The Process
With polls you can just never tell.
You won’t really know until election day.
Nope.
It's not over until the ballot booths all close.
And the votes are counted.
And all the major networks declare a different winner at least three times.
And everyone gets befuddled.
And both acceptance speeches are cancelled and everyone goes home and a recount is demanded for an entire state and the protests rage and lawsuits fly and the candidates both pick cabinets and walk around all Presidential-like and commissions are established and counting methods are argued and the State Supreme Court extends the re-count and the U.S. Supreme Court vacates that decision and Larry King interviews EVERYBODY without asking a single real question and the counts conclude but the Election Czar refuses to accept some Counties' because they've passed the deadline and it’s getting on toward Christmas/Hanukah/Kwanzaa/Winter Solstice and the State Supreme Court allows a RE-RE-count and the U.S. Supreme Court "remands" and everyone figures out that it really just means the Federal Bench just threw the whole issue out with yesterday’s newspaper.
And then tomorrow’s paper names the new President.
Polls really mean nothing.
You won’t really know until election day.
Nope.
It's not over until the ballot booths all close.
And the votes are counted.
And all the major networks declare a different winner at least three times.
And everyone gets befuddled.
And both acceptance speeches are cancelled and everyone goes home and a recount is demanded for an entire state and the protests rage and lawsuits fly and the candidates both pick cabinets and walk around all Presidential-like and commissions are established and counting methods are argued and the State Supreme Court extends the re-count and the U.S. Supreme Court vacates that decision and Larry King interviews EVERYBODY without asking a single real question and the counts conclude but the Election Czar refuses to accept some Counties' because they've passed the deadline and it’s getting on toward Christmas/Hanukah/Kwanzaa/Winter Solstice and the State Supreme Court allows a RE-RE-count and the U.S. Supreme Court "remands" and everyone figures out that it really just means the Federal Bench just threw the whole issue out with yesterday’s newspaper.
And then tomorrow’s paper names the new President.
Polls really mean nothing.
posted by Don Sheffler @ 9:35 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
I suppose if I have to wait three weeks for something, it should be something of such poetic prosity and current-event-resonance.
And that's really what it's coming to isn't it. Office space already rented on the condition that a campaign lawyer will have to redeye to a battleground state and fight the sleazy fight.
God bless America.
Since there was so much hoo-ha last time, it looks like both teams have lined up a pretty big team of lawyers who, presumably, will be better prepared for 'irregularities.' It'll be interesting -- and that doesn't necessarily mean good -- to see what happens.
Good to see you writing again.
--Mike Sheffler
... turning to the 3-D map, we see an unmistakable cone of ignorance
Thanks Mike.
In every election, every last one of them, there are problems and miscounts, lost ballots, what have you.
But being that in each state there are millions of votes cast, the margin of error on the tabulations is relatively infinitesimal. Not significant in the least. Only when the overall vote was close enough for one state to swing the outcome, and in that same state the battle was so ridiculously close, finally for once the margin of error became significant. But this is so rare. While on the one hand I saw the articles about Florida's puzzling lack of clean-up this past 4 years, I nevertheless can't really foresee such an aligning of the stars again any time soon.
The only previous brouhaha was in 1876, when Democrat Samuel Tilden seemed to easily win the presidency over Rutherford B. Hayes. But overnight, Florida, North Carolina, and Louisiana fell apart. This was due wholly to a willfull and concerted effort to actually steal the election after one enterprising newspaper editor wired the party bosses in those three states in the middle of the night to let them know they could pull the election if they might somehow reverse their states' already tabulated results. Bribes and outright fraud and chicanery suddenly caused crucial boxes of cast ballots and even signed vote certifications to inexplicably dissappear or be disqualified.
There's the bell, time for recess!
That's a neato story. I seem to have vague-ish recollections supporting it from History class, but I don't really remember.
--Mike Sheffler
... turning to the 3-D map, we see an unmistakable cone of ignorance
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