~07:30 GMT
Still up. Saw the news.
You wanted it. You lusted for it. Now you got it. You incessantly whined and attacked. Now you can do your worst. But keep in mind, you can't just make it up as you go along (this is government, not religion ... at least not yet). There was balance, but now all one mindset. So much for people.
Power to the conglomerates! Marketing for the masses! Down with diversity!
Welcome to Corporatism.
Let the music begin.
Yes, feel free to vote this node to your political affiliation if you want; but remember, this is a day log, and I'll write what I think.
Sleep now.
~16:40 GMT
Getting ready for work... had a thought:
How screwed up is our system that almost exactly half of our people want one thing, and half want the other, so we let it all go to the one with the 1% margin? This can only cause trouble, because half of the people will always be pissed off. There has to be a better way to make everyone happy. That's just a thought for now. I need to get to work.
18:36 GMT
Ok, obviously the first part of this message was written after I thought Bush had won. I think I'll go back and put timestamps in. It looks like my vote really does count (I'm in Florida). It should be interesting to watch how this plays out. I think that a lot of the way elections are done is going to change soon. The ballot I received had so many presidential candidates on it, that they had to use two columns, and it became quite confusing. A lot of people are claiming that this caused a discrepency in actual numbers versus people's intentions. The only complaint I really have is that few people probably messed up their votes for Bush since he was first on the ballot. I don't really know what will be done, but I'm sure this won't happen again :)
03:20 GMT
I am absolutely enjoying the controversy in the presidential election. This will be going on for a while. This is so close, that everything matters. And I just happen to be in Palm Beach County, where they are having some trouble over the confusing ballots. I really feel good, getting a direct example of how valuable my vote is. I've never thought my vote counted as much as I do now.
What's interesting is that Buchanan most of his votes in Florida from Palm Beach County - three times as many votes as he got for the next county. So that just demonstrates that many people's votes were not properly registered by the defunct process. Currently, the margin of difference between Gore and Bush in the state of Florida can be easily crossed by throwing 2/3 of Buchanan's Palm Beach County votes to Gore.
I remember this ballot. I thought it was quite strange to have both sides used, but since I have only voted twice before in my life, I didn't really think much about it. Afterwards when I heard of the controversy, I began to wonder if I had not made the same mistake as they were reporting. I can't clearly remember now whether I punched the second or the third hole in my vote for Al Gore.
I read somewhere that the law states that you have to mark your choice on the right of the candidate's name. Having candidates on the right that requires marking them on the left could make the ballots invalid. I wonder if that would require a revote? That would be quite interesting to see what would happen in that situation. Would Palm Beach County suddenly be inundated with millions of dollars in campaign commercials? Would everyone who is registered get a chance to revote, or just those who did on election day?
Florida's all screwed up.. I say we just throw it out, or divide it's electoral votes in half :)