A Modest Proposal

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I know, I know, this is an impractical and unconstitutional proposal. I raise it only out of frustration. If a football game ends in a tie, there is a procedure to continue the game until the tie is broken. That procedure differs for college and pros. The important point is that it is a pre-agreed procedure. The tied game does not go to court to see if any referee decisions could be reversed to break the tie.

I maintain that this election is a tie. I say that any election that is "won" by less than 1/2% (to pick a number) of the total vote is a tie. In the future there should be be well-defined, pre-agreed tie-breaking procedures.

In this election there are no such procedures. So here is my modest proposal--repeat the national election. Do it quickly, say in two weeks. Do not allow exit poll results to be published before all voting is over. Do not include the minor candidates--the Dems should like this condition because they could pick up some Nader votes. Just do it again. The chances of it coming out identical to the first election are infinitessimal. But if it does prove to be another tie, then it's coin-flip time.

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), November 25, 2000

Answers

Not exactly modest. Do you realize how much that would cost? Besides the cost, the main problem is of course, fraud. Now that Republicans are aware of the vulnerability of the system, they will seek to capitalize on it. This would be quite easy for them to do, particularly if absentee voting is permitted.

Our entire voting system is going to have to be overhauled before the next election, probably using a computerized ATM type voting system. Hopefully by referencing its own database, such a system would be able to prevent fraudulent voting. Of course there is probably a possibility that the system could be hacked, so it would have to be locked out to all but those with the highest security clearance.

-- (without.fraud@gore.would.win), November 25, 2000.


How about a duel? A pistol shooting contest? stand off at 50 paces and shoot away.

-- JoseMiami (josenmiami@yahoo.com), November 25, 2000.

Lars,

>I maintain that this election is a tie.

No, it's not. It's just taking longer than usual to determine who won because the score is so close that the refs have to carefully add up points for each side.

Usually, the big election game has a large enough margin of victory that everyone can tell who won when there are still a few million points not yet completely added up. Not this time -- it's close, r-e-a-l-l-y close.

>In the future there should be be well-defined, pre-agreed tie-breaking procedures.

The U.S. Constitution already has well-defined, pre-agreed tie-breaking procedures. We haven't yet gotten to the point where they start. The overtime period hasn't yet begun.

It seems that Florida has some problems in scoring their state's election game. A week ago they were momentarily distracted by football.

>In this election there are no such procedures.

You're just impatient. The election game clock ticks slower than a football game clock. :-)

-- No Spam Please (nos_pam_please@hotmail.com), November 25, 2000.


No spam--

I cannot prove how accurately we can tally votes on a national scale. Maybe you disagree with my arbitrary 1/2% but wouldn't you admit that there is some inherent innaccuracy in vote counting (I'm ignoring outright fraud)?

What would you say if the national vote difference was, say, 10? And if that 10 were for the candidate not of your choice. (I am assuming that you do not favor the EC)

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), November 25, 2000.


Lars,

>Maybe you disagree with my arbitrary 1/2% but wouldn't you admit that there is some inherent innaccuracy in vote counting (I'm ignoring outright fraud)?

Okay, but most of the time it doesn't make any difference in determining the winner.

>(I am assuming that you do not favor the EC)

Oh, but I _do_ favor the Electoral College. See my thread about a good article on this subject, [Government] Electoral College: "Math Against Tyranny" at http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=00435Q

-- No Spam Please (nos_pam_please@hotmail.com), November 27, 2000.



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