[ExI] Immaculate Election

[spike at rainier66.com]

…> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat
Subject: Re: [ExI] Immaculate Election

 

>>…So now conservatives are generally not authoritarian.  Now it is the other way around, with a wild-eyed vengeance.

spike

>… It is not the other way around, since you explained that those leftists were not liberals.  Conservatives will always be more authoritarian. Let's not forget Haidt's book:

https://moralfoundations.org/      bill w

 

 

 

Eh, I can’t see anything in the modern conservative’s agenda which requires authoritarianism.  I am no expert on that however: I don’t know where or what the modern conservative is about or what they want.  I don’t even know where to go to find reliable information on conservatives.

 

Regarding voting machines: that 2000 experience convinced me and plenty of others that CNN handed that election to Bush.  Reasoning: after 9pm eastern, 8pm central, CNN declared Florida for Gore, telling listeners the polls had closed.  If the polls are closed and a winner has been declared, there is no point in going to the polling place.

 

Back in those days, the big news agencies were CNN first, FoxNews the growing upstart.

 

In very general, liberals were more likely to listen to CNN, conservatives more likely to listen to FoxNews.  Being both conservative and liberal simultaneously, I listen to both.  On that day in November 2000, I was switching back and forth between the two.  The CNN crew were already dancing in the end-zone while the clock was still running and the ball was still in play.  FoxNews at that time were calling out numbers in realtime, reminding its listeners that the polls were still open in western Florida.

 

At the time CNN started popping corks on the champaign bottles at about 9pm eastern, Gore had won by about 2100 votes.  Ten minutes later Gore had won by about 1700 votes.  Ten minutes after that, he had won by 1300 votes.  At half past the hour Gore had won by about 700 votes, but CNN couldn’t say anything about the changing numbers, having already told their listeners the Florida polls were closed, everybody go on home now.  At 20 minutes before 7 pm, FoxNews was saying Gore was leading by about 150 votes, no 130, oh wait 110, new results coming, please stand by… etc.

 

We had to go on inside for the play.  I was a Green party guy, but I didn’t like Nader, so I voted for the libertarian Browne that year.  I was one of the many Greens for Browne.  Not all that many however.  Nader carried over 90,000 votes, many of whom may have voted for him by accident, thinking they were voting for Gore.

 

I went out of the play at intermission, about 730 pm Pacific, turned on the radio.  FoxNew was reporting that Bush was leading when the Florida polls closed by about 530 votes (out of nearly 6 million votes.)  CNN at that time was still celebrating a Gore victory of about 2100 votes.  

 

It was then that I realized these voting machines definitely did influence that election, and CNN definitely influenced the election: CNN listeners in western Florida may have gone on home.  But Bush supporters listening to FoxNews were perhaps not aware that CNN had declared the Florida polls had closed.  They went on to the polling place and voted for Bush.  Result: the Bush team scored the winning touchdown while CNN was dancing in the end zone.  CNN might have handed that election to Bush.  Their credibility took a huge hit, FoxNews soon overtook them as the number 1 news source.  The consequences were enormous.

 

In the 2000 election, America compromised confidence in election integrity in exchange for… speed.

 

spike 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20210114/2ff1a65c/attachment.htm>