Gore wins by 9 votes???

[cxim]

The only debble work around here is goron* speak from the likes of little Moongoron*.

>> It defies any objective and fair minded person's sense of justice to hand Bush the presidency when he lost the popular vote in the US and Florida. <<

Algoron*, well known &amp; proven liar applauds your continued mindless support, little Moongoron*.

 

[Michael]

Moonbeam - Ignoring the fact that 50% did not vote. If you add up all the votes that did not vote for Gore, there are more voters who do not want him to be President than want him. I could say the popular vote is against him.

I do think that he should contest the results in Florida. He was the head of the Demcrat party who was fighting to become President. There still is an ok chance that he could win. Russ is saying never quit in the RC5 contest even though sheer numbers suggest that the DPC will catch us. Seems that not quiting and being a winner is very important to him there.

The only place I see making a big difference is Miami-Dade. If they say they strongly felt that a manual recount was needed and that their partially completed count shows that Gore had lots more votes, I think that a judge would be minded to order a recount.

Michael

 

[KotchY]

:|:Q:disgust::frown::frown::disgust::disgust::frown::confused

 

[Zucchini]

&quot;Moonbeam - Ignoring the fact that 50% did not vote. If you add up all the votes that did not vote for Gore, there are more voters who do not want him to be President than want him. I could say the popular vote is against him.&quot;

Ok this is a silly arguement, i don't think there are many elections where there are a landslide victories. Gore got 49% of the vote even with a nader monkey on his back.

 

[Michael]

Zucchini - what is silly about the argument? The cry is that Gore won more votes than Bush in the popular vote (which is meaningless as that isn't how Presidents are elected).

1) The difference is well within the normal margin of error

2) He carried NY and California, the most populous states in the country which skew the vote

3) More people voted against him than for him. Most Nader votes knew that voting for Nader would help Bush and they voted Nader anyway. That shows that they didn't care if Gore lost. Seems like votes against him to me.

Winning the popular vote is meaningless. Winning the vote in Florida is all that counts right now.

Michael

 

[Rio Rebel]

There is a big difference between statistics and counting physical objects.

It is very, very arguable how to count the votes we have, what consititutes a &quot;vote&quot;, and whether it is correct to throw some out because of arbitrary deadlines.

But to compare a physical vote count to a statistical analysis is ridiculous. There's no such thing as a &quot;margin of error&quot; in a count. It's either the accurate number, or it's not.

A statistical analysis projects a total based on a random sample. If it were dealing with the total number, there would be no margin of error. Miscounting is a result of a mistake in the process. A miscount is not part of a margin of error, it is a flaw. In statistics, the margin of error is not the result of a flaw - it is in fact the opposite. A margin of error assumes the accuracy of your process, and recognizes that your conclusion may still be wrong in spite of an accurate process.

The unfortunate fact of the matter is that we will never have 100% accuracy with this type of voting system. We should recognize our system for what it is. We turn to machine counts because they are far more accurate for large numbers. But they also don't have &quot;common sense&quot;, so a machine can't look at the results and recognize a massive error the way a human can. If Buchanon received 10 times as many votes than Gore in a Jewish retirement community, a human would immediately recognize the likelihood of an error. A machine would not. But a machine would be far more likely to give an accurate count of 10,000 votes than a human being.

 

[Michael]

Rio Rebel - Ok, it isn't an accurate number. As such, it should not be relied on for discussion purposes.

Michael

 

[slipperyslope]

Talk about all the popular vote you want but you are forgetting something very important. In states like South Carolina where Bush won by a landslide they did not even bother with the absentee ballots because there was no point to even count them.

If you take this into account, Bush won most of the states he probably has alot of votes that were never counted because it was silly to count them. So blab about the popular vote all you want but it is the electoral college that elects the president.

Jim

 

[Rio Rebel]

I was actually responding to Zuchinni's point that such a small margin of victory is &quot;statistically insignificant&quot;.

The machine count is the best we can do with a punch-ballot system. Yes, it fails to count a small number of votes, but it counts all of the votes which are cast correctly and carefully.

I'd rather lose a small number of votes by people who didn't follow instructions carefully or correctly, rather than revert to a system which is wide open for fraud and corruption.

 

[Zucchini]

Actually according to election fraud experts, absentee ballots are the most suspect, not hand counts. Hand counts are considered to be relatively accurate compared to machine counts. Its hard to cheat when monitored by both parties Anyhow you do know that the company that created those ballot counting machines considered them to be inaccurate and recommended ending their use

 

[cxim]

Glad to see a return of rational reason, Rio

What's the political climate like there with this crap ? Is the Clarion Ledger/ JD News babbling pro Gore ?

an Ole miss alumni

 

[Rio Rebel]

I'm in Indianapolis now, so I'm not sure about what Mississippi is thinking. I would bet pretty strongly that they're not buying the Gore crap any more than I am, though. Nice to see you again, cxim.

Zuchinni, you use a lot of arguments with the phrase &quot;considered to be&quot;. I'm not sure how to respond to that. But to go down your reply point by point:

1. Irrelevant. The argument wasn't whether absentee ballots or hand counted regular ballots were more open to corruption, it was whether hand counts were more open to corruption than machine counts.

2. Regardless of who says hand counts are &quot;considered to be&quot; accurate, this election has shown us that they are unquestionably subject to human interpretation and subjective (and in this case arbitrary) human standards. This equals INACCURACY.

3. It's very easy to cheat when you dominate the local election boards, regardless of the fact that both parties are present. You think it's a coincidence that the overwhelmingly democrat-appointed Florida supreme court ruled Gore's way? Or that the republican secretary of state keeps making pro-Bush rulings? If not, then why assume the local boards are completely unbiased and fair? (I don't suppose you watched any of the recounting on CNN, where we'd see ballot after ballot fall like this: Democrat 1 &quot;Gore vote&quot;...Republican &quot;No vote&quot;...Democrat 2 &quot;Gore vote - ballot for Gore&quot;.)

4. This last &quot;fact&quot; about the machine company calling their own equipment inaccurate is ridiculous. Machine accuracy is easily verified. If it's inaccurate, why did the vote totals so closely match in a recount? Why did Gore pick up virtually no extra votes unless the &quot;dimpled chad&quot; standard was applied? If we start pulling these factoids out of our ass, the argument gets ridiculous (By the way, did you know that Hillary Clinton was convicted of voter fraud in Arkansas, and that New York had 2,000,000 Bush votes disappear? )

 

[Athanasius]

Zucchini:

The founding fathers did establish a provision. They established the state legislature as the constitutional authority in choosing electors. The state legislature was meant to be free to choose electors in a way that seemed fit to them.

The Constitution seems clear in its separation of powers. The first three articles address the legislative, executive, and judicial branches clearly and separately. If a state's presidential election results are in doubt, the elected legislature of that state is supposed to make the call.

When all the judiciary wrangling is complete, if the outcome is in any reasonable doubt, the legislature of Florida, elected by popular vote of the people of Florida, has the authority to make the final call.

 

[cxim]

The founding fathers also knew about gerrymandering. They however never thought about trying to do it in the middle of an election.

This was a new &amp; novel approach by the Gore democrat camp. It has long been done before elections but never in the middle of an election to try and subvert the outcome results.

This is frank, outright, gerrymandering. Gerrymandering has long been illegal in the US.

Because it is being done during an election it has not been recognized, for the corrupt practice, that it is. Most honest people have known it does not feel right, but have had trouble verbalizing this.

 

[Russ]

<< Remember Gore is the popular choice even if he doesn't win. >>



&quot;Popular&quot; choice? He's an incumbent during what was one of the longest peacetime economic expansions in history, the lowest unemployment in 30 years, the first time in decades with a balanced budget. Yet, he is scrambling to scrounge up votes to grab the office.

Yep, he's REAL popular.

Russ, NCNE

 

[BoberFett]

LOL Russ. Any other person in Gore's position would be a shoe-in for the presidency. Quite a few people must really must be sick of the current administration.

 

[SuperTool]

Gore has got the worst of both worlds in terms of public opinion.
For some reason Clinton scandals stick on Gore, but Clinton job approval ratings slide right off. In addition, he looks kindof sleazy. I don't understand what he is still fighting for. Even if he wins, it's not going to be a productive presidency. There will be questions of legitimacy and what not. Unless you get a clean win, it's better to sit this one out. On the other hand, it's good that he is fighting on, because by that he is killing his chances to be the democratic nominee in 4 years. I don't think anyone wants to see another Gore vs. Bush race.

 

[beer]

Popular vote doesn't matter. The constituion says the victor is determined by electoral votes.

IT DOESN'T FSCKING MATTER WHO GOT THE POPULAR VOTE.

Don't speak of this &quot;Will of the people&quot; crap. It's electoral votes that matter, whether it is fair or not, it's the way it is.

You don't like it? Write your senator to get an Amendment.

God, STFU all of you that whine about popular votes. It just doesn't matter, the victor is determined by electoral votes.

Bush wins.
Bore loses.
Get over it.
Furthermore I am glad that Bore will have no future political life after this election. No real loss, either.

Oh and this Lieberman is a jackass too. But that's another category entirely.

 

[beer]

Popular vote doesn't matter. The constituion says the victor is determined by electoral votes.

IT DOESN'T FSCKING MATTER WHO GOT THE POPULAR VOTE.

Don't speak of this &quot;Will of the people&quot; crap. It's electoral votes that matter, whether it is fair or not, it's the way it is.

You don't like it? Write your senator to get an Amendment.

God, STFU all of you that whine about popular votes. It just doesn't matter, the victor is determined by electoral votes.

Bush wins.
Bore loses.
Get over it.
Furthermore I am glad that Bore will have no future political life after this election. No real loss, either.

Oh and this Lieberman is a jackass too. But that's another category entirely.

 

[Russ]

<< I don't understand what he is still fighting for. >>



Gore said it himself, on the record. He has nothing else. Unlike Bush, he has no life to return to, no career. It is over for him.

Russ, NCNE

 

[Futuramatic]

<< Did the guy who wrote the article put his name in there as writing that, or did it just say, Written By: A Democrat??? >>



It was written by someone at CNN... 'nuf said.

 

[rmeijer]

What the hey. I'll come to Zuch's defense (sort of).

Rio Rebel writes:


&quot;There is a big difference between statistics and counting physical objects.&quot;
&quot;...&quot;
&quot;But to compare a physical vote count to a statistical analysis is ridiculous. There's no such thing as a &quot;margin of error&quot; in a count. It's either the accurate number, or it's not. &quot;
&quot;...&quot;
&quot;If it were dealing with the total number, there would be no margin of error. &quot;
&quot;...&quot;
&quot;Yes, it fails to count a small number of votes, but it counts all of the votes which are cast correctly and carefully&quot;


I don't follow Rio's argument.

Notice that the two machine counts were different? If we decided to do a machine recount a number of times, each time we would arrive at different results. The machines are *trying* to count the physical objects, but just plain screw up every so often (anyone ever used a machine before?). So after we have a ton of recounts, we can look at the mean number and the deviation from that mean. That deviation is often referred to as the &quot;margin of error&quot; (usually around +/-2 standard deviations).

As for hand recounts, we could do the same. Have a group of people count ballots by hand (using a predetermined criterion as to what a vote is). Then have another group count the same ballots.... then another. Each group will undoubtably come up with a differing number. And again, the spread can be used to find the &quot;margin of error&quot;. Some folks feel that the &quot;margin of error&quot; for hand counts are less than the machine counts (including, I may add, Gov. Bush!).

The standard deviation is calculated slightly differently if the count was a sample, or the total number. The idea of &quot;no margin of error&quot; is perposterous. Sure, there is some actual number representing the truth... but good luck in trying to arrive at it by using a faulty machine to count it.

As for your last statement, is that true? We are so use to technology working, that we sometimes forget that technology that has been in use 30 years is just plain sloppy at times. Ever turn the key of your car to have the car stall out? Turn the key *a little* more carefully next time!

 

[NesuD]

Hah Thats funny Gore wins by 9 votes but only if all the votes AREN'T COUNTED like a couple hundred absentee military ballots maybe. This is just to funny all they have been doing is ranting about counting all the votes but it appears they really mean count all the votes for Gore

 

[Russ]

<< Notice that the two machine counts were different? >>



Yes they were, by a statistically insignificant amount. If there were actually a significant variance, then one might be able to argue inaccuracy. This was not the case.

We will be having a similar situation here in Washington. In our Senate race, the democrat finished less then 2000 votes ahead in a count of over 2.4 million votes. The automatic recount may change that total slightly, but it will NOT change the outcome of the race.

Russ, NCNE

 

[ride525]

<< by a statistically insignificant amount >>



I partially agree. Statistically insignificant in most elections. However the 1,000 votes is VERY significant in a close election such as in Florida.