Thanks for posting.
I'm not going to jump into the Bush thread. First, I don't have the time, and second, I don't disagree sufficiently with what you say to get into a discussion of it.
But a slightly different take on the issue. What I haven't seen said anywhere is that the "blame the ballot, blame the machine" argument is very much in line with our contemporary society's victimization mentality. When something goes wrong today, it is NEVER the fault of the person involved. It must ALWAYS be that somebody else's failures MADE the person a victim.
Thus, I haven't heard ANY voter accept that it was their fault if their ballot wasn't punched properly. (Forget that the PB ballot had been approved by both parties, published, widely distributed, and had directions clearly present.) I haven't heard any voter accept that it was their responsibility to vote according to the ballot instructions. Instead, it's necessary to blame somebody or something else -- the ballot designer, the machine, alien abudctors (I just tossed that in to see whether you were still reading!), or whatever.
I would LOVE some voter to stand up and say "Hey, I screwed up, it was my fault, my vote SHOULDN'T count."
But that level of personal accountability is largely absent today, and is particuarly noticably absent among the more liberal fringe of society who are most likely to have voted -- or thought they were voting -- for Gore. |
