Next time we Americans need help in an election, we’ll ask for it, OK?
—says Michael Schaub from Bookslut today. He’s talking, of course, about the recent Guardian letter–writing campaign to Ohio’s voters, urging them to vote. (You can see more about this in the October archives.)
Michael seems to think that the Guardian’s intervention, although well–intentioned, did more harm than good. Maybe, but that’s simply an opinion: I’d want to see the numbers before I started using words like ‘more’ in that particular sentence.
And that is precisely the problem. We haven’t seen the numbers. Hell, even America hasn’t seen Ohio’s numbers! And why? Because in Ohio (and the other States) it seems that a Presidential election is perfectly fine, and can be properly over even when hundreds of thousands of votes haven’t even been looked at and will go straight to the pulping machine!
Now, I ask you. Is that electoral disenfranchisement, or is it not? Sheesh. The mind boggles. Why are these people not shouting to get 100% of their votes counted instead?! Beats me.
(Oh. Hang on. Maybe it’s because, at the end of the day, the value of a person’s vote being counted rests on whether or not that vote makes a statistical difference. And in America it doesn’t because of the Electoral College. Hmmmm. I wonder what help America could give itself in advance of the next election…?)
Meanwhile, take a look at the spread of votes in America not simply by State, but by County, here. And remember that maps don't assume an equal spread of population.
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