Electoral Sadness

The Elect­or­al Vote Pre­dict­or 2004 web site has some sad­den­ing com­ments about the US elect­or­al sys­tem today. The sad­dest is a point­er to the BBC story of ex-Pres­id­ent Carter­’s con­ten­tion that Flor­ida does not ful­fill inter­na­tion­al require­ments for a fair elec­tion. Since Flor­ida has so many votes asso­ci­ated with it, it is a determ­in­ing factor in the US elec­tion, and any wor­ries that it is not going to fairly reflect the will of the elect­or­ate there will cause con­cerns about the fair­ness of the elec­tion overall.

The oth­er issue is that it appears that polling organ­iz­a­tions are no longer com­ing up with num­bers that can be trus­ted. When two polls in the same state come up with com­pletely dif­fer­ent num­bers, neither poll can be trus­ted. Although this is bad news for the trust­wor­thi­ness of the polling agen­cies, per­haps over­all it’s good news? If instant polls don’t work, and polls in gen­er­al are dis­cred­ited, one can always hope that one out­come will be politi­cians who do what they think is right for the major­ity of the people, rather than what will earn them a short-term blip in the polls. Of course, people will always dis­agree over what is “right”, but a little time for thought and per­haps even focus­sing on con­sist­ency with long-term goals can­’t hurt.