Quote:
Originally Posted by banjomike
High voter motivation that causes an unexpectedly high turnout is all an election needs to become a very close race. Lots of races are won by only a few votes, but in a district with a large population, there are a lot of ballots to count to make those very few votes difference apparent.
Another part comes from the Florida voting laws; they are complicated, and complication always slows the count.
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I generally disagree.
Broward and Palm Beach counties are large, but no where near as large as some other counties that get their counts in on time. Neighboring Miami-Dade county gets theirs done on time, and counties in NY, CA, etc. that have a lot more people and get their done on time.
Sadly, both Broward and Palm are incompetent and/or corrupt depending on who is running their election board. Remember many are transplanted from places like NJ where voter fraud is notorious, and you wouldn't expect them to go straight just because they move to another state.
One infamous example of the shenanigans they pull is playing around with the type of ballots they use. Most people remember the infamous "butterfly ballot" which created the "hanging chad" fiasco.
That was done intentionally by the Democrat election supervisor to "make it easier for elderly folks to vote". To interpret that, she felt too many elderly Democrats were not able to vote for fellow Democrats, so she devised that system to maximize the number of votes the Democrats would get. However it backfired, because the way the names were laid out, Bush was on top, and instead of Gore being second (i.e. like most ballots who have the two major parties first & second) Pat Buchanan was on the opposite side of the ballot and looked to be in 2nd place. In reality Gore was 2nd under Bush on the other side, however the 2nd arrow was for Buchanan and the 3rd for Gore.
Many an elderly hardcore Democrat Jewish voter picked Buchanan despite him having a false reputation as being anti-Semitic. There is little doubt most of those votes were meant for Gore, but the idiot trying to help the Democrats by the gerrymandered ballot actually screwed her own party.
As to the OP's primary question, many people don't realize that just because a state is "red or blue", it does not mean it is 70-30 or the like. In many instances you never hear about how close a state is because they get their counts in on election night, and the state is called one way or the other.
We live in very polarized times, and the parties try to appeal to as many voters as possible.
So while they now call certain states toss ups, swing states, purple, etc. most are closer these days than you might imagine.
Sadly, rhetoric that helps divide people is used more often than not, to where few will cross parties lines. I know there was a time I voted for both parties depending on the individual candidate, but few in the Democrat party still embrace the values and agenda it once did.
They have gone hard left, practically espousing anti-American views on our capitalistic economy in favor of socialism (they hide the communist word), and all sorts of social issues which traditional Americans cannot abide by.
If you don't believe it, just look at the DNC platform in the 90's with Bill Clinton and compare it to now. It is almost as if they were two completely different parties in the span of 20-30 years.
But I digress.
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