Don’t Blame Me: I Voted for Lizard People
posted by Mark Edwards
Given the enormous complexity of administering a state wide election, it is remarkable that we generally depend upon an army of volunteers — often elderly volunteers, at that — to get it done right on a single day (although early voting is changing that). The Florida fiasco in 2000 pulled back the curtain on our election adminstration wizardy, and revealed a lot of confused and bumbling people operating the machinery. Bush v. Gore was, in the view of Richard Posner, the Supreme Court’s awkward attempt to shut the curtain.
The truth is that in every election, some votes don’t count or are counted wrongly. Usually the margin between the candidates is greater than the margin of error. But when that was not true in Florida in 2000, and it was revealed that every doesn’t count, never had, and never would, the nation as a whole was shaken. The notion that every vote counts was so fundamental to our sense of political identity, that the revelation that it wasn’t true provoked a national identity crisis. A common, bewildered refrain of the time was, “Is this really America?”
Yes, it was. And is, as can be seen today here in Minnesota, where hand re-counting of 2.5 million ballots has begun in the race between Al Franken and Norm Coleman for U.S. Senate. As of this writing, the margin between them is approximately 160 votes.
Much has been written about the dangers of voter suppression, voter fraud, and potential election corruption.
A justifiably less discussed but still vexing problem, is the fact that some voters just aren’t very competent at filling out a ballot, while others are . . . welll . . . nuts. Minnesota’s ballot judges are going to have to try to determine the intent of these people, and it isn’t easy. Minnesota Public Radio has posted some ‘challenged’ ballots — ballots either Coleman or Franken want reviewed by ballot judges to try to determine the voter’s intent. Try it for yourself. Or, watch the recount live. But remember, whoever wins, don’t blame me: I voted for lizard people.
November 20, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Posted in: Politics
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Responses (5)
Mark Edwards - November 20, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Forgive me for being the first to comment on my own post, but I just noticed something interesting about the lizard people ballot.
Note that the voter wrote in lizard people for both President and Senate, but only voted for them for President. He voted for Franken over lizard people for Senate, although he obviously felt lizard people should be on the ballot for that office as well. And note that in this election, Franken will gladly take the vote if he can get it.
Stephen - November 20, 2008 at 6:21 pm
Seems to me that where a box it ticked and a write-in is also included, then the voter is saying, “I’m voting for the guy I ticked, but if the person I wrote-in had actually been on the ballot then I’d have voted for him instead”.
Howard Wasserman - November 20, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Of course, Lizard People is not (are not?) eligible to serve as both President and Senator, since that would violate the Incompatibility Clause. And if Lizard People were to win the presidency, what would that do the theory of the unitary executive?
Mark Edwards - November 20, 2008 at 9:03 pm
Interesting point, Howard.
From a purely political standpoint, I think it is significant that Franken got crossover support from traditionally Lizard People voters. Just as Ronald Reagan tapped into a demographic that became known as ‘Reagan Democrats,’ might we one day speak of ‘Franken Lizard People,’ or perhaps simply ‘FrankenLizards’?
Brett Bellmore - November 21, 2008 at 6:36 am
From a hard hearted perspective, it’s a voting rights violation if somebody undertakes affirmative actions to prevent somebody who’s entitled to vote from voting.
But if somebody who’s entitled to vote picks up a ballot that says “fill in the circle completely”, and does anything else, like draw a circle around it, that’s just the wages of stupidity, and we’re better off if idiots don’t succeed when they attempt to vote.
I realize that’s heresy to people who view the function of voting as some kind of warm and fuzzy social participation. Nope, the function of voting is to pick officeholders and decide questions, and the ignorant and stupid are just noise.
Those people were instructed on how to make their votes count. If they chose not to do as they were instructed, their votes shouldn’t count.
Next we’ll be told that, if somebody gets lost on the way to the polls, we should make provision so that they can vote wherever they end up…
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