Props to my polling place
The presidential election looks like it'll actually be pretty close. I got a nice sticker in return for voting. It depicts an eagle with the creatively-declined motto "e plurebus unum". I decided to be nice and not point this out to the poll workers. :-)
14 Comments:
Regarding Props, I voted yes on 1A, 59, 60, 61, 63, 64, 66, 67, 69, 72; no on 65, 68, 70, 71; and left 60A blank. (I also voted for the K guy, but my vote doesn't matter much in that election.)
The sticker I got just said "I voted" in English and Spanish, with a little flag. At least they spelled it right.
Looks like it's over. Ohio's gone to Bush. Looks like the country has gone pretty solidly conservative now with the Repubs consolidating in the house and senate as well. They'll also be able to reuse a bunch of Bush signs and bumper stickers in four years when Jeb runs. I guess now is the time to take the long view of things and thank God for presidential term limits.
Well, half the networks are holding off on calling Ohio. The Kerry campaign is arguing that there are 250,000 votes that haven't been counted yet.
Unless the rest of the midwest goes for Bush, I'm seeing litigation in our future. There are plenty of things that could be challenged in Ohio.
And Edwards is about to announce that the election won't end tonight... If we wait to count the provisional Ohio ballots, it will be at least 10 days before we can even start counting them.
I'm curious whether the folks that were vocal about the popular vote count in 2000 will be equally vocal in 2004 should Bush maintain his lead in the popular vote while Kerry challenges the Ohio results.
Absentee ballots haven't been counted yet. Oversees absentees and provisional ballots won't be counted for 10 days.
Kerry's campain quoted a figure of 250,000 uncounted votes. The Secretary of State, on the other hand, was quoting an estimate of 150,000 provisional ballots.
Eric, props 60A, 69, and 72 were certainly the ones I was most doubtful about.
On 69, I was eventually swayed by the argument that this kind of DNA collection isn't all that different from the other information collected during many arrests (address, mug shot, biometric data, fingerprints, etc).
There is obviously a huge difference between DNA itself and fingerprints. DNA samples have a greater potential for abuse. But that has to be balanced against their power to free the innocent.[*] In my opinion, it's a hard decision to make. I'm still far from certain which is best, but in the end you have to either make your best guess, or else abstain.
Regarding this kind of voting in general: I think California would be better off with a higher threshold for voter initiative. At first I expected that I'd usually vote against almost all propositions because of this. But I've come to realize that, for better or worse, this is part of the government here. It's not ideal, but it's the way that a lot of business gets done, so I might as well participate. (But I still don't like it.)
[*] I don't know how accurate that particular article is, but the use of DNA evidence has certainly been revolutionary in criminal cases.
I don't see a way that Kerry can take Ohio mathematically. They may be looking, though, at challenging the results to look for hanging chads and press claims against the Secretary of State on some voter registration issues as well as voter intimidation issues.
Note that last year, there were only something like 1000 provisional ballots cast, so the 90% trend may not scale well.
It's been interesting to watch different sources take different approaches to calling Ohio depending on their political leanings. Fox News made the call hours before everyone else. The Networks made the call between 1 & 2. The Post and Times haven't made the call yet.
If we reach the SCOTUS, things get really interesting.
On a 4-4 tie, the lower court ruling stands but no precedent is set. However, if Rehnquist is too ill to hear the case, he would presumably be ill enough to retire (there is some evidence that they couldn't get all the cancer, in which case he probably has no more than 6-9 months to live). Were he to retire, Bush would be able to make a recess appointment (no Senate confirmation). We could, therefore, be in a situation where Bush is unilaterally appointing a justice who breaks the tie to declare Bush the winner of the election so that Bush can nominate this new justice to a spot on the court. I hope it doesn't get that far.
Re: predictions:
2004-Nov-03 23:59 UTC hasn't happened yet, so there's still a chance that the prediction could still turn out to be true. But that would be by accident... I now see that I greatly underestimated the threshold needed for the Kerry campaign to contest a result.
Re: DNA:
Before forming an opinion on the proposition I really should've checked with Julie or someone else who'd know these things. But I don't think forensic DNA analysis records anything particularly useful for predicting a person's health. I'd be more worried about people who have access to the physical sample, which would presumably be permanently stored. I'm not all that concerned about health insurance providers, since they usually require a person to release his or her medical records before issuing a policy, which actually tells a lot more than DNA. But there may be other people who'd be interested in using DNA for some insidious purpose.
What it means for DNA to match is pretty technical and statistical evidence especially may not be evaluated correctly in the courtroom. This is a real problem which must be considered, but to me it is not necessarily a showstopper. (and note that fingerprints have similar problems.)
I think the two great questions about this election are 1) What happened to all the young voters? and 2) Why were the exit polls so horribly wrong? I think we need to see the dust settle a bit more in Ohio and Florida before we can come up with firm answers to those questions.
Where did the young voters go?
As a percentage of all voters, there was no increase in young voters, but turnout was up significantly, so young people at least increased their gross turnout, they just weren't more motivated than everyone else. Frankly, I'm suprised they did that well.
And exit polls?
That one really bothers me. Phone polls have to try to call a representative sample of people. They have to figure out who is a likely voter. They have to worry about leading questions. All sources of error. As I've said before, I'm not suprised that the polls are wrong.
Exit polls, on the other hand, should be hard to foul up. You put a guy with a clipboard outside the polling place. You tell him to stop every 5th voter and ask who he voted for. You add up the numbers. Not rocket science, yet the exit polls were systematically 3 or 4 points too generous to Kerry.
But it is really hard for me to imagine what demographic changes would cause the exit polls to go goofy in 2004 but not in 2000. Other than Florida, the exit polls were pretty darn accurate in 2000. Barring utter incompetence on the part of the pollers, I have a hard time figuring out why any group would be more or less inclined to answer questions this year than they were 4 years ago.
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