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 [[1]mailto:tcmay@got.net]
   Sent: Thursday, November 09, 2000 9:02 AM
   To: cypherpunks@algebra.com
   Subject: Close Elections and Causality

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

References

   1. mailto:tcmay@got.net