Voting? What's that?

[Kent]

Im not really trying to twist the truth.

I never said the republicans play fair and sqaure all the time.

I was citing an example of the things you were talking about that related directly to the topic.

If you put up a topic that everyone knows the rupublicans played dirty in (nixon), then I would talk about republican wrong doings.

But in the mean time, I was talking about gore and his "deal", not democrates in general, not republicans in general.

I dont like the idea of being banned, so Im gonna refrain from going any further with this.

I would also like to say Im sorry.

I dont mean to cause so much contention on the boards. I just happen to tell it like it is. Put a topic about dirty republicans up, and I will be happy to write horrible things about them. Its not like I fully support bush in every action.

Shoot, Zacharias mussaoui doesnt deserve an american trial, but they give him one. All the while, Yassar hamdi, who was born in the u.s., got put into military custody and is awaiting a military tribunal.

That is actually the right course of action, since it clearly states on a u.s. passport that if you join a foriegn army you forfiet your u.s. citizen ship. But with that in mind how does john walker fit in.

Bottom line to this rant is that I dont agree with everything the republicans do, but we werent talking about that stuff, we were talking about gore and his "deal".

[ZeroBlade]

I didn't. I am of voting age (19) but I can't cuz I'm just a US resident. I ain't gonna be a naturalized american either. I do that and jury duty can get their hands on me then. :P Power to the immigrants!

[James]

[color=royalblue]I'm just saying that sometimes you stretch things a bit far with your "coincidences". And sometimes, rather than discussing an issue at hand you kind of trail off on some political tangent.

I'm not saying that it's off topic (because really, it's not)...I'm just saying that it's something I notice in your posts. :)[/color]

[Kent]

Alright,

Well Im cool with that, and just as I turned the quality of my post to fit the grammatically correct form that suited the boards, I will watch what I post about.

Thanks for atleast being honest and not making this into a fight that I could never end.

I appreciate your honesty. Thanks.

You dont have to worry about me any more.

Sorry for all the past troubles. (although, old habits are hard to break)

Oh yea,... love the new changes to the board.

[Sara]

[size=1]Random stuff. Correct me if I'm wrong. [As I'm sure you will anyway.]

Clinton won the '96 election with less than fifty percent of the popular vote. [Dole also got around 40%, and I think Perot got somewheres about 10%]

And of eligible citizens, only about 55% went to the polls to vote.

Which would mean he was elected with about 1 in 4 americans voting for him. Isn't that great? ^_^[/size]

[isawis]

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by James [/i]
[B] Obviously, the Electoral College's job is to look at voting from across the nation and treat every state equally. If they didn't, then some states would have more power than others, when it comes to choosing a President.
[/B][/QUOTE]


[sarcazm]That's why some states have more electorial votes than others..fair..[/sarcazm]


This is the way I say it's b/s...Lets say (very hypothetical) ALL of New York and Cali vote one way, lots of people and however many electorial votes. Now in the other states they're close races and most of the states go the other way(not Cali/NY).Ok, the other way gets more electorial votes even though the first guy has way more votes... b/s.


::Edit:: pfft spelling errors and grammer stuff
::Edit:: added [sarcazm] for the people that would take it wrong.

[Mnemolth]

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by gokents [/i]
[B]You do realize there is a difference between showing bias, and telling the truth.

If gore had won floridas popular vote he would have won the state.

If he simply got more votes in the country, that doesnt mean he got the popular vote. You really need to account for the electoral system that equalizes the say of a little state like rhode island and a huge state like new york.

Gore lost, just as you said we all know, and its over.

But what bothers me is how you managed to dodge the points made in my last post.

If you ask me, nothing illeagal or wrong happend. Gore just did the ultimate job of getting a bunch of loud mouth politically active people to scream and whine about him and his losing the election.

Oh well, gore lost. Too bad. [/B][/QUOTE]

Well, you got one thing right there, nothing illegal or wrong happened. But then the rest of your post made no sense. At least not to me. :D

First, there is no such thing as the 'popular' vote for Florida. You either win by having the most votes out of all the candidates for that State (and thereby the electoral votes) or you don't. It makes no sense talking about 'popular' votes when it comes to States. The winner [b]is[/b] the one with the most votes, ie the 'popular' vote.

Second, the electoral system favoured Bush for the 2000 election. It was his best friend. I'm not sure why you're bringing it up to argue that Gore didn't win the 'popular' vote. You've got it the wrong way round dude. :D

The electoral system [b]does not[/b] equate a little state with a huge state. I don't know where you got this idea from but its completely bogus. It [b]does[/b] give smaller States a greater say than by just one-person-one-vote principle since a State with 10 times the population of another State does not get 10 times the amount of electoral votes, but certainly [b]does[/b] get more, a whole [b]lot[/b] more, just not as much as 10 times. But this probably confuses people. So I think we should forget this altogether and concentrate on the fact that bigger States have more votes.

Rhode Island in no way, shape or form, comes even close to being equal with NY. I dunno what the exact figures are but I'm pretty sure NY has a heap of more electoral votes that RI. Actually....hang on for a sec...NY has 33 electoral votes, whereas RI has a measely 4. That took me like 10 seconds to go to Google and do a search.

[url]http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/2000presgeresults.htm[/url]

Take a look and all your questions will be answered. :)

Of all the votes cast in the 2000 election, Gore was the candidate with the most votes. Half a million more than Bush. That makes him the one with the 'popular' vote. That is the definition of popular. That you are the person more people like than anyone else. There is really no point arguing against this. Cos this is fact.

What you need to do in a political argument is use those facts to make your case. Because they are very open to different interpretations. And that is all well and fine with me. What I don't like is when simple undisputable facts get all tangled up with the arguments being made. Once clear waters become muddied, and everything turns to crap. Then what dresses up as debate is pure opinion on top of unadulterated mis-information.

Its a way of leveling the field by lowering it. Its like saying all politicians lie. This cheapens all politicians and in so doing really only favours those who really are big fat liars. Cos they can then turn around and say, ok, I lied, but don't be such an idealist, everyone lies, all sides are the same, all politicians are the same, blah blah blah.

Now, if I were a Republican I would just say to the Democrats, get over it. We won, you lost. You may have won the popular vote, but we won the electroal votes, and that's what counts, so you can kiss my ***. :D

[Kent]

I wasnt saying that the states were even. I was saying the system helped to level things out a bit.

You and I just about agreed on most things only we woulnt admit we agree.

One specific thing we dis agree about is that gore got 500,000 votes more than bush.

I never heard of that happpening and I followed the election closely.

Bottom line is that Im tired of arguing this subject.

I just dont care enough.

So, as you put it... you can kiss my a**.

I dont think thats very much my style, but I really have lost all desire to take part in a debate that the entire united states government couldnt come to an agreement on.

Sorry but I just dont have the energy to care anymore. Im already thinking about whats coming, not whats gone by.
-----------------------------------------------
I was also hopping you could give me a source on this "fact" that gore got 500,000 more votes.

Independant and honest. Open to the public and accessible to me.

where can I see your "fact". Give me that and maybe I will get back into this debate.

otherwise, just forget about anything you wanna say to me.

[Mnemolth]

[b]Gokents:[/b] Er...dude....there's a link in my post. Just look over it again. It has almost all the stats you care to see for the 2000 election. :D

And its not from one person, or another. Or a tv station. Its the 'official' records. The real deal. So if someone is overly skeptical and paranoid and thinks I'm pushing some party line, this is what's in the record books, this is what historians will look at when they comb through what happens in past elections.

If you look at the first table or chart, you will find Bush and Gore columns, along with the other candidates, and their total tally of votes are at the bottom of the column.

Bush got 50,456,002 votes or 47.87% and Gore got 50,999,897 or 48.38%.

Now I don't mean to be rude, but sometimes I get the strange feeling you don't read my posts. I know they are a bit on the long side but.... :)

[b]Sara[/b]; Yes, well, turnout is always an issue in a system where voting is 'voluntary'. This is not a problem specific to the US, other countries, such as the UK, have also experienced the same level of voter apathy in recent years. The turnout often falls below 50%...which just goes to show the level of political cynicism out there.

One solution would be to make voting 'mandatory'. Basically pass a law that forces everyone of legal age to vote. This kind of system is quite rare. Australia is one country that uses it, so maybe you should ask James or Delian who may have had direct experience with it. ;) I think you're fined something like 50 or 100 bucks if you don't vote and don't have a valid excuse. The fine is not so important, because I'm sure people can handle that, but its a very good encouragement for people to vote, and it ends up getting practically 100% turnout.

Of course, in the US, there may be constitutional issues with such a law, and even if there were not I doubt anything like that would get passed. There are two general problems.

1) In a democracy there is an argument that people should have a right to CHOOSE not to vote. Also, what do you do if none of the candidates appeal to you? Well 'technically' you have to vote, but in practice, because voting is completely secret and private, you can simply make an 'invalid' or 'informal' vote, ie cast a vote that does not count. In mandatory voting systems, the percentage of 'invalid' votes usually vary between 2-5%.

2) Ignorant, un-informed and dis-interested people will vote, and may overwhelm the votes of the more informed and considered people. The fear here is if you force people to vote, then those who don't care might end up determining who wins, and that might not be appropriate.

I find the second reasoning a little dubious.

I also find the argument that 'voluntary' voting favours conservatives to have some merit. If you think about it, if you are warm and well-fed you are probably more likely to give a damn (maybe to ensure you continue to be warm and well-fed?), whereas if you are cold and hungry, you probably couldn't give a rat's a**. But I don't really want to get into that, lest I be accused of being a left leaning hippie tree hugger. ;)

[b]isawis[/b]; The only solution I can think of to the problem you see is if the people [i]directly[/i] vote for the President. And that's not likely to happen. Why? Because it would mean those people living in small States like Wyoming, will have less of a say.

One-person-one-vote sounds like a good idea, trouble is it weakens the position of smaller States (whose positions are already weak). Remember, the US is based on a [i]federation[/i] model. States play an important part in that model.

[Kent]

I read , I always do.

I actually am glad you pointed that out because it almost explains how gore could get more votes but not legitimatly win.

Look at new york, gore got it by about 2 million votes.

Even with that amount of votes, the state still only gets to put in the usual amount of electoral votes.

That means that if gore had won by, say, 500, the electoral votes would have still been the same.

This all goes back to what I was talking about in earlier post about the design of the system.

With gore catching an over whelming amount of votes in one state and skewing the countrys popular vote, its easy to see why gore could have had the 500,000 extra but still not win the election.

Although, I stand corrected on gross number of votes.

I still insist though, that gore did not have the popular vote of the country. Bush did win 30 states out of 50.

I would say it was like an overwhelming popularity in a couple of specific areas.

Well, I must say now that this is pretty much over for me.

The discussion is an intresting one, but an old one. Let the chart speak for itself.

I think that if gore had really won the countries popular vote, he would have gotten more states. Instead he only kept up because of democrate strong holds.

[James]

[color=royalblue]Gore did have the popular vote. There can be no question of that. The biggest problem for Gore was that he wanted recounts in selective counties in Florida; he should have asked for the entire State to be recounted. If it had (and if the thousands of absentee ballots were included), he would probably have won the election.

But it didn't happen. Does it make George Bush an illegitimate President? No, I don't believe so. But that's my opinion. I can understand why Democrats are still bitter -- but I think they should partly blame Al Gore for his sloppy handling of the situation.

Regarding voting; yes, in Australia we have mandatory voting. I believe that voting is something everyone should do -- to be respectful to your country...and to be respectful to those who died in support of democracy. I [i]owe[/i] it to those people to vote. I owe it to myself...to my fellow citizens and to my country as a whole. That is why I generally look down on people who say "Eh, can't be bothered voting today". They are taking democracy for granted.

Having said that, I think that mandatory voting, to an extent, forces or encourages people to understand the issues. Since you have to vote anyway, you might as well understand the key policy differences between each party. I find that generally speaking, most Australians I've ever met have been pretty aware of political issues both here and abroad. I'm sure that's not soley the result of our voting system (probably a combination of mandatory voting and high education levels), but the fact remains that I think mandatory voting has been a benefit for our country.

Given that you are anonymous in terms of who you voted for...and that you can cast a "donkey vote" (marking the boxes 1-6 or whatever in order, without actually creating preferences), I don't think it's even necessarily forcing people to be really aware of politics or anything...even though most people are.

Even if our voting was optional, I would still vote every time, for reasons I mentioned above.[/color]

[Kent]

Personally, I think the absentee ballots would have worked against gore.

Most absentees are from military voters. Military voters are usually conservatives.

But either way, I would have to say the topic has hit just about every point that can be made.

I also think that james had a valid point about how gore handled the election. Oh well... the past is the past and theres really nothing we can do about it now.

Plus, with the fact that in the last week gore has made a big press about his new found opinion of making all health care a government run system, I am glad hes not in office.

I dont really want to have to be assigned a doctor, nor wait months on end to get an operation.

As you can tell, I dont think a national healthcare system is a good idea when you can claim with medicare and get the same benefits.