CDR: RE: Close Elections and Causality

[Ernest Hua]

Thanks Tim.  (First, I genuinely appreciate the
specificity.  Now we can discuss just where we
disagree.)

Given your points, one would have to argue that
the proper election would have to be extremely
simultaneous (e.g. everyone votes within 1 hour
or whatever will most likely beat any realistic
attempt to predict voter results before the vote
is actually finished).

I can see your point.  However, it ain't gonna
happen precisely because people have normal life
concerns that truly are 24x7 and simply cannot
work around them.  (e.g. kids, certain kinds of
jobs, etc ...).

A reasonable level of flexibility is required.
"Reasonable" appears to mean opening polls for
most of the day, but I would hate to have some
faceless fed tell me what reasonable is.

Tax day is another example.  Shit.  Why should
the Post Office do anything extra special for
you if you don't get your forms filed in time?
Why should they set up special lines and special
times on the night of April 15?

Because it's a compromise.  It's pragmatic.  The
goal is to get people to file and to file on
time.

Same thing here.  The goal is to give people a
chance to vote.  Otherwise, national elections
should have national rules, according to your
reasoning.  States should not be allowed to set
up their own mechanisms to vote on national
elections.

But in fact, the states ARE granted such
flexibility because that's the tradition.  It
does not fit yours or someone else's absolute
ideals, but then it's such a huge process and
who knows what level of flexibility each state
or local region needs.

So on the issue of extending hours:

If each district, county, township, neighborhood
should decide to open the polls LONGER, I can't
see a problem with that.  If they close it
earlier, it's probably not a problem either
unless someone felt they did not have a chance
to get to the polls.  Then someone will have to
decide whether that person had a fair chance to
vote.  But you don't want some no-name federal
government bureaucrat deciding what constitutes
a fair and reasonable chance to vote in your
circumstances, right?

Yes, I know, you can probably name all sorts of
extreme and clearly abusive behavior that this
would allow.  But surprisingly, most people do
not abuse the system.  Most people don't if it
is too inconvenient to be a pain-in-the-ass.

On the issue of re-voting:

The causality and the hinge issues are irrelevant
if ANY state, county, district, whatever can go
to a judge and argue (not demand arbitrarily) for
re-vote.

It's exactly YOUR argument:

Just because county X is demanding a re-vote does
not suddenly make that county the hinge vote.
They obviously do not know or care if county Y
also demand a re-vote.

Same flaw.

Because every area of the country have the same
right (as Palm Beach) to demand a re-vote.

But "reasonableness" and "compromise" will
usually demand some upper bound on how much of
this can occur to correct for any problems that
arise.

My personal view is that it is obvious that the
election is close, period.  Therefore, any
particular place where it's winner-take-all, a
reasonable request to re-vote should be granted.

Lots of places here and abroad have the concept
of run-off elections for precisely the same
reasons:

Let's see what the voters really want.

Ern

-----Original Message-----
From: Tim May [mailto:tcmay at got.net]
Sent: Thursday, November 09, 2000 9:02 AM
To: cypherpunks at algebra.com
Subject: Close Elections and Causality

[ Long educational rant about causation and how
some people are not clued in. ]
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