Will we know who won the US Presidential election by tomorrow?

[rabbit1234]

Do you think we'll know who won the election by tomorrow?

[photolady]

I don't guess we'll know until tomorrow will we? One of them will......maybe......LOL

[rabbit1234]

I think there's a good chance we won't know any earlier than December 13 (when the electoral college votes)... and possibly not until well after then.

[104456]

You`ll know once all the court cases are over but by then Arnie will be in office

[Dodge]

Depends. Florida has had 4 years to educate people on how to vote... (Just kidding)

[rabbit1234]

And thanks to the fine, fine folks at Diebold, recounts in districts that use their systemswill become a thing of the past... not because the'yre any better; just because they leave no papertrail and prevent manual recounts.

rabbit

[Nix]

I heard that some people voted and once they had pressed the required keys voting for Kerry the machine said thankyou for voting for Bush - is that true or just urban legend.

[104456]

http://www.flowgo.com/funpages/view.cfm/6379

There another similar one too

[SuperSparks]

Originally posted by Nix
I heard that some people voted and once they had pressed the required keys voting for Kerry the machine said thankyou for voting for Bush - is that true or just urban legend.

According to this, there seems to at least be some truth to that:

http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,26...w=wn_tophead_9

[104456]

Its fillerbustering by the losing party if memory serves the winner [Bush] has a relative that makes the electioneering equipment who is reputed to have said he would do anything to help him win [again] hence the suggestion.

[Nix]

I saw some footage that showed people queueing (sp) for hours at 7.00am in the morning.

What's with that ?

In Australia it's compulsory to vote and the booths are only open between 8.00am and 6.00pm and in our last election I went to my local booth at about 12.00pm and just walked on in with no queue.

Maybe we have more booths (ie most local schools and community halls are opened as polling booths).

Plus less population.

But compulsory vs voluntary.

[Sarrkazztic]

Nix...our voting here is voluntary of course.....we do have numerous poling places...but the norm is very low voter turnout this particular election we had a 5x the normal turnout in my state alone...so the voting lines were long and they had new electronic voting machines in most poling places that the people did not know how to use....

[SuperSparks]

I don't like the idea of compulsory voting. Although I always vote, I think if I were ever forced to I would just go and spoil my ballot paper as a protest, so it wouldn't do them any good. Heck, that's the sort of thing they used to in communist countries - voting is compulsory and you get 8 votes to use on a choice of 8 candidates

As for electronic voting machines, "hanging chads" and all that, I'm glad that we're nice and low tech over here. All you get is a voting slip and a pencil - but it works

[Nix]

Yes I think compulsory voting kinda sucks but that's the way it is.

We have to vote usually for our local rep and then for the federal reps.


Locale usually has about 10 candidtes and you have to number them 1 - 10 in your preference of order.

Federal usually has about 50 or so and you can either number them 1 to 50 or just put a 1 in the party they represent eg The Fishing Party, The Shooting Party, Australian Labour Party etc


The election before this one just passed, we had som many candidates in for the federal seats that we had a ballot paper the size of a table cloth.

It was a joke.

Accordingly Mickey Mouse got my vote in that one - that's when the pencil comes in very handy - for drawing extra boxes.

[NielsRb]

Here in the US we've got problems with voting machines, hanging shads and maybe some shady stuff going on, but I think our biggest problems are the choices we make when we do vote. This election especially.