USA Politics Thread - *No gun debate*

[denoir 0]

Thinking that a vote count (or recount for that matter) will be 100% accurate is beyond naive. What you need is to set reasonable limits for when a re-election is triggered. For instance, if the difference in results is less than 1%, you do a new poll.

It is strange that these things havn't been dealed with after the questionable 2000 presidential election.

As for the current results in Washington state - look at the result as being within the margin of error. In short, a coin toss. It isn't all that unfair - the disputed votes are really few relative to the number that people that voted.

[shinRaiden 0]

The catch is that it's not naive, we have had perfect, or near perfect elections for years. Only since the County Executive began his purges did the problems begin.

In the past...

* all the military ballots were made sure they were actually moving in the Postal system long before the Federal deadlines to mail them

* If there was an error even by one ballot, the doors were closed and nobody went home until that ballot was found and accounted for

* Certfication reports were not made until the numbers matched up and were completely accurate

* If there was errors, there was never more than 5 cumulative, not the nearly 10 thousand "discrepancies, mistakes, and misplacements" that there were this time, and the thousands in the previous election

* Other counties in the state have not have had comparatively the same problem, just this one county

That's just it, it's rediculously inside the margin of error. The margin of error was already decided and announced days before (Monarchy) County finalized their tabulation due to the asynchronous announcment of election certification results. The margin originally was ~250 for the Republican, which triggered a automatic recount, and continued until the combined "damaged, misplaced, and found" ballots second recount swung the vote to 129 for the Democrat, out of nearly 3 million ballots cast. That margin was skewed by the thousand+ illegal ballots, and the thousands of ballots deliberately parked in the Mail room instead of being sent to the troops.

It's deliberate because they didn't have a problem doing it right before. They knew exactly how to run clean, honest, and documented elections, and conciously chose not to, to allow the uncontrollable chaos of nature to abuse the democratic process needlessly.

Of course there is stuff to be changed. Those changes were proposed in the legislature and shot down by the official who took advantage of the gross negligence to camp the governor's office. Why should she support measures to enforce honest elections, when it was dishonest elections that created the micro-margin to squeeze her in?

[miles teg 1]

I know... electronic voter fraud is so much cleaner!

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[General Barron 0]

Quote[/b] ]Thinking that a vote count (or recount for that matter) will be 100% accurate is beyond naive.

This is my favorite line of BS that I hear. Yeah right, we're supposed to just shut up and take it while our rights are being trampled. After all, "no vote can be 100% accurate". 100% accuracy should be the goal, and we should never settle for imperfection.

Why don't YOU try having your vote thrown in the garbage, and then see how it feels to have someone tell you "oh well, it can't be accurate".

Quote[/b] ]The disputed votes are really few relative to the number that people that voted.

The disputed votes are over 10x the margin of victory. How could you (or any of the democrats) possibly suggest that 140 votes is enough of a margin to put someone in office, but 1600 votes is "within the margin of error". That means that Gregiore won by less than 1/10th the margin of error. This reasoning defies logic. Your next statement is the only thing that makes sense:

Quote[/b] ]What you need is to set reasonable limits for when a re-election is triggered. For instance, if the difference in results is less than 1%, you do a new poll.

Which would mean that we should have a re-vote in Washington, as desired by the majority of the population.

However, the problems illustrated by Shinraiden and myself, among others, HAVE to be dealt with. A small "margin of error" is acceptable, but a "margin of incompetence/fraud" is NOT.

Quote[/b] ]The alleged Governer of the state made sure to railroad through the following among other items before this court hearing...

* provisions that entrench the corruption in the elections system

* drop a 9 & 1/2 cent hike in the gas tax to make the state the most onnerously taxed for the privilege of sitting parked in traffic on roads that are deliberately undersized to preven the spawl of the blight known as humanity,

* the adoption of the eco-facist repressive environmental policies of California,

* Gutting of voter initiatives attempting to curb the rampant growth of beauracracy,

* Repeal of business relief provisions, and the addition of additional heavy burdens on the backs of small business and farmers,

* Implementation of poison-pill measures to prevent the division of (Monarchy) County,

to add to the growing list of abuses of illegitimate office.

Oh, you forgot to add that they tacked on an "emergency clause" to most of these bills, thereby denying the citizens their constitutionaly-mandated right to referendum any of it.

Of course, there is no "emergency" in the state. It is just another way to ensure that us stupid plebs have no way to say "no" to the elites in government.

Quote[/b] ]For decades (Monarchy) County has had pristine elections... The current county executive... upon entering office immediately sacked all the department heads and replaced them with crony's, loyal party hacks, and other inept persons unqualified for their positions...

What are you talking about? I thought that the 2004 election WAS a "model for the rest of the world on how to run an election".

Our glorious governer said something to that effect not to long ago. It still cracks me up...

[denoir 0]

Quote[/b] ]Thinking that a vote count (or recount for that matter) will be 100% accurate is beyond naive.

This is my favorite line of BS that I hear. Yeah right, we're supposed to just shut up and take it while our rights are being trampled. After all, "no vote can be 100% accurate". 100% accuracy should be the goal, and we should never settle for imperfection.

Why don't YOU try having your vote thrown in the garbage, and then see how it feels to have someone tell you "oh well, it can't be accurate".

This only shows a basic lack of understanding of the stochastic nature of the world. As I said extremely naive. You have this in any and every election that has a significant number of people participating.

Even if you electronically ensure information integrity, you will have people accidentally vote for the wrong candidate. And that percentage is far higher than your 1600 votes.

Quote[/b] ]The disputed votes are over 10x the margin of victory. How could you (or any of the democrats) possibly suggest that 140 votes is enough of a margin to put someone in office, but 1600 votes is "within the margin of error". That means that Gregiore won by less than 1/10th the margin of error. This reasoning defies logic. Your next statement is the only thing that makes sense:

I'm claiming exactly the oppostie - the 140 votes are inside the margin of error (which in this case is +-1600 votes for just the known part). The real margin of error is of course far higher. You had about a million voters. Even an improbably low margin of error (including all factors), such as 1% equals +-10,000 votes. So the +-1600 votes is nothing to get upset over and the 140 result is completely statistically insignificant. As I said, a coin toss - a random result.

The only thing you can blame here is the state law that doesn't take into consideration the fact that you'll never get 100% precision.

[SFWanabe 0]

I know... electronic voter fraud is so much cleaner!

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

Thats why I love the paper ballot.

[General Barron 0]

Maybe you aren't fully reading the above posts, because you don't seem to understand the kinds of "errors" that were made in this last election.

You mean to tell me that it is statistically impossible to send ballots overseas on time? Or that it is statistically impossible for someone to NOT lie when signing a report saying "all ballots are accounted for"? Or that it is statistically impossible to have different shaped provisional ballots, so that you can tell the difference between them and regular ones?

There was a shameful amount of "errors" in this election which were entirely preventable. This is unacceptable. You can't just chalk it up to statistics and say "10% of people are retards, and those 10% are in power in King County. Sux for you guys."

EDIT

Quote[/b] ]You have this in any and every election that has a significant number of people participating.

I need only to ask you one question: are all elections equally accurate?

If your answer is "yes", then I would question your sanity. If the answer is "no", then are you saying that the Washington state election was relatively accurate, compared to other elections in the world?

[denoir 0]

Maybe you aren't fully reading the above posts, because you don't seem to understand the kinds of "errors" that were made in this last election.

You mean to tell me that it is statistically impossible to send ballots overseas on time? Or that it is statistically impossible for someone to NOT lie when signing a report saying "all ballots are accounted for"? Or that it is statistically impossible to have different shaped provisional ballots, so that you can tell the difference between them and regular ones?

There was a shameful amount of "errors" in this election which were entirely preventable. This is unacceptable. You can't just chalk it up to statistics and say "10% of people are retards, and those 10% are in power in King County. Sux for you guys."

The point is that if you have 5% of the people that are complete retards that can't differentiate between two names on a ballot (a low estimate), then your preventable error of 0.1% is irrelevant.

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]You have this in any and every election that has a significant number of people participating.

I need only to ask you one question: are all elections equally accurate?

If your answer is "yes", then I would question your sanity. If the answer is "no", then are you saying that the Washington state election was relatively accurate, compared to other elections in the world?

I think the biggest source of error is due to incompetent voters. How that error is distributed in different elections is something I don't know. When 11% (US average) of the population can't point to their country on the map, I'd say you are probably below the average in voter competency (source). I have no idea how Washington state relates to the rest of the country in that respect.

Anyhow, the point is that the preventable error introduced due to the technical incompetency of the people organizing the election is small compared to the incompetency introduced by the voters. In addition you have the counting error (if you are not using electronic voting), which is not insignificant. I remember that in Florida in 2000 they said something like 2-3% error margin in the counting of votes.

[General Barron 0]

Quote[/b] ]In addition you have the counting error (if you are not using electronic voting), which is not insignificant.

Funny you should mention that, because the first 2 counts (which showed the Republican in the lead) were done by machines. The final, optional recount was done by hand, which is considerably less accurate than the machine count.

Quote[/b] ]Anyhow, the point is that the preventable error introduced due to the technical incompetency of the people organizing the election is small compared to the incompetency introduced by the voters.

Okay, you're spinning like crazy on this one. If someone is too stupid to mark their ballot correctly, then THEY just made their own vote not count. That is THEIR problem for being retards. For better or for worse, we let retards vote in the US.

But when a county elections worker doesn't count your vote, then THEY are the ones making your vote not count. I don't see how you can say that is acceptable. I would ask you another question: what would you consider an 'illegitimate election'? If this one is legit, despite the incredible amount of incompetence, errors, and fraud, then what would it take to make an election unacceptable?

[shinRaiden 0]

Dino Rossi has just announced that he will not appeal the decision to the Washington State Supreme Court. This is not unexpected, as the most likely outcome would be the the Court sustaining by non-hearing of the case to avoid the political backlash.

Unfortunately, this confirms the "legitimacy" of incompetent elections, and a confirmation of deliberate neglect structured so that no charges of malfeasense can be sustained in court, but the results carried out all the same.

There were, unfortunately no specific Federal precedent charges in this case that would warrent Federal appeal. However, reports from the US Attorney General's office indicate that they've been waiting on the outcome of this case and the evidence compiled in the process before moving on any federal issue.

At this stage what remains could be a Federal case investigating the County Executive's office and the County Department of Elections for willfully failing to comply with Federal law requiring elections accomodation for military personel in specific, and the Constitutional clause mentioned above in general, although the only likely outcome would be for the Federal courts to levy punitive fines which would further burden the taxed-without-representation people of Washington State.

That's not the only stunt that this county has pulled off, the voters just forced them to reduce the county council size from 13 to 9, and the old-timers rigged the maps to split preciencts in half to sabatoge the elections process for certain outspoken council members. We've got a big county-wide caucus on Saturday that is not going to be pleasent after this abrogation of justice, especially when the county department of elections knew full long in advance that they were effectively disenfranchising voters, then they plan to find some excuse to conduct an unsanctioned redistricting right before the elections this fall.

Gen.B, I'm going to be over at the Meydenbauer in Bellevue all Saturday, I'd love to see you there if you've got time.

It's not naive to expect to have perfect elections when you've had them before.

[denoir 0]

It is legit because the law was followed in one way or another. Your real problem is with inadequate election rules. That's what you should be attacking, not the basically random outcome of the 04 election. A margin of 140 or 2000 votes is not enough when you have an election with a million voters.

As for the human error that I mentioned, it can be in many different forms, and it's difficult to assign legal blame there. What if the layout of the ballot was confusing for some people? What if they were given incorrect instructions at the polling station? etc

shinRaiden: When did you have a perfect election? You may cite any election in the history of the world involving over 100k people involved.

[ralphwiggum 6]

Blah blah blah..

I'll say what GOP said to Al Gore..concede. Maybe if it is too hard for GOP in WA to swallow what was said by them before, then they seriously need to do some soul searching.

[Akira 0]

I highly doubt you would all have your panties in a bunch if the Republican candidate had "stolen the election."

I doubt you were so concerned with voter disenfranchisment in Florida in 2000, or the documented discrepencies in Ohio the last election.

Get over it and move on.

[General Barron 0]

I highly doubt you would all have your panties in a bunch if the Republican candidate had "stolen the election."

I doubt you were so concerned with voter disenfranchisment in Florida in 2000, or the documented discrepencies in Ohio the last election.

Get over it and move on.

Quote[/b] ]I'll say what GOP said to Al Gore..concede. Maybe if it is too hard for GOP in WA to swallow what was said by them before, then they seriously need to do some soul searching.

I did not vote in the 2000 election. I was 16 and wasn't really that into politics. It didn't happen in my state, and I didn't have a brother who was personally disenfranchised like I do now. So I don't know the details of that election like I do with this one.

If problems like this occured in 2000 or in Ohio, then I don't condone that either. However, this logic of "2 wrongs make a right" doesn't make any sense. Elections should be a non-partisan issue. Just because it happens to "the other guy" doesn't mean you should condone injustice, which is exactly what you are doing when you and others say "get over it", despite evidence that injustice has been done.

Quote[/b] ]It is legit because the law was followed in one way or another. Your real problem is with inadequate election rules.

Wrong. Again, you are ignorant of the facts of the case. The law was not followed, and that is why I am so pissed.

[sputnik monroe 102]

I lived in washington my entire life. I left two years ago and let me tell you, it is an incredibly corrupt place to live.

    The whole state is run controled by King County, though I've never lived in eastern washington I feel for them the most. How much money is ever actually spent on them? I mean you never hear any thing on the news in western washington about the other side of the damn mountain, its like they don't exist.

    I was talking to friend on the phone the other day who still lives in washington. He told me something like 80% or some astronomical amount of the spending so far has gone into king county this year so far and next to nothing in eastern washington.

     In all fairness I think eastern washington should be the 51st state so they can actually govern them selves. As it is now they pay taxes to build stadiums and bridges for Seattle on the other side of the mountains and get nothing in return.

     As for corruption king country certainly doesn't have a monopoly on it in that state. Try Mason county if you want to see the stereotypical 'good ol' boy mentality in effect. Nothing in Mason county but crooked cops, lawyers, judges, and there friends dealing meth, killing people, an stealing homes. There has got to be more pawn shops per square inch in mason county and kitsap county than any other spot in the known universe.

     Argh sorry for the rant. I'm actually moving back later this summer, and half of me is really dreading it. I have some bad memories from just before I left. It's definetly not the same place I grew up in.

[sputnik monroe 102]

Quote[/b] ] highly doubt you would all have your panties in a bunch if the Republican candidate had "stolen the election."

I doubt you were so concerned with voter disenfranchisment in Florida in 2000, or the documented discrepencies in Ohio the last election.

Get over it and move on.

   I'm trying to be an indipendant here, don't take this as an attack Akira. But if you really cared about the so called disenfranchisment of voters in Florida shouldn't you care about it in Washington?

    Personally I think if you want to raise hell about Florida then you're required to raise hell about Washington also. If you do not then you are a morally bankrupt partisan loyalist.

Quote[/b] ]highly doubt you would all have your panties in a bunch if the Republican candidate had "stolen the election."

 

     It sounds like you're calling the kettle black my friend.  It could be construed that your panties would not have been in a bunch for Florida if Gore had stole it, seeing as you don't care about Washington.

    I'm not saying the above are facts about you, only that things could be construed that way. Perhaps you could make your position a little more clear?  

     Right now it looks like if the discrepancies lean towards the republicans you demand justice, though if they lean towards the democrats... well then move on.

[shinRaiden 0]

I lived in washington my entire life. I left two years ago and let me tell you, it is an incredibly corrupt place to live.

The whole state is run controled by King County, though I've never lived in eastern washington I feel for them the most. How much money is ever actually spent on them? I mean you never hear any thing on the news in western washington about the other side of the damn mountain, its like they don't exist.

I was talking to friend on the phone the other day who still lives in washington. He told me something like 80% or some astronomical amount of the spending so far has gone into king county this year so far and next to nothing in eastern washington.

In all fairness I think eastern washington should be the 51st state so they can actually govern them selves. As it is now they pay taxes to build stadiums and bridges for Seattle on the other side of the mountains and get nothing in return.

As for corruption king country certainly doesn't have a monopoly on it in that state. Try Mason county if you want to see the stereotypical 'good ol' boy mentality in effect. Nothing in Mason county but crooked cops, lawyers, judges, and there friends dealing meth, killing people, an stealing homes. There has got to be more pawn shops per square inch in mason county and kitsap county than any other spot in the known universe.

Argh sorry for the rant. I'm actually moving back later this summer, and half of me is really dreading it. I have some bad memories from just before I left. It's definetly not the same place I grew up in.

Except that Ron Sims and Christine Gregoire won't let you go. We're trying that in (Monarchy) County, but the courts have ruled that the citizens are not allowed to amend the county "charter", the secretary of state refuses to consider petitions for initiatives to alter state law to allow distressed citizens to secede from the county and form a new viable county, and the legislature further complicated it with poison-pill provisions requiring unreasonable petition requirements and restricted signature gathering windows, in an effort to reduce the opportunity that widely scattered rural residents have to gather the petitions to appeal for redress.

It's not just Eastern Washington that has been abandoned, I live in SE (Monarchy) County in the infamous rural Growth Management Area. The ordinances imposed in the latest round of restrictions would have even blocked the construction of rural Firestations to prevent the chance of the 'blight' of sprawl. Emminent Domain has been exercised liberally to cut swaths of "trails" across private property, with the intent of restricting access and usability of existing "property" on either side of easements along said "trails". Once the rural residents have been forced to forclose through inability to meet ever increasing tax burdens, their land is sold at auction, generally to well-heeled eco-terrorist fronts who systematicly lock the land away, have it branded as "wilderness preserve", mandate setbacks onto adjoining property, and repeat anew.

Each year the state declares "worse droughts than the year before" and does so during some of the biggest spring rainstorms. Meanwhile they aggressively work to dynamite dams, starting with the irrigation dams, exponentially magnifying the alleged "droughts" and giving cause to exercise "emminent domain" again and sieze clearly deeded water rights throughout Eastern Washington.

As for perfect elections, in 2000 there was 1 provisional ballot identified as having been stuffed into the scanner illegally. In 2001, there was 0. In 2002, there were 9. In 2004, no accurate number was ever verifyably produced, best guesses put it at between 660 admitted, >900 estimated.

[denoir 0]

Wrong. Again, you are ignorant of the facts of the case. The law was not followed, and that is why I am so pissed.

The courts don't agree with you. And as an external observer, they hold a bit more credibility than a republican voter with an obvious party bias.

Quote[/b] ]

As for perfect elections, in 2000 there was 1 provisional ballot identified as having been stuffed into the scanner illegally. In 2001, there was 0. In 2002, there were 9. In 2004, no accurate number was ever verifyably produced, best guesses put it at between 660 admitted, >900 estimated.

You didn't have recounts in 2000,2001 and 2002. The low numbers previous years shows that a bad verification method had been used. Had they taken a second look, the results would have been different.

[ralphwiggum 6]

    Personally I think if you want to raise hell about Florida then you're required to raise hell about Washington also. If you do not then you are a morally bankrupt partisan loyalist.

and vice versa. please note that it was GOP that first suggested that other side need to concede. if the law was to be applied correctly, it would have been a recount in FL. But instead the Supreme court was summoned. and the result is what we have in Washington.

[SFWanabe 0]

Quote[/b] ] it is an incredibly corrupt place to live.

Then you havent got out much,because there are more places alot corrupt than washington state.

[Akira 0]

Quote[/b] ] I'm trying to be an indipendant here, don't take this as an attack Akira. But if you really cared about the so called disenfranchisment of voters in Florida shouldn't you care about it in Washington?

Personally I think if you want to raise hell about Florida then you're required to raise hell about Washington also. If you do not then you are a morally bankrupt partisan loyalist.

It sounds like you're calling the kettle black my friend. It could be construed that your panties would not have been in a bunch for Florida if Gore had stole it, seeing as you don't care about Washington.

I'm not saying the above are facts about you, only that things could be construed that way. Perhaps you could make your position a little more clear?

Right now it looks like if the discrepancies lean towards the republicans you demand justice, though if they lean towards the democrats... well then move on.

I do indeed care about the disenfranchisement of any voter, as I stated in our discussion about "mob rule"/populist vote But just like in Florida and just like in Ohio, nothing is going to get done. Democrats were shouted down during those discrepencies by Republicans, but now Republicans demand to be heard about their own discrepencies. Perhaps I am being hypocritical from a GOP standpoint, but in my view they are as well.

I'm not going to deny that my moral outrage is not somewhat diminished by the fact that the Democrats won, as right now, one less Republican in power is good for this nation (in my humble opinion). However, given the trend in the recent elections, this is becoming a very worrying problem. It shouldn't be focused on who won, but who was disenfranchised and what these problems are. Demand that they be fixed, especially by the next election. It can be done I assure you, if the political fire is held to their asses.

The problem is with our election system, not just any one particular area. I can name a dozen counties in this state that had voting discrepencies, and members (both incumbants and first timers, both Dem and Rep) were defeated because of those. Voting problems are now the norm, not the exception, and it is rooted in an antiquated system designed to disenfranchise voters. It's just that now that the technology is available to be more exact and instantanous, these issues are becoming even more obvious.

I should also mention that while I seem a loyal Dem, I'm not. It's just that my moral compass points far to the left of the current neo-political/religious ideaology. If Dems were in power I would find reasons to bitch at them too, since in my view both parties just advanced the status quo without any true human advancement.

[Akira 0]

Quote[/b] ]Elections should be a non-partisan issue.

Elections are probably the most partisan event you can participate in.

Quote[/b] ]Just because it happens to "the other guy" doesn't mean you should condone injustice, which is exactly what you are doing when you and others say "get over it", despite evidence that injustice has been done.

No. It's what the GOP said to the Dems when these very discrepencies popped up in a national election. Dems raised a ruckus about it and nothing was done. Now that it affects the GOP it is suddenly the worst injustice perputrated upon this great nation.

Here. Lemme make it more clear what I am trying to get at, sans politics:

Quote[/b] ]hy·poc·ri·sy Audio pronunciation of "hypocrisy" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (h-pkr-s)

n. pl. hy·poc·ri·sies

1. The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.

2. An act or instance of such falseness.

hypocrisy

n 1: an expression of agreement that is not supported by real conviction [syn: lip service] 2: insincerity by virtue of pretending to have qualities or beliefs that you do not really have

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]No. It's what the GOP said to the Dems when these very discrepencies popped up in a national election. Dems raised a ruckus about it and nothing was done. Now that it affects the GOP it is suddenly the worst injustice perputrated upon this great nation.

But, doesn't this also make the dems. hypocrites then? They moan about the 2000 presidential election and they want the republicans to move on also about discrpencies and etc.  

Quote[/b] ]I'm not going to deny that my moral outrage is not somewhat diminished by the fact that the Democrats won, as right now, one less Republican in power is good for this nation (in my humble opinion).

say what..

[Akira 0]

Quote[/b] ]But, doesn't this also make the dems. hypocrites then? They moan about the 2000 presidential election and they want the republicans to move on also about discrpencies and etc

Whether it does or doesn't, why should Democrats care if a GOP loses, if the GOP didn't care when the Dems lost? If you cry just because you lost and not because thousands got disenfranchised then you are a hypocrite. I'm worried about the voters, not the GOP or Dems.

[denoir 0]

Given the current EU debate, I'm a bit curious about how the US federal vs. state law works. How do you regulate which decisions are taken on a federal level and which are decided on the state level? Can Congress introduce any legislation that would override state law?