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November 03, 2004
You are on the invidual archive page of Democracy in action. Click Simon World weblog for the main page.
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Democracy in action
India: Population 1.065 billion. Per capita GDP (at PPP) US$2,900. Election result within 24 hours with no major disputes or lawsuits. USA: Population 293 million. Per capita GDP (at PPP) US$37,800. Polls not yet shut, but already dead people voting, disenfranchisement, tyres slashed, intimidation,, broken voting machines, disputes over registration and eligibility, armies of lawyers ready to go to court (in fact they've already begun). Progress is a wonderful thing. Giles is following today's real battle. UPDATE: Looks like its all over and Bush has won. After the oncoming blizzard of what went right/wrong, what the hell are 90% of blogs gonig to talk about for 4 years? Second UPDATE: This time it looks like the vote is outside the margin of lawyer. So Bush actually has secured a mandate this time without having to worry (not that he did) about claims of "stolen" elections or being "selected not elected". I've no doubt it won't alter his style, but it will certainly help the Democrats. How? Because instead of concerntrating on the bitterness of the 2000 election loss and putting up a "not Bush" candidate, they can concerntrate on becoming a political party that stands for something rather than against everything. Third UPDATE: CNN have FL2K fever and are refusing to call it, coming up with all sorts of convoluted ways this election could still be close, all coming down to Ohio. Here's a handy way to work out it's all over. This C-SPAN map has a breakdown of each state. It's scoring Bush at 249 electoral college votes (do they give out degrees at that college? beer nights? great pranks?), with 270 needed to win. Kerry has 221. I am following a simple rule: I am going to give each state to whomever is in front right at the moment: New Mexico (5 votes) - Bush (by 23,000 votes) Final score: 286 Bush; 252 Kerry Last time it was hanging chads; this time its absentee votes. CNN are alleging up to 300,000 absentee ballots in Ohio - these need to split better than for 2 to 1 for him to catch up. It's over. Move on. Fourth UPDATE: It seems that CNN has learnt the old sports broadcasting trick - whenever the result is clear, make it murky so you keep the viewers. A close race keeps viewers, declaring a winner sees everyone switch the TV off. At least Wolf Blitzer's been getting a decent amount of exercise walking between the TV wall and the too small panel desk. I'll bet Larry King's enjoying that. Fifth UPDATE: Last time the networks all called it too early and got egg on their face. This time the exit polls have got it horribly wrong, despite four years of improvement, learning, remodelling and reworking. Seriously, someone needs to get fired. Another look at the map and you can really see why there's this talk of "two Americas". The West Coast, the Yankee North East and probably most of the Great Lakes are Democrat territory. The entire South and Mid-West are Republican. The split in the country is geographic, not anything else. The only "battleground" states are those on the edge of each of these regions. Interesting. Rajan makes a great point on US elections. America has elected county and state officials looking after the ballot in a bottom-up process, whereas most other democracies have a top-down approach. That's why there are so many different methods of voting, so many voting disputes and so much confusion. The solution is obvious; switch to a top-down system...such as in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even with the best of intentions, an elected official in charges of elections is going to give the appearance of bias. CNN just gave Michigan to Kerry, with 78% of precincts reporting and Kerry 1.84 million to 1.75 million, a gap of 90,000 votes. Ohio admittedly has a higher population, but with 97% of precincts reporting Bush is at 2.7 million votes to Kerry's 2.58 million, a gap of 102,000 votes. You do the math. Ohio and the election are Bush's. Sixth UPDATE: John Howard won. George W. Bush has won. Both from the Right and strong supporters of the war in Iraq. Both underestimated yet both winning clear mandates. Only Tony Blair to go... Seventh UPDATE: I'll bet Mike Moore is feeling like sh!t right now. posted by Simon on 11.03.04 at 10:08 AM in the
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TrackBack URL for this entry: http://blog.mu.nu/cgi/trackback.cgi/52856 Send a manual trackback ping to this post. Comparison of USA and India Excerpt: Simon World has a good comparison between India and USA. Sure, in India there is a few election-related deaths, and a whole lot of criminals gets elected, some ballot boxes here and there getting ... Weblog: Rajan Rishyakaran Tracked: November 3, 2004 03:05 PM US Election 2004 Excerpt: Simon World and Rajan Rishyakaran brought up some (excellent) points about issues in our (2004) Election. Simon World: India: Population 1.065 billion. Per capita GDP (at PPP) US$2,900. Election result within 24 hours with no major disputes or lawsuits... Weblog: Cafe HedonistiX Tracked: November 4, 2004 12:02 AM
Comments:
If the americans can't run a fair election at home,then how are they going to run one in Iraq? posted by: marklatham on 11.03.04 at 02:00 PM [permalink]Last time I checked having courts and then using them to decide disputes was still considered civilized. Otherwise, you're right. Saddam had a perfectly clean election and the results were known immediately (after Saddam decided what they should be). I'm not happy if it goes to courts again for two reasons. In the US, it was the Florida legislature that tried to break the law and was rightly overturned. Clearly here Kerry has only a fingernails chance of winning. Neither election SHOULD have gone to any court. But better a court decide than your supporters taking to the streets with gunds etc. And the US just ran a pretty clean election in Afghanistan. of course no democratic lawyers were there. posted by: kennycan on 11.03.04 at 05:08 PM [permalink]Weird...all the British web sites keep saying the battle isn't over yet. Do you in Hong Kong know something we in POME-land don't know? posted by: Helen on 11.03.04 at 09:44 PM [permalink] |
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