I'm sorry, but we just clearly disagree.  Every voter had enough
opportunity to know that the guy was dead, and that the wife was
to succeed him.  If some voters did not know, I'm sorry to them.
It was all over the news.  Every person has a right to be hermit
or to be generally clueless.  But I cannot help those people.

In the original message, the central issue was whether it was
legal for the governor to appoint the wife.  I spoke to that
issue assuming that the voters had enough opportunity to know
what was going on.

To believe your assertions, you would have to assume that the
voter walked into the booth never picking up on any news and
never spoke to anyone, and just had no clue who he/she was
voting for.  This behavior is clearly legal.  But just as Tim
cannot be concerned about inner city welfare mothers ("maggots"?
what word did he use?), I simply cannot be concerned about this
uninformed segment of the electorate.

Ern

-----Original Message-----
From: Declan McCullagh [mailto:declan@well.com]
Sent: Friday, November 10, 2000 7:14 AM
To: Ernest Hua
Cc: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: Re: A very brief politcal rant

On Fri, Nov 10, 2000 at 12:51:05AM -0500, Ernest Hua wrote:
> My original point still stands.  The voters should get what they
> want, unless they want something clearly illegal.  That's a clear
> principle in our pseudo-democracy.  Every principle has a point

No, your original point was muddled. It's not clear that every voter
who chose the dead guy knew that his widow would take the slot. Since
the election is so close, that matters.

If you want to make sure the voters are getting what they want, put
the non-dead-guy's name on the ballot.

-Declan