[vmarks]

Okay, results are going to trickle in beginning at about 7pm EST.

This is the official thread, others will be locked.

No assaults on candidates or other posters, no "fixing" other people's posts, no pictures showing other members as crybabies.

Keep it nice and clean, and use it to ask questions about the US electoral process and post results as they come in. Want to talk about something not directly related? Get your own thread.

[voodoo]

0000 GMT 3 November - polls close in eight states

0100 GMT - polls close in 17 states plus DC

0200 GMT - polls close in 15 states

0300 GMT - polls close in four states

0400 GMT - polls close in five states

0500-0600 GMT - polls close in one state

GMT IS:

� Five hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time

� Six hours ahead of Central Time

� Seven hours ahead of Mountain Time

� Eight hours ahead of Pacific Time

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3760822.stm

[Randman]

Well, I voted early since I'm abroad. But which either candidate wins, I hope it goes smoothly and the debacle of 2000 isn't repeated. Which ever candidate does win, he's going to have a big job on mending fences and assuring people, in the US and abroad.

[dreilly1]

Remember that just because the polls close in a state doesn't mean we necessarily know anything about it. News organizations that "call" a state at the time the polls close are using exit polling data, not the real data. And they will be much less likely to call states that are close in the exit polls after what happened in Florida last time...

[boots]

I'm interested in hearing how y'all choose judges. They tend not to campaign much since the loser will have to practice under the winner. Keeps things civil. But it makes it hard to find any useful information beyond how many of the incumbent's decisions have been overturned.

Me? I tend to vote incumbent unless I am specifically aware of a problem (if it ain't broke....). I was wondering what others do.


BTW, Minnesota's same-day registration is awesome. I was already registered, but in the first half-hour, they had more same-day registrations than I thought they'd have all day.

We also had the optical-scan ballots. Very nice.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by boots:


We also had the optical-scan ballots. Very nice.

We had touch screen voting. It asked me for my PIN, and then it gave me money. I love voting!!

[Voch]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
We had touch screen voting. It asked me for my PIN, and then it gave me money. I love voting!!

We did the punchcard thing here in Ohio. It was simple. Last week I downloaded a PDF copy of what the ballot was going to look like so for me it was punch-punch-punch and go...

Voch

[Krusty]

Just got back. It was fun seeing the collection of people there to vote. As always, the citizens of this city were horribly polite and I didn't hear anyone talking politics in 1.5 hrs in line.

My vote will doubtless "not count" once it hits the electoral college level in this state. But hey, it'll at least show up in the popular vote tally.

Go vote people !!!

[Shaddim]

Originally posted by dreilly1:
Remember that just because the polls close in a state doesn't mean we necessarily know anything about it. News organizations that "call" a state at the time the polls close are using exit polling data, not the real data. And they will be much less likely to call states that are close in the exit polls after what happened in Florida last time...

No doubt.

"We're calling Florida for Gore."

30 minutes later...

"It's too close to call."

30 minutes later...

"We're not sure what's going on."

30 minutes later...

"We're calling Florida for Bush... we think."

[itai195]

Maybe this thread should be a sticky. Anyway, I'll be voting in about an hour. I wrote out a little cheat sheet so I can remember my decisions on the 30-something votes I will have to cast...

boots - I always have a hard time with judges. This year we don't have an incumbent, either. I'm always a tad leery of choosing between two people I don't know anything about.

[Randman]

Sticky? The election is over after tonight (unless it goes to the Scotus, which is missing a jurist right now).

[itai195]

I'm just too lazy to search through the list

[lil'babykitten]

If it did go to the Supreme Court and was a tie, with Rehnquist out of action, who would cast the deciding vote?!

[lil'babykitten]

Originally posted by itai195:
I'm just too lazy to search through the list

Well now it's the one with a red dot next to the thread title. Not difficult.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by lil'babykitten:
If it did go to the Supreme Court and was a tie, with Rehnquist out of action, who would cast the deciding vote?!

Nobody. If the Supreme Court ties, it ties. That would leave untouched whatever lower decision is being appealed.

Rehnquist isn't dead, he's "just" recovering from thyroid cancer, and is on chemotherapy and radiation therapy. He could come in to deliberate if really necessary. A more interesting question is if a Justice were to die, could the incumbent president nominate a Justice and confirm in the lame duck senate. Theoretically, the answer is yes. But politically the answer is almost certainly no. So a Supreme Court deadlock is possible.

However, don't forget that on the primary issue of reversing the Florida Supreme Court, the Supreme Court decided the issue 7:2. It was only on the remedy that it was 5:4.

[Randman]

Originally posted by lil'babykitten:
If it did go to the Supreme Court and was a tie, with Rehnquist out of action, who would cast the deciding vote?!

I'm sure Billy would come back for that one.

[Logic]

Thanks vmarks and voodoo

:wonders if he should stay up all night or just get the result early in the morning:

[Millennium]

Originally posted by lil'babykitten:
If it did go to the Supreme Court and was a tie, with Rehnquist out of action, who would cast the deciding vote?!

Normally, elections don't go to the Supreme Court in the event of a tie. What happened in 2000 wasn't a tie; it was a series of lawsuits over one particular state. That the entire election may have hung in the balance was actually just a coincidence (from a legal standpoint, anyway).

In the event of a tie, the top four candidates go to the House of Representatives. Each state in the House casts one vote, and anyone who gets more than 50% of the votes wins. There can be no ties in the House; they must keep voting until somebody has more than a 50% majority; if nobody does in one round then they debate some more and have another round.

This scenario may seem like an easy Bush win, but in fact it might not be. Republicans control the House, but only by the thinnest of margins, and electoral votes mean nothing since each state gets only one vote. It's also worth noting that Washington, DC does not get a vote, since it has no representatives.

[BlueSky]

In the event of an electoral tie, the House selects the President, and the Senate selects the Vice-President.

Theoretically, we could end up with a Bush/Edwards administration.

And no, I'm not kidding.

[andi*pandi]

I've voted. Paper ballot, that I think gets scanned by a machine. The machine counted 508 ballots as of 9:30 this am... the line was steady and quickmoving. The pollworkers were wondering if people had been bussed in.

And it will be a long day.

[boots]

Originally posted by Millennium:
Normally, elections don't go to the Supreme Court in the event of a tie. What happened in 2000 wasn't a tie; it was a series of lawsuits over one particular state. That the entire election may have hung in the balance was actually just a coincidence (from a legal standpoint, anyway).

In the event of a tie, the top four candidates go to the House of Representatives. Each state in the House casts one vote, and anyone who gets more than 50% of the votes wins. There can be no ties in the House; they must keep voting until somebody has more than a 50% majority; if nobody does in one round then they debate some more and have another round.

This scenario may seem like an easy Bush win, but in fact it might not be. Republicans control the House, but only by the thinnest of margins, and electoral votes mean nothing since each state gets only one vote. It's also worth noting that Washington, DC does not get a vote, since it has no representatives.

Yeah, I was listening to a historian talk about the Jefferson election and how contentious it was. The electoral college tied, and the congress tied on whether Jefferson or his running mate should be president....even though the intent was clear that Jefferson was the candidate for president. Finally, one of the electoral college delegates changed his vote to break the tie.

After hearing about the nastyness in that election, this one seems tame if a bit louder. Makes Cheney's comments about getting attacked if Kerry wins look like a subtle ribbing.

[Shaddim]

Originally posted by Bluesky:
In the event of an electoral tie, the House selects the President, and the Senate selects the Vice-President.

Theoretically, we could end up with a Bush/Edwards administration.

And no, I'm not kidding.

Or a Kerry/Cheney.

[dreilly1]

Originally posted by MacNStein:
No doubt.
"We're calling Florida for Gore."
30 minutes later...
"It's too close to call."
30 minutes later...
"We're not sure what's going on."
30 minutes later...
"We're calling Florida for Bush... we think."

The thing I remember about that night is that whichever news station I was watching got a live interview with Bush just after they called Florida for Gore. When they asked Bush about his reaction to losing Florida, he said something like "I think your polls are wrong, Our polls say we're doing strong in Florida." At that moment, I thought he either:
1) was unable to face reality on national television
2) had lots of chutzpah (and huge cojones) for slapping the news organizations around during their interviews for their eagerness to call races early for the Democrat
3) knew that the vote was fixed by his brother and simply wasn't worried about Florida.

In retrospect, I think there were elements of all three in that response...

[Voch]

What? No coin flip like the NFL tiebreakers?

Voch

[BlueSky]

Originally posted by MacNStein:
Or a Kerry/Cheney.

And incidentally, the newly elected congress would do it, not the present one.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by Bluesky:
In the event of an electoral tie, the House selects the President, and the Senate selects the Vice-President.

Theoretically, we could end up with a Bush/Edwards administration.

And no, I'm not kidding.

That's a weird one. The senate that would vote if it came to that would be the new senate, not the one in place now. If the senate were to tie, the casting vote would belong to Cheney. Presumably he would vote for himself. However, neither Kerry nor Edwards resigned from the senate in order to run for president and vice president. So I think they could vote for Edwards as well because they wouldn't have to resign from the Senate until inauguration day.

It makes my head spin. Please go out there and vote in a clear winner.

[mo]

A little tidbit from the Miami Herald, courtesy of the New Republic web site:

MIAMI, FLORIDA, 9:48 a.m.: At the very least, officials across Florida can be pleased that polls opened on time and with a sufficient number of workers, avoiding a replay of the 2002 election, when precincts opened late and were understaffed.

Turnout is heavy in South Florida, with lines stretching for blocks at polling sites all over Miami-Dade and Broward counties. Given that as many as 30 percent of all votes have been cast via early voting, it looks like turnout could approach truly historic levels.

A big worry heading into today was the readiness of the voting machines. And already, three voting machines in northwestern Broward County had to be replaced after malfunctioning. But, so far, the machines haven't produced the kind of calamity that some expected. It appears that the kinks that plagued early voting have been worked out.

The Republican effort to challenge voters at the polls took a hit Monday night when a Broward Circuit Court judge rejected a request for an injunction by the Republican Party that would have required Broward election supervisor Brenda Snipes to allow GOP workers at the polls.

--Frank DeMarzo
The Miami Herald

[Shaddim]

Originally posted by dreilly1:
The thing I remember about that night is that whichever news station I was watching got a live interview with Bush just after they called Florida for Gore. When they asked Bush about his reaction to losing Florida, he said something like "I think your polls are wrong, Our polls say we're doing strong in Florida." At that moment, I thought he either:
1) was unable to face reality on national television
2) had lots of chutzpah (and huge cojones) for slapping the news organizations around during their interviews for their eagerness to call races early for the Democrat
3) knew that the vote was fixed by his brother and simply wasn't worried about Florida.

In retrospect, I think there were elements of all three in that response...

No, the news agencies just screwed up. They were calling the election in Fla. without even waiting for the results from the (largely conservative) pan-handle. It was very irresponsible (or perhaps even treacherous) of them.

[Saad]

Here are the times for each state (MSNBC):

[Saad]

Originally posted by Bluesky:
In the event of an electoral tie, the House selects the President, and the Senate selects the Vice-President.

Theoretically, we could end up with a Bush/Edwards administration.

And no, I'm not kidding.

Kind of a wierd thing: The house votes by state, each state gets one vote. Who ever holds the majority in the state's delegation would win the state's vote.

[vmarks]

Originally posted by Logic:
Thanks vmarks and voodoo

:wonders if he should stay up all night or just get the result early in the morning:

I want to thank everyone for keeping this thread on topic and civil. Keep up the good work.

[vmarks]

Originally posted by boots:
I'm interested in hearing how y'all choose judges. They tend not to campaign much since the loser will have to practice under the winner. Keeps things civil. But it makes it hard to find any useful information beyond how many of the incumbent's decisions have been overturned.

Judicial candidates do campaign a lot, but they don't campaign on issues. Obviously they are supposed to remain impartial until hearing all the facts of a case in court.

However, for years, the NC judicial races were partisan (that is to say, the name on ballot had a D, R, or L next to it.) This year for the first time, the races are non-partisan. What this has led to is, candidates labeling themselves "The Conservative (name of candidate) for Judge/Supreme Ct/Court of Appeals/etc." and the "The Liberal Judge (similar pattern)". It also has led to judicial candidates seeking party endorsement so that the parties will send out mailers saying "we endorse this list of candidates/take this list with you into the voting booth."

Why on earth would it matter? Consider the issue of redistricting, where the Legislature draws districts and the court gets to rule on challenges of and to the gerrymandering. First, you'd want a fair judge. Barring that, you'd want a judge partial to whichever side of the gerrymandering you were on in the challenge. You can't really discern that from the campaigns because they can't really campaign on issues, so however you prognosticate it, it is an issue in the mind of the voter, and indeed, the parties.

[Eug Wanker]

Too bad it ain't true:



If it were, I'd nominate Steve Jobs for Prez. He can run a platform of gradually converting all government agencies to OS X, so that they'd be more productive instead of being shut down by viruses all the time...

[dreilly1]

Originally posted by Voch:
What? No coin flip like the NFL tiebreakers?

Voch

Actually, if any election ends up tied in New Mexico, from local races up to and including the state's Presidential election, state law says the outcome shall be determined by a game of chance. The last time this happened, it was settled by a game of five-card stud!

[Voch]

Originally posted by dreilly1:
Actually, if any election ends up tied in New Mexico, from local races up to and including the state's Presidential election, state law says the outcome shall be determined by a game of chance. The last time this happened, it was settled by a game of five-card stud!

Ohio would probably just recount to death or something (it's more likely to have a runoff).

Voch

[Eug Wanker]

FreedomMeter



WTF?

[BlueSky]

Originally posted by Eug Wanker:
FreedomMeter

WTF?

Free Dumb Meter.

[ironknee]

i just voted.

[itai195]

Not that anyone cares, but I finished voting

45 minute wait, thank goodness it's a nice day over here. I feel bad for all those folks who have to wait in the rain and cold.

[vmpaul]

Thought this was good. Found here:

The Post-Election Peace Pledge

After the election results are in, I promise to:
: Support the President, even if I didn't vote for him.
: Criticize the President, even if I did vote for him.
: Uphold standards of civilized discourse in blogs and in media while pushing both to be better. (+ internet forums)
: Unite as a nation, putting country over party, even as we work together to make America better.

(my addition)

[Turias]

Are any exit poll results going to start trickling in before any of the polls actually close?

[An Alias]

Whoever wins, half of the country is going to feel put-out. Polls suggest that Bush/Kerry are neck n neck.

Funny thing, Democracy.

[djohnson]

Anyone want to see what it looks like here in West Texas?

http://www.weatherunderground.com/cg...st?query=79424

I am glad I voted last Thursday! It has been snowing all morning long. Get out and vote!

[MindFad]

Originally posted by Turias:
Are any exit poll results going to start trickling in before any of the polls actually close?

I hope so. Hopefully Diebold machines don't "decide" the election, if you know what I'm mean.

[lil'babykitten]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
Nobody. If the Supreme Court ties, it ties. That would leave untouched whatever lower decision is being appealed.

Rehnquist isn't dead, he's "just" recovering from thyroid cancer, and is on chemotherapy and radiation therapy. He could come in to deliberate if really necessary. A more interesting question is if a Justice were to die, could the incumbent president nominate a Justice and confirm in the lame duck senate. Theoretically, the answer is yes. But politically the answer is almost certainly no. So a Supreme Court deadlock is possible.

However, don't forget that on the primary issue of reversing the Florida Supreme Court, the Supreme Court decided the issue 7:2. It was only on the remedy that it was 5:4.

Thanks for the info, Simey. And Millennium.

[Timo]

Originally posted by lil'babykitten:
Thanks for the info, Simey. And Millennium.

Well, there is this interpretation:

SCOTUS news: Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist announced last week that he was going to return to the Supreme Court yesterday. He did not return. According to the New York Times his office released a terse statement saying that the Chief Justice spent 7 days at Bethesda Naval Hospital where he was treated for thyroid cancer. He underwent a tracheotomy so he could breathe and he is now being given both chemotherapy and radiation treatment. Medical experts say this evidence suggests that the cancer was not successfully removed and that even with heroic treatment, patients with this type of cancer usually die within a year. Should the election end up in the Supreme Court, it is not known whether Rehnquist will particpate in the case and vote on the outcome. Should he decline to participate due to ill health, the deadlock in the country might end up in a Court itself deadlocked 4-4. In such an event, the lower court ruling stands but no legal precedent is set. An alternative scenario is that Chief Justice Rehnquist resigns and that President Bush makes a recess appointment, which does not require Senate confirmation. If Bush were to appoint a new justice without Senate confirmation who then cast the deciding vote to make Bush president I fear for the future of the country. Let us hope somebody wins big today with no litigation. Do your part and vote.

from http://www.electoral-vote.com/

[JHromadka]

Originally posted by djohnson:
Anyone want to see what it looks like here in West Texas?

http://www.weatherunderground.com/cg...st?query=79424

I am glad I voted last Thursday! It has been snowing all morning long. Get out and vote!

I'm glad I voted last Friday. There were quite a few people there. Over 65000 voted in Harris County last Friday, and the county had record early voting numbers.

So after they close the polls, will the electronic voting counties make all their votes available at once or what?

[vmpaul]

A little humor after all the acrimony we've had for the past year. From Letterman's Top Ten last night:

Top Ten Punchlines To Dirty Election Jokes

10. "With a poll like that, I'm suprised he can gallup at all."

9. "She starts chanting, 'four more minutes! four more minutes!'"

8. "That's not the voting lever, but don't stop pulling."

7. "This isn't how it looks--I'm just joining a third party."

6. I prefer Bush, but I don't know who I'll vote for."

5. "So that's where Katherine Harris was hiding the Al Gore votes."

4. "Unfortunately, his margin of error was plus or minus three inches."

3. "Get used to it, honey--we live in a swing state."

2. "I thought you had trouble maintaining an election."

1. "I saw your sister with Mary Cheney--there was no sign of Dick.

[Capt Shane]

guam goes for bush

LINK

bottom of election results page.

Correct me if I am wrong but doesn't it not matter what guam votes cause they aren't a state or district, but a territory?

[ThinkInsane]

I'm really surprised by my voting experience this morning. I waited in line for about 45 minutes. I've been voting at the same polling place for about the last five years, and never before have I had to wait to cast my vote. It gives me hope that maybe this year we will have a voter turn out that is not an embarrassment.