The popular vote -- let's clear this up

[Elmo]

Anyone who really knows about this stuff, please jump in here with corrections or confirmation.

I've been doing a little checking into this whole popular vote business. There's a few points that the Gore campaign and, apparently, the press doesn't want America to know.

From what I've read and heard, the "popular vote count" we keep seeing is absolutely meaningless.

First, it is meaningless from a legal/Constitutional standpoint. We use the electoral college system. Period. Both campaigns know this.

Second -- and here's the part nobody seems to talk about -- it is meaningless because it is NOT ACCURATE. Right now, there are approximately 1.5 million uncounted votes out there. Many of these votes may NEVER be counted.

Why? See the first reason. As far as certain states are concerned, these votes are IRRELEVANT.

Some absentee ballots may never be counted and why should they? If a state shows candidate A winning by 5000 votes and there are 3500 absentee ballots, those absentee ballots will make no difference whatsoever. Since the popular vote doesn't matter (except to Bill Daley and idiot reporters), there is no reason to count them. Candidate A won. End of issue.

The Wall Street Journal reports this morning that Gore's actual popular vote lead is down to about 95,000 votes. Bush won in twenty-nine states. How many of those states have absentee ballots which won't be counted because Bush won decisively without them? What is the REAL popular vote total?

And, more importantly, if the REAL total for Bush surpassed Gore, would Daley still want to follow "the will of the people"?

 

[kjm]

Excellent point that I had not considered! I think in this election though, all those absentee ballots should be counted. The electoral college in approximately half the states doesn't have to vote the way the states went. If they feel like they'll vote the will of the entire people, against their state, then they need to know going in that the Popular vote is too close to consider any particular winner. It isn't a legal position, but a moral one, and I'd hate for Bush to technically win the EC, but lose it because of some renegade EC member.

 

[Brett Bellmore]

Elmo: You are both right, and wrong: As far as the Presidential vote is concerned, many of the absentee ballots which haven't yet been counted are irrelevant.

BUT. Those people weren't just voting for President, were they? There were like 20 offices on MY ballot, and I'd be remarkably pissed off if my vote for county clerk got thrown away just because Detroit determined who got Michigan's electoral votes.

They ARE going to all get counted, as is only right and proper.

------------------
Sic semper tyrannis!

 

[Mike Irwin]

The Democrats are simply pandering to public sentiment.

Warren Christopher was on CNN yesterday afternoon, and his comments repeatedly stressed, in a guarded and obtuse way, the popular voting totals as being somehow "more legitimate" than the electoral college.

By doing so, the Democrats are actively subverting the Constitution and are seeking to replace the rule of law with the rule of the mob.

That's the critical point -- that the United States is a nation run by rule of law. The Democrats are attempting to break the rule of law to bring around results they couldn't get on Election Day, which is the day designation by the Constitution and Federal Law as the day the people vote for Electors, who then vote for President.

If the Democrats are unhappy with the current system of how we choose the President, then Democratic representatives are perfectly free to introduce legislation in Congress that would change the Constitution and replace the Electoral College with popular vote.

But they are NOT free to make an end run around the Constitution in an attempt to gain illegally what they did not gain legally on Election Day.

------------------
Smith & Wesson is dead to me.

If you want a Smith & Wesson, buy USED!