W2

I admit, I stole the headline from the New York Post this morning.

There’s so much that can be said about this election. In many ways, this election looks like a clone of 2000, but in quite a few ways, it’s much different.

Similarities

As in 2000, the face of the election comes down to one state — Ohio. In 2000, the Nation and the world waited for long weeks for the outcome of the Florida vote as Gore lawyers pulled out every legal card in their deck, including what would turn out to be the landmark Bush v. Gore Supreme Court decision. How was it landmark? If you ask liberals, they will tell you it was because it gave the Supreme Court the authority to choose the President. More accurately, it said that the standard of counting votes the state chose to utilize must be consistent statewide. This was landmark in that it forced States to look at their election systems and standardize many of the processes employed for counting votes and provisional voting.

The proof lies in the Ohio pudding where, there will not be a repeat of the legal wrangling over whether a chad is “hanging” or “pregnant”. More on that in a second.

Also, early moods (and possible voter turnout) were tainted by early numbers that turned out to be erroneous. In 2000, the networks had pie on their face when they called Florida for Bush early — even before the panhandle polls had closed due to differences in timezones — and then reversed and called the state for Gore, and then withdrew their projection altogether in the wee hours of the morning when it became readily apparent that it would be awhile before a winner could be declared.

Similarly, around 3pm, early exit polls were leaked and picked up by bloggers and independant journalists such as Matt Drudge. The stock market promptly sold off in anticipation of a legal struggle and Bush headquarters was admittedly pessimistic.

Susan Esterich, a liberal FoxNews contributor who’s abrasive personality that has the same effect on me as the sound of a cat having it’s hair ripped out, gleefully reported that exit polls are rarely wrong and could barely contain her excitement at an imminent Kerry win.

It looked like a done deal. Sound like 2000?

But there are striking dissimilarities as well.

Differences

As noted before, standards have been adopted in most states that explicitly outline what constitutes a vote and what does not. The major state in issue, Ohio, still uses the same punch card system that Florida did in 2000. Statewide, however, the same standards apply to “chads” that did not exist in Florida in 2000. In Florida, every district had a different method of determining a vote and we should not see pictures on CNN of lawyers and election counters with hawks on both side pouring over their shoulders as they examine every ballot under the light and with a magnifying glass. One rule, one standard.

In Florida, Gore lost the popular vote by a mere few hundred votes - a situation that warranted automatic recounts. In Ohio there is no such provision.

In addition, Bush is up by 140,000 votes with estimates of 200,000 ballots still to be counted. Those ballots are mostly provisional which simply means that a voter could vote but eligibility would be determined later before they were counted. Assuming alll 200,000 votes were legitimate, eligible voters, Kerry would have to walk away with 75% of those ballots. Statistically, that can’t happen as a large majority of those votes are also absentee which are by and large military (read: Republican-leaning) votes. For Kerry to take 75% of the remaining vote would defy the proportions already established in the state.

The only way anyone cares about Ohio’s electoral votes at this point is if 1) the Ohio election might be overturned on recount and 2) if the overturning of that state would affect the outcome of the national election.

With a gap of 140,000 votes, there is no way the State of Ohio will be overturned which makes the second point moot.

Summary

Although this blogger endorsed Bush for President, do not expect me to give him a pass. There is much to be done and roots to be returned to. I’m just glad it’s Bush we are dealing with for the next four years, and not Kerry.

Tagged as: Op-Ed