Friday, January 23, 2004
Paul Krugman: Democracy at Risk
Krugman is looking for conspiracies, and will believe his a priori impressions of the world, before believing evidence. In an article about democracy at risk from stolen elections using electronic voting, he opens:
"The disputed election of 2000 left a lasting scar on the nation's psyche. A recent Zogby poll found that even in red states, which voted for George W. Bush, 32 percent of the public believes that the election was stolen. In blue states, the fraction is 44 percent."
These must be a surprisingly large numbers to Krugman. I am not surprised at all: this fraction of the populous could easily be contained in a subset of Gore supporters. Of course the loser will be upset about losing, and look for reasons from the outside why they lost. If Gore was so much obviously better than Bush, why was the nation almost exactly split? People harp on the fact that Gore won the popular election, but forget that basically the same number of people voted for Bush.
Maybe "statisitically insignificant" is the phrase I'm looking for to describe the margin of victory. Either way, I never heard a 'mea culpa' from Gore. Of course he thinks he did everything right...
But I should add that I agree with the policy he advocates in the column. This just makes sense, and I'm surprised it isn't more obvious to those that make the voting machines:
"Representative Rush Holt has introduced a bill calling for each machine to produce a paper record that the voter verifies. The paper record would then be secured for any future audit. The bill requires that such verified voting be ready in time for the 2004 election — and that districts that can't meet the deadline use paper ballots instead. And it also requires surprise audits in each state."
The bill should also eliminate the Electoral College.
Krugman is looking for conspiracies, and will believe his a priori impressions of the world, before believing evidence. In an article about democracy at risk from stolen elections using electronic voting, he opens:
"The disputed election of 2000 left a lasting scar on the nation's psyche. A recent Zogby poll found that even in red states, which voted for George W. Bush, 32 percent of the public believes that the election was stolen. In blue states, the fraction is 44 percent."
These must be a surprisingly large numbers to Krugman. I am not surprised at all: this fraction of the populous could easily be contained in a subset of Gore supporters. Of course the loser will be upset about losing, and look for reasons from the outside why they lost. If Gore was so much obviously better than Bush, why was the nation almost exactly split? People harp on the fact that Gore won the popular election, but forget that basically the same number of people voted for Bush.
Maybe "statisitically insignificant" is the phrase I'm looking for to describe the margin of victory. Either way, I never heard a 'mea culpa' from Gore. Of course he thinks he did everything right...
But I should add that I agree with the policy he advocates in the column. This just makes sense, and I'm surprised it isn't more obvious to those that make the voting machines:
"Representative Rush Holt has introduced a bill calling for each machine to produce a paper record that the voter verifies. The paper record would then be secured for any future audit. The bill requires that such verified voting be ready in time for the 2004 election — and that districts that can't meet the deadline use paper ballots instead. And it also requires surprise audits in each state."
The bill should also eliminate the Electoral College.
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