdx.general Eric Dew <edew@olagrande.net> wrote:
: In article <1028575627.757347@news.zipcon.net>,
: Robert S <searob@zipcon.com> wrote:
:>We still remember the Florida fiasco and how the US Supreme Court
:>over-stepped its bounds.  A lot of people are still angry about that.
:>That's why I said that issue (if the House did its job) "would" still have
:>been fresh in voter memories.  Voters still remember the US Supreme Court
:>stepping in, although they can't do much about the US Supreme Court.  Maybe
:>the issue isn't fresh in voter memories, but there is that haunting
:>resentment that will be an influence when voters decide at the polling
:>booths.
:>
: Part of the problem with the 2000 elections was the low voter turn-out.
: If more Gore voters or more Bush voters turned out, the victory may have
: been more decisive for either candidate.  Voters are aware of this, because
: the media do discuss the low voter turn-out (although our elected
: representatives don't), but will voters come out in droves for this
: 2002 election series?  I don't think so.  Maybe 40% over the whole US,
: and in some areas of the Bay Area, maybe as low as 30%.

I think low voter turn-out had little to do with the 2000 presidential
election results.  Gore won the national popular vote by several
hundred thousand votes.  What would have been the benefit of a few
hundred thousand more?  Most polls right before the election showed a
dead heat, which is pretty much what we got.  More voters with the
same split wouldn't have changed the overall results.  It's the
electoral college that counts. 

Sure, everyone remembers Florida, where a thousand more Gore voters
would have made a difference (or at least a thousand more who knew how
to punch a ballot correctly), but what about the small Bush margin in
New Hampshire?  Gore lost that by only a few thousand votes, too.  Had
Gore won New Hampshire, Florida would have meant nothing, because Gore
would have had enough electoral votes to win without it (you could say
that about any other state Gore lost, of course, but New Hampshire was
the closest of the ones he lost; as someone said, had the Gore
campaign spent a few hundred thousand dollars more in TV advertising
in NH, Gore would have won the whole thing.)

: Also, while the Florida fiasco may still be remembered by the voters, I
: don't think voters know what, exactly, they can do about it.  I mean,
: who exactly will they try to vote out of office?

There's no one in particular in Florida to blame for the fiasco.  It
might have happened that way in any state.  What states really need
are specific laws that clearly define what happens in these close
elections, without ambiguity.  No one cared about such laws before
because no one ever dreamed a presidential election would be this
close! 

Andrew
--
----> Portland, Oregon, USA <----
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