Post Election - Chaos?

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This may be a stupid question since ScottW seems to be a little out numbered, but do you think we could have a poll to see who the macosx community would vote for? i would find it to be pretty interesting.
 
All I have to say is this: Interesting thread....
I will keep my opinions to myself and vote my conscience in less than a week.
 
Someone else did that a few weeks ago, though things may well have changed in the interim.

I've never used it myself, but if you do a 'create thread' there is a check-box near the bottom to create a poll.

I'd say you'd want to include these choices:

Kerry
Bush
Nader
Other
Undecided
and maybe: Not Going To Vote

While we're talking about election-related chaos, what does everyone think are the odds of a terrorist attack between now and 11/3 ?
 
I don't see any options when starting a thread to create a poll. i believe one of the admins have to do that.
As for a terrorist attack occuring between now and the day after election day, i don't believe it would happen. Maybe i'm just an optimisit, but i also believe the Bush campaign uses fear tactics to get their votes. as cheney always says, "there will be something big, something devasting, but i don't know where, and i don't know when."
 
i for one have already voted. since we floridians seemed to mess up the last election, we're enabled to vote early. we want to make sure our votes count this time. As for who I voted for, I think it's kind of obvious.
i think everyone should vote no matter who you want. in 2000, Gore lost to florida by only 200 votes (after the deletion of the absentee ballots). If you think your vote doesn't count, you're wrong. oh, and voting for nader doesn't really help. VOTE!
 
ichadsey said:
i for one have already voted. since we floridians seemed to mess up the last election, we're enabled to vote early. we want to make sure our votes count this time.
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You know what they say, vote early and often. :rolleyes:
 
let's hope we don't have any dirty work like that.
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Yes, let's hope not.

The phrase "Vote early, vote often" is associated with former Chicago mayor Richard Daley:

...It was often alleged that his administration used questionable tactics to acquire votes, with the ironic phrase "vote early and vote often" frequently used to describe to his method of delivering votes. Any Democratic vote fraud in Cook County was easily matched statewide by Republican practices downstate, which included voting by telephone, and bulk voting by political leaders.
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http://www.brainyencyclopedia.com/encyclopedia/r/ri/richard_j__daley.html
 
What's sad to me is that people can't just let elections be anymore. Everything is contested after the fact. No one seems to be a graceful loser anymore. (I'm not eluding to either of the current candidates, just stating my take on things)

I'm so not looking forward to this election day (and the days/weeks/months following), because I know we're just going to be inundated with crap from the media, based on whichever side loses, and the lawsuits and other crap that will insue.

Me, 2 things will save my sanity on election day:
Chipotle giving away free burritos. Woohoo!!!
Halo 2 only 1 week away.... double Woohoo!!!
 
Tonkin Gulf Lie Launched Vietnam War
http://www.fair.org/media-beat/940727.html


The Gulf of Tonkin Incident, 40 Years Later
http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB132/


RacerX said:
That is an interesting revision of history... we were not taking an active part in Vietnam (after watching the French) until the attack on the USS Maddox (a ship my Dad served on). That action brought an immediate escalation in our involvement in that conflict.

North Vietnamese knew at the time we were not interested in being part of the conflict and the Maddox was patrolling in international waters. Johnson (rightly or wrongly) used the incident to get the same powers from Congress that Bush was given in the Iraq issue (without Iraq attacking us of course).

As I recall, the Maddox only received superficial damage at best. But like Bush's phantom WMD, Texas oil men seem to know how to tell some whoppers when they want war powers. At least in Johnson's case an incident did happen... it is too bad about Bush's WMD not even having a shred of validity.
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After 2000's election problems in the US, I was hoping that the UN would step in and help in administrating a democratic voting system in the USA. I mean: We're all for development help, aren't we... I guess what'll happen is that it's going to be a close race and that both sides would sue the other party, anyway, if they lose. That's not what I hope for, though. I hope for a clear win for Kerry.

Btw.: Anyone seen that South Park episode lately? Douche or Turd Sandwich, anyone? ;) Now _that_ was hilarious.
 
A Kerry win would be the best for all. But i'm not so sure it will come so easily. It looks like the race may come to another florida of 2000. Both Ohio and Florida are huge swing states, and it looks like they are going to be extremely close. There is even the possibility of a tie, 269 to 269 electoral votes for each. If it comes down to that, the decision will end up in the house. Since the house is a republican majority, the decision will undoubtably be Bush. If you think Florida recount of 2000 was bad, what do you think will happen when there is a tie and Bush narrowly wins again?
 
Since the house is a republican majority, the decision will undoubtably be Bush.
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I've thought about that myself. Were it to happen, I would certainly hope (though not expect) the representatives would vote with their constituents, even if it meant voting against their own party. It'd never happen that way.

I don't know if this is happening in Florida - or anywhere else, for that matter - but in Ohio both parties are planning to station 'challengers' at the polls.

http://www.cleveland.com/election/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1099042704252193.xml

According to what I have heard, the GOP challengers will challenge voters whose registrations seem shaky, and the Democratic challengers have orders only to defend the voters challenged by the GOP challengers.
 
What's this story of "registration"? Isn't every adult US citizen entitled to vote? You get a piece of paper telling you where to vote, you go there with your passport, hand over the paper, show the passport, vote and then go home and check the exit polls. What kind of registration has to be done or checked?
 
All adults are entitled to vote (except, in most if not all cases, convicted felons) but you do first have to register in a 'precinct'.

Registration doesn't cost anything, and requires only valid ID and an address.

The purpose of registration is primarily to prevent people from voting more than once, and to ensure that only legal US citizens vote.

By registering voters within their local precincts, the task of preventing invalid votes is distributed across the country, instead of trying to manage it from one massive central agency.

EDIT: I will add, only a small percentage of US citizens have a 'passport' per-se. We usually use our driver's licenses as identification.

The registration process provides each precinct with a list on which to look up each voter's name and check him or her off, recording the fact that he or she has already voted.
 
That sounds ... complicated. Here in the Netherlands (and AFAIK most of the rest of the EU) you are automatically registered because the municipality you live in has a record of its inhabitants. If you move to a different city you have to register with the municipality for all kinds of reasons. So at all moments everybody is already registered and the municipality can send out the voting ticket without any problems. You have to hand over your ticket and hance there is no way you could vote twice. You can only vote in the municipality where you live, unless you take action and ask that you can vote elsewhere. So in the default case all is already set up and no registration is required. Hence nothing stops you from voting. The more "barriers" the lower the turnout.

In Belgium voting is obligatory ...
 
The more "barriers" the lower the turnout.
In Belgium voting is obligatory ...
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Australia too. Sometimes I wish we'd do the same.

I'm glad the US is a democracy (technically a Republic, with a representative democracy). Our system of electing presidents is pretty strange though.

As you have probably heard, we have something called the 'electoral college' -- which, I must add, is only used for the PRESIDENTIAL election, not other elections. Each state is allowed a certain number of "electors" - and in the end, it is THOSE VOTES ALONE which determine the winner. The number of electors for a given state is the same as the number of congressmen that state has (2 Senators, plus a number of Representatives based on population).

Each state is permitted to devise their own method of choosing the electors, but the federal government decides how many each state gets and when the electors must vote (Nov 2, right now.)

All states but 2 (Maine and Nebraska) do it the same way: whoever wins the popular vote for the state wins ALL the electoral votes. Hence, in a 2-candidate race, up to 49.999999% of the populace of a given state may have NO representation in the electoral vote.

The WAY that this is accomplished is even more twisted: each CANDIDATE has his own panel of loyal potential electors, and the popular vote decides which PANEL of electors gets to actually vote. So, in a situation where technically NO actual flesh-and-blood electors are needed (since they don't actually get to make any individual choices when the time comes) we have one complete set per candidate!

Maine and Nebraska do it more sensibly: the 2 "senator" electors vote with the statewide popular majority, and the "representative" electors vote with the popular majority in their respective congressional districts.

This system leaves open the possibility of a candidate winning the election while losing the popular vote - which of course, Bush did in 2000. He is only the 3rd US President to win that way.

Many people, myself included, would like to see this system eliminated - let the nation-wide popular vote decide the winner. But to do that would require a constitutional amendment, which requires a 2/3 majority vote of both houses of congress, and then approval by 3/4 of all states' legislatures -- *extremely* difficult to achieve.
 
fryke said:
After 2000's election problems in the US, I was hoping that the UN would step in and help in administrating a democratic voting system in the USA. I mean: We're all for development help, aren't we... I guess what'll happen is that it's going to be a close race and that both sides would sue the other party, anyway, if they lose. That's not what I hope for, though. I hope for a clear win for Kerry.

Btw.: Anyone seen that South Park episode lately? Douche or Turd Sandwich, anyone? ;) Now _that_ was hilarious.
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Sorry, but the voting system in the USA is definately none of the UN's damn business.

The UN is a joke (and more corrupt than american politics)

The United States is a sovereign country, and the UN has no authority to "step in" and do anything at all, period.
 
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