16 Years After Bush v. Gore, Still Wrestling With Ballot-Box Rules

Fans of democracy must not give up hope.
About a dozen states have enacted common sense, non-partisan redistricting commissions, so the politicians can't choose their own voters any more.
This will increase the number of swing districts and lessen the number of deep red-wing-nut safe seats, so that the House is once again responsive to the will of the people.
This is a relatively easy fix that voters in every state should be clamoring for.

I can understand how people don't think there's any point in voting. There are plenty of reasons to be disillusioned, but if you think about it enough you realize that in a democracy, unless there is widespread fraud or intimidation (there isn't), you get the government you deserve.

Unless people think that one day politicians will suddenly decide to change the status quo they benefit from, they have two choices: the ballot or the bullet. The ballot seems much easier to me.

This hasn't proven to be a popular message on other forums. Please don't kill the messenger.

"He who votes counts for nothing. He who counts the votes counts for everything." - Stalin

"The strongest argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." - Churchill

"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others."
- Churchill

Analysts already conclude that only the 2016 party winner of Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Nevada, Colorado, Iowa and New Hampshire (with 86 electoral votes among them) is not a foregone conclusion.

So, if the National Popular Vote bill is not in effect, less than a handful of states will continue to dominate and determine the presidential general election.

Now minority party voters in presidential elections in each state don't matter to their candidate.

And now votes, beyond the one needed to get the most votes in the state, for winning in a state, are wasted and don't matter to candidates.

In 2008, voter turnout in the then 15 battleground states averaged seven points higher than in the 35 non-battleground states.

In 2012, voter turnout was 11% higher in the then 9 battleground states than in the remainder of the country.

In the 2012 presidential election, 1.3 million votes decided the winner in the ten states with the closest margins of victory. But nearly 20 million eligible citizens in those states—Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin—are missing from the voter rolls.

Overall, these “missing voters” amount to half, and in some cases more than half, of the total votes cast for president in these states.

"Reflecting on baseball attendance, the philosopher Yogi Berra observed that “if people don’t want to come to the ballpark, how are you going to stop them?”

The problem with the above is that it wasn't Yogi Berra who said it, but film producer Sam Goldwyn (substitute "pictures" for "ballpark").

The most atrocious part of Bush v. Gore was the tossing of the Constitution. Under Article II, the states are responsible in determining how their electors are to be decided, and Congress is responsible for setting a date for the electors to meet. If Florida couldn't figure out how to certify their vote by the deadline, then the provisions within the 12th Amendment should have kicked in: if a candidate does not receive a majority of the electors, the House of Representatives, using 1 vote per state, is supposed to determine who the next president will be. With the Republicans holding the House at that point, Bush would still have won, but at least, it would have followed the procedures outlined in the Constitution.

I voted for Gore in 2000, but of the all the in-depth post-analysis including that by this paper they have concluded that if the re-count were allow to continue that George W. Bush would still have prevailed.

We'll never truly know since it was not allowed by the states-rights majority on the Supreme Court voting in one of its infamous 5-4 decisions. So all those what-ifs will be left by the wayside. Al sold out to Al Jazeera and is a very wealthy man and I hope a happy one.

Life goes on. I'll be voting for Hillary in April. Have A Happy Monday, all.

DD
Manhattan

Here in North Carolina, the Republican majority is working non-stop to re-write voting laws in way that would impede voting by groups that do not traditionally support them. The clear evidence that their intent is to deny voting rights, as opposed to "preventing fraud", as they claim? Six years after they have taken control, the one area of voting that they have actually made easier, not more restrictive, is voting by mail. Not coincidentally, this is the voting method most easily abused but, surprise, surprise, since it is used overwhelmingly by Republicans, no voter identification is required.

The only comfort to be taken is that when a party's central plan for clinging to power is to rig the election, their days are numbered, and they know it. Otherwise, they would not feel the need to rig the elections in the first place.

Biggest theft of an election ever.

Losing ballots not counting ballots etc....what a joke.

I went to vote Tuesday in early voting for our Super Tuesday Primary.

The electronic voting machine is proprietary, has no way of being properly audited for security, is based upon an outdated version of Windows, has no paper receipt for the voter and has a GUI that is right out of a Commodore 64.

In 2016 I can buy and sell stocks, buy merchandise, borrow money, pay my taxes, go to school, apply for a job, pay my bills and check my medical record online from my home or mobile device. In order to vote, I have to jump through stupid requirements that are more theater than protection and stand in line to use an outdated and doubtless insecure modified Windows PC to vote with no paper trail or independent security audit.

What is wrong with this picture?

I remember the multiple recounts when Al Franken was first elected to the Senate from Minnesota. The Times published PDFs of the disputed ballots (thank you, Times), and I examined many of them. While some "ambiguous" ballets were marked for Franken's opponent (I can't even remember his name -- Norm Coleman?), far more of those "ambiguous" ballots were clearly marked for Franken. Frankly, there was a lot less ambiguity there than I'd expected to see.

"Voter fraud" is a phony issue made up as a wedge by GOP strategists and intended to depress voting.
Voters beware. In their pursuit of permanent power, the Repubs are using the Constitution as Cottonelle.