The Florida Recounts.

Just after been a brilliant movie on RTE2 about the 2000 presidency election in Florida. Never seen it before so it was a surprise.

Detailed all the extraordinary legal twists and turns for the nearly 4 weeks it continued.

I couldn't help wondering if the world would be a different place now if the US supreme court ruled differently.

A footnote of the Supreme court ruling was that the ruling could never be used again - sort of.

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

Just after been a brilliant movie on RTE2 about the 2000 presidency election in Florida. Never seen it before so it was a surprise.

Detailed all the extraordinary legal twists and turns for the nearly 4 weeks it continued.

I couldn't help wondering if the world would be a different place now if the US supreme court ruled differently.

A footnote of the Supreme court ruling was that the ruling could never be used again - sort of.

I don't understand why Al Gore backed down: did the film explain that ?

Both sides seem to be squaring up to fight over votes this time.

Yes it did cactus.

The Law stated that if the state secretary (Katherin Harris) could not certify the election and allocate the electroal college votes by Dec 12th, then the state legislature (Republican) could allocate the college.

But the Supreme court hearing was delayed until the 11th Dec. and than the ruling went against him. He still had options but he was then in a position where even if he could won, he could not win. (As they put it in the movie). He had to walk away.

Gore wimped out.

As is seen in the scenes from the Senate shown three minutes into the opening of Fahrenheit 9/11

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbgCttq8L_8

I remember how angry voters were about it at the time, and angry with him for walking away. So he had no choice?

Post crossed with Helium3

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

Just after been a brilliant movie on RTE2 about the 2000 presidency election in Florida. Never seen it before so it was a surprise.

Detailed all the extraordinary legal twists and turns for the nearly 4 weeks it continued.

I couldn't help wondering if the world would be a different place now if the US supreme court ruled differently.

A footnote of the Supreme court ruling was that the ruling could never be used again - sort of.

This was the first time in Supreme court history that such a ruling, which could not be referenced again, occured. The raison d'etre of the US supreme court is to create such rulings so that they become the ultimate and final reference of law. The nature of their ruling is, therefore, a negation of their raison d'etre. In effect, they've set a precedent for their own demise due to political bias. A terrible state of affairs, imo, on a society which is supposed to be based on the impartial rule of law.

rockyracoon wrote:

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

Just after been a brilliant movie on RTE2 about the 2000 presidency election in Florida. Never seen it before so it was a surprise.

Detailed all the extraordinary legal twists and turns for the nearly 4 weeks it continued.

I couldn't help wondering if the world would be a different place now if the US supreme court ruled differently.

A footnote of the Supreme court ruling was that the ruling could never be used again - sort of.

This was the first time in Supreme court history that such a ruling, which could not be referenced again, occured. The raison d'etre of the US supreme court is to create such rulings so that they become the ultimate and final reference of law. The nature of their ruling is, therefore, a negation of their raison d'etre. In effect, they've set a precedent for their own demise due to political bias. A terrible state of affairs, imo, on a society which is supposed to be based on the impartial rule of law.

Jaysus, I hadn't thought about it that way Rocky. Now it sounds like they have sown deadly seeds of self destruction. However, they had to sort something out as I think they were facing a constitutiional black hole the very next day.

I find it amazing there was noot violence on the streets over this. Big violence. 20000 people were refused at polling stations because thay had names similar to convicted felons ! wtf ?

20000 people were refused at polling stations because thay had names similar to convicted felons ! wtf ?

Perhaps that's why people are voting early this time. Aragon was saying that Oprah lost her vote on an evotingmachine.

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

Just after been a brilliant movie on RTE2 about the 2000 presidency election in Florida. Never seen it before so it was a surprise.

It's been on twice in the past two days. And I didn't watch it either time (Schindler's List and Sharpe got in the way. Does anyone remember Sharpe?).

I saw that it contained Kevin Spacey and developed the suspicion that it would turn out to be a David Gale-like moral lecture. It certainly seemed to present a dichotomy of smug, oily, maninpulative Republicans on one side and brave, selfless, public-minded Democrats on the other. Might versus right and all of that.

Your suspicion was correct. It was very much biased against the GOP, portrayed them as evil villians almost. Some will say that is correct though. Good movie all the same.

It highlighted the failure of using machines to do a job in which humans have a very high emotional interest. And this was a VVAT system , never mind a purely software based sysyem.

North Carolina may turn out to be a decider in this one. They use two types of machine.

http://www.sboe.state.nc.us/getdocument.aspx?id=295

Hopefully they emptied out the chads in Florida..

Didn't have time to post this last week. This was Robert Kennedy Jnr on the Rachel Maddow show 2 or 3 weeks ago enumerating the ways votes can go awry. My head was in my hands by half way through his list...

http://electionfraudblog.com/2008/robert-kennedy-jr-on-rachel-maddow-steal-back-your-vote/

Atticus wrote:

Didn't have time to post this last week. This was Robert Kennedy Jnr on the Rachel Maddow show 2 or 3 weeks ago enumerating the ways votes can go awry. My head was in my hands by half way through his list...

http://electionfraudblog.com/2008/robert-kennedy-jr-on-rachel-maddow-steal-back-your-vote/

So... any verdict on the e-voting machines ?

cactus flower wrote:

Atticus wrote:

Didn't have time to post this last week. This was Robert Kennedy Jnr on the Rachel Maddow show 2 or 3 weeks ago enumerating the ways votes can go awry. My head was in my hands by half way through his list...

http://electionfraudblog.com/2008/robert-kennedy-jr-on-rachel-maddow-steal-back-your-vote/

So... any verdict on the e-voting machines ?

By all accounts, they are an abomination to democracy. There are numerous instances (O Wimpfrey being one) where the touch screens didn't work, and there is no verifiable audit trail. Plus each state has different systems. While not that important, the Democractic Congress should pass laws on uniformity, audit trails, hacker-proof and standard operating procedures across the US.

The result was nice and quick. There was definitely a problem of not enough machines in places where the vote was higher than usual.

The US public seem to want a system that issues a print out, that is kept for future verification. Much more costly, I suppose, but much safer.

At the moment, according to CNN the voting machine services are provided by different private commercial operators, so they can't be consistent.

cactus flower wrote:

The result was nice and quick. There was definitely a problem of not enough machines in places where the vote was higher than usual.

The US public seem to want a system that issues a print out, that is kept for future verification. Much more costly, I suppose, but much safer.

At the moment, according to CNN the voting machine services are provided by different private commercial operators, so they can't be consistent.

Bold = the rub. There is no audit trail. If I cast a paper ballor, there is physical evidence of its existence and it is in a centralised location. If I press a button and get paper printout which I take away with me, there is no direct link between the printouts and the entire vote cast (whole issues regarding to where the electronic votes end up in the system as there is usually several different electronic storage sites [buckets]). Can you imagine calling several million voters and asking them to hand in their print outs in order to verify a recount?

A lot of the US machines are not strictly voting machines, they are ballot paper readers. This leaves the original ballot paper intact.

Under our proposed system, the ballot paper does not even exist.

The printout is a receipt which allows you to confirm your ballot paper was properly scanned.