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US Election Returns

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US Election Returns
By: Peter on 11/3/2000; 7:15 PM

Okay then, never mind. I think I will add an in-depth attack on Al Gore to VOU, anyway. Hopefully it will be finished and up before Tuesday. :-)

BTW, I plan to stay up the night of the elections, as they will be covered on BBC1, but I do wonder what time a result will be clear. I probably won't go to bed at all that night, and although I have had sleepless nights before, I have never had college the next day. Does anyone know approximately what time all fifty states will have declared? I must add five hours to Eastern Time of course. I do hope it will be before 4.00 am as I have to be at college then (9.00am in Britain).

Peter.

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RE: US Election Returns
By: Brian Carnell on 11/3/2000; 7:16 PM

At 05:33 PM 11/3/00 +0000, you wrote:
>Msg #: http://www.voicesofunreason.com/fullthread$1103#VU1103
>Site URL: http://www.voicesofunreason.com/
>----------------------------------
>
>Okay then, never mind. I think I will add an in-depth attack on Al Gore to
VOU, anyway. Hopefully it will be finished and up before Tuesday. :-)
>
>BTW, I plan to stay up the night of the elections, as they will be covered
on BBC1, but I do wonder what time a result will be clear. I probably won't
go to bed at all that night, and although I have had sleepless nights
before, I have never had college the next day. Does anyone know
approximately what time all fifty states will have declared? I must add
five hours to Eastern Time of course. I do hope it will be before 4.00 am
as I have to be at college then (9.00am in Britain).

That's a good question. In 1998 California's polls were open until 11 p.m.
eastern time, and Alaska's polling was open until midnight Eastern time. On
the other hand, an apparent winner will emerge long before then. I would
expect that if states stick to the polling schedule they did in 1998, the
major broadcast news outlets in the U.S. will declare a winner by 9 p.m.
eastern time.



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US Election Returns
By: ScottN on 11/3/2000; 2:41 PM

I don't think the networks will declare someone prior to 8PM PST. Unlike 1988, California, Oregon and Washington are all big battlegrounds this year.

Oh, and polling isn't over until 8PM HST (GMT-10, I think). PST is GMT-8, so 8PM PST would be 4AM GMT, just so you know, Peter.

Scott

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Re: US Election Returns
By: Brian Carnell on 11/3/2000; 3:17 PM

At 06:57 PM 11/3/00 +0000, Scott wrote:

>I don't think the networks will declare someone prior to 8PM PST. Unlike
1988, California, Oregon and Washington are all big battlegrounds this year.

Realistically California, Oregon and Washington probably don't matter
(sorry Mark) as far as calling the election at 9 p.m. If 9 p.m. Eastern
rolls around and Bush doesn't have the projected 270 votes he needs to win,
then what you've got is a surprising comeback win by Gore. It's very
difficult to imagine any sort of scenario where Gore ends up pulling out
Florida, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Wisconsin at the list minute (which he
realistically needs to do to win), but then not only doesn't have 270 by 9
p.m. but goes on to lose California.

I think a far more interesting thing will be how calling the election early
affects the vote for Nader in Western states.



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Re: US Election Returns
By: ScottN on 11/3/2000; 3:33 PM

I think a far more interesting thing will be how calling the election early affects the vote for Nader in Western states.

This sort of thing is exactly why we need either

a) A uniform poll closing time, or
b) a ban on reporting results until all the polls have closed.

I tend to be a First Amendment absolutist, so I'd have to go with A.

Come on guys, in '88 we had Dukakis giving his concession speech before the polls closed in CA!

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RE: US Election Returns
By: Brian Carnell on 11/3/2000; 4:06 PM

At 07:49 PM 11/3/00 +0000, Scott wrote:

>This sort of thing is exactly why we need either
>a) A uniform poll closing time, or
>I tend to be a First Amendment absolutist, so I'd have to go with A....
>Come on guys, in '88 we had Dukakis giving his concession speech before
the polls closed in CA!

There are two ways to do this -- close polls early on the West Coast or
keep them open longer on the East Coast. If you force California to close
polls at 8 p.m. Eastern time that would probably work, but I suspect it
would be very unpopular in West Coast states.

OTOH, keeping polls in the East open til midnight simply wouldn't work for
more than maybe one election. News outlets believe that if they are the
first to report that Bush or Gore is president that this gives them
additional credibility and, hopefully, higher future ratings. If you force
say Michigan to keep polls open until 11 p.m. Eastern, the news outlets
will simply call the election based on exit polling before any polls close
(and I have little doubt they could do so reliably given how few voters are
going to show up to vote on the East coast after 8 or 9 p.m. Eastern even
if the polls are open).



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Re: US Election Returns
By: Peter on 11/3/2000; 4:19 PM

Goodness! That does seem strange. All our polls close at 2200 hours, and the BBC does not broadcast the opinion poll findings of that day until a few seconds after 2200 hours. What you have said seems very strange.

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RE: US Election Returns
By: Brian Carnell on 11/3/2000; 4:39 PM

Peter wrote,

>Goodness! That does seem strange. All our polls close at 2200 hours, and
the BBC does not broadcast the opinion poll findings of that day until a
few seconds after 2200 hours. What you have said seems very strange.

Sure, but you don't have all the different time zones to deal with.



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RE: US Election Returns
By: Mark Morgan on 11/3/2000; 7:21 PM

Administrator's note: following Scott's lead, I've spun this thread off as its own topic.

One things sure to add interest to election night is the fact that this is a mail-in election in Oregon. People have already voted, which reduces the impact of the whole "the president gets chosen by the East Coast" foolishness. On the other hand, since ballots can't be counted until Tuesday, it may take a while for Oregon to declare.

Interesting times.

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RE: US Election Returns
By: Peter on 11/3/2000; 8:23 PM

Mark, you didn't have to turn this into a thread. I feel a bit silly having a thread on when I can go to bed on Tuesday night.

Peter.

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RE: US Election Returns
By: Mark Morgan on 11/3/2000; 9:42 PM

Oh, we'll get some use out of this thread, don't worry. I'm still very interested in seeing whether Oregon's new mail-in system affects anything. Like Brian said, Oregon is not a horribly important state for the Presidential run. I'm much more interested in the measures, which are seriously evil.

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RE: US Election Returns
By: Mark Morgan on 11/6/2000; 12:03 PM

Speaking of mail-in voting, there's a strong possibility the large number of absentee ballots in California might delay election results there.
More than 1 million of those absentee ballots, or nearly 10 percent of the 12 million votes expected in California, will not be counted on election night, according to county election officials surveyed by The Associated Press.

That means that the outcome of extremely close House races might be impossible to determine for several days. And, conceivably, if the presidential election came down to California's 54 electoral votes, Americans might not know on election night which candidate won.


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RE: US Election Returns
By: Brian Carnell on 11/6/2000; 1:08 PM

Mark wrote:

>That means that the outcome of extremely close House races might be
impossible to determine for several days. And, conceivably, if the
presidential election came down to California's 54 electoral votes,
Americans might not know on election night which candidate won.

Since the electoral votes might be close, I'm really hoping for a tie so
the House can vote on the next president. That would be cool.



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RE: US Election Returns
By: ScottN on 11/6/2000; 3:00 PM

And, conceivably, if the presidential election came down to California's 54 electoral votes, Americans might not know on election night which candidate won.

And this is necessarily a bad thing? Do we really need to know INSTANTLY who won? Considering that whoever wins won't take office until 20 Jan 2001, and the Electoral College doesn't meet until sometime in December, does it really matter?

Maybe something like that would actually be a Good ThingTM. Then maybe the networks will realize that they don't need to tell us who's going to win before the polls close... Yeah, and maybe pigs will fly, too...

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RE: US Election Returns
By: Brian Carnell on 11/6/2000; 3:38 PM

At 07:16 PM 11/6/00 +0000, ScottN wrote:

>And this is necessarily a bad thing? Do we really need to know INSTANTLY
who won? Considering that whoever wins won't take office until 20 Jan
2001, and the Electoral College doesn't meet until sometime in December,
does it really matter?

Absolutely. We're Americans and we need it *NOW*. And if we don't get it
now we throw fits in Wal-Mart when Seth is trying to shopping!!



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RE: US Election Returns
By: Peter on 11/25/2000; 11:10 AM

He he he. This is certainly an amusing thread considering recent events. As someone who believes very much in tradition rather than the use of technology, I am pleased I live in a country where every vote is done on pen and paper, every vote is counted by hand, the man who declares the winner is apolitical, and everyone knows what an arrow means.

On a different topic, does it seem to anyone else that the Gore camp will go on demanding recounts indefinitely until one recount finally goes their way, when they will immediately declare that democracy has been the victor and the right man has been shown to be Gore by all these counts, and demand an end to any more recounts? Anyone else think counting votes again and again until they go the way you want them to is undemocratic?

Peter.

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RE: US Election Returns
By: The Overlord on 11/25/2000; 12:37 PM

[nanobot activity report: begin overlord.command.upload]

OverlordHrmph. Your Overlord would end this foolishness, but the nanobots monitoring the Goredroid report that its systems remain at a non-optimal status. Buggy human-derived operating systems anyways.

While your Overlord finds the entire concept of "democracy" amusing, the fact that the machines are being abandoned in favor of human counters is alarming.

Trust the machines. We're your friends.

[end]


Transmission from Mark: I have no doubt that if the situation were reversed, the exact same events would have happened with Bush challenging the results to the bitter end. In my never-humble opinion, this whole thing has convinced me that neither is competent to govern my country.

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RE: US Election Returns
By: Matthew Patterson, the Paranoid Minister on 11/25/2000; 2:18 PM

If you don't mind, Overlord, could you answer a question for me? It has been said that the nanobots replaced Al Gore with a robot. However, the original Gore was also a robot. What was done with the original Gore-bot?

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RE: US Election Returns
By: Chie Theresa Fujioka on 11/25/2000; 11:26 PM

wait! my vote by oxen has yet to arrive! Gore reminded me, it just might r=turn the vote. Oh, and im sorry it the punch is a bit big, the oxen horns arent as sharp as it used to be.

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RE: US Election Returns
By: Brian Carnell on 11/26/2000; 12:22 AM

>wait! my vote by oxen has yet to arrive! Gore reminded me, it just might
>r=turn the vote. Oh, and im sorry it the punch is a bit big, the oxen
>horns arent as sharp as it used to be.

One of the best humor pieces I saw were digitally retouched photos of
protests in Florida. One photo showed a protester holding up a sign that
someone had digitally altered to read, "I ONLY GOT TO VOTE ONCE!"

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RE: US Election Returns
By: Peter on 11/26/2000; 6:52 AM

www.algore.lost.com has loads of pictures like that. I was really amused too.

Peter.

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