Kristin writes: <<PS. As regards the Florida situation -- I think it's obvious that there was a problem with the Palm Beach ballot; MSNBC showed how the ballot looked once it was put in the voting machine, and it was almost impossible to tell which arrow lined up with which hole. And they've had so many interviews with people who are just horrified that they inadvertantly voted for Pat Buchanan. That just isn't right, and since it does make a difference -- Bush currently leads Gore by less than 800 votes! -- I think that county should get to vote again.>> According to one Florida Congressman (Wexler-D), nearly twenty THOUSAND ballots in Palm Beach alone were invalidated because they contained more than one vote for President. Moreover, in a highly Democratic county, Buchanan got FIVE TIMES more votes than he did in even more populous and more conservative counties. And while some people have argued that stupidity is not a valid reason for a revote, in this particular case, I honestly think that that is the only fair solution in this case, especially when the vote is so close. [In fact, I would go so far as to say that the fairest thing would be to invalidate the entire machine ballot in Florida and repeat it.] In any case, though, I think two things are virtually guaranteed: (1) The winner, whomever it may be, will not be able to claim any sort of "mandate," and will probably be seen by many as a "fraudulent" President, regardless of how the situation turns out. [Is it really fair that one horribly-designed ballot will tip the scales in the election for/against one candidate? This also speaks volumes to the undesirability of ALL the candidates in this election; I'm a fairly liberal Democrat, and I voted for Gore largely because all the other candidates scared me more (I point out I would sooner vote for Cthulhu than any of the conservative candidates).] (2) There will be calls to abolish the Electoral College and switch over to a direct-vote system. Whether optimal or not, the call will go out (one poll found the public in favor of abolishing the EC 3 to 1). --STI
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