You know, this is the second election in a row in which i'm going to bed and I don't know who won the presidency of the United States of America. I don't know about anybody else, but, in this day and age, I personally believe that by two in the mourning (Saskatchewan time) I should be able to tell you who is the president elect of the United States of America. In fact, it could very well be(assuming, bush doens't win 270 in the middle of the night) that we might not find out who won in a matter of weeks for pete's sake(that's me putting it nicely).

So, alas, I must ask.... how the hell is it that the U.S gets away with tellling other countries how to run their election, when presidency of the United States isn't decided on the night the election occurs? Maybe i'm just crazy, but, I can't believe that the United States cannnot decide who won until numerous weeks after the election. (In fact, i'm gonna bet that the courts are gonna have to decide, which really brings in the question of the legitamacy of the election.)

Another question too, how is it, that a man, who's destroyed the economy, is in a war situation which nobody really wants to be in, get more votes than he did the first time around? I'm really confused here, shouldn't that mean that the opposition has plenty of ammo to destroy the ruling adminstration? Are Americans really that blind to fail to see that the Bush Adminstration is ruining the economy? Didn't the Republicans basically say, "hey, we've screwed up, but, because we screwed up we can fix it." I mean, that makes no bloody sense to me whatsoever. Why the hell would you put in the guys who screwed up in the first place, and give them another chance, I thought it was that you booted these people out of office not give them another chance.

I dunno, I guess I must be crazy or something to think that America has it all wrong. I still cannot get over the fact that i'm gonna wake up tommorow, after the biggest election in recent memory and really not know who's won the election, personally, i think that says there's something wrong here, but alas, I may be wrong what does everybody else here think.(Who are all a) more sober, and B) a hell of alot smarter than me)

Its a sad state of affairs. But, in all fairness, they do have a much larger voter constituency, and a larger voter turnout than we in Canada did. We will know by tomorrow afternoon:).

True. Isn't it all automated at this point? Whats the use of an electronic voting system if the results arent instantaneous! I withdraw my previous statement.

If the courts have to decide this election, then the 2 party system the US has going on right now just isn't working, and the anti-trust laws must then be manipulated to break down the 2 party system. A monopoly is a monopoly, plain and simple....

Everyone has their loyalties/opinions. I for one don't think the libs should have won this election, based on the recent liberal scandals (among other reasons). But alas, the loyalists are blinded in the end.

Plus you'd be surprised how dumb some people are. And all those apathetic voters really need to stay away from the voting booths. For real. If you don't care, don't friggin vote.

Voting systems:

A mandatory voting system makes as much sense to me aas applesauce on hotwings. Take Australia for example. I don't get it. I don't. But I guess if you're forced to vote you're in theory forced to feel more informed of the issues. I'd advocate a mandatory system on one condition: Those who were willing and able to pass a simple multiple choice exam based off the political history of our country by 70% or more, would have their votes count as 2 votes. Everyone else gets 1 standard vote.

Now the current system, I do honestly believe voting is important. but you cant force everyone to want to vote. And a lot of money could be saved alone to take the "get out and vote" ads off the air permanently. This could all be solved by a mandatory voting system, but then the ads would be replaced by the "get out and vote, or else" ads. So if the system syats the way it is, then there needs to be more emphasis on the ads "if you dont care, then dont vote".

Just my rant, albeit im not drunk like my other saskatoon counterpart.

From what I know:

Most places still use some type of paper ballot. Meaning it takes people and time to count them. And areas where they are more populated it will take time.

In fact my county said it could take up to 11 days to count ALL ballots. All the things you see the first night are mostly provisional. Unless they are 25% to 75%. Flordia last time belonged to Bush the whole way through yet slowly turned to Gore (sp?). Yet they took to long in Florida to finish it all up.

Think about all the people who are voting there are millions of people voting, I am betting 90% of it is paper and needs to be counted. Not to mention that they need ot look over absentee and Provisional (my vote is that because I moved so they need to confirm it before they count it). And Provisionals need to be approved voters so they have to check that. They also need to make sure no one voted absentee and then at the polls too.

Alot of it is making sure it is one vote per person.

Also alot of people will vote to keep Bush in because most will go with "You don't change leaders in the middle of a fight like you wouldn't change to an unknown horse in the middle of the race."

Bush has that going for him along with most republicans will only vote republican no matter what.



I think that is all.. if i missed something just say so.

Zeta pretty much nailed it, but I'd also like to add that they don't count the provisional or absentee ballots until AFTER election day. Why? I can't say, but if the race is close enough that these ballots are statistically significant, they count those after counting the "regular" ballots.

Well they have to take care of the ballots that people who were not provisional or gone first.

You'd think they *could* start counting absentees as soon as they get 'em--my brother in law voted abentee this year and his ballot was turned in well before election day.

Yeah.. they are weird like that.

Oh well it is just ging to have to be like this till it changes.

There is a slight technical problem to do with double voting. If you start counting the absentee ballots ahead of time, you have to prevent them voting in the main ballot. If you wait until the main ballot has closed, you then can check the absentee votes against the lists in a single pass. From a systems point of view its easier to do it that way round.

There's no reason not to start counting absentees as soon as the polls close though, and as they're a relatively small number of votes, the results should be in before the main count. Again, I think the reason this isn't done is because there is the extra work of checking them off against the voters list. If the result from the main ballot is clear cut, then you can just not bother.

I believe if you get an absentee ballot they know you aren't going to vote on the main thing and you are on a special list about that.