I’m counting on 6 weeks. I think that both sides are going to parachute whole battalions of election lawyers into every state which the winner only takes by 5,000 or less votes. If I recall, though, there’s something in the electoral law that requires a certification by a certain date, though I’m sure it will get stretched right to the limit.
Tony
I am one of those thousands of attorneys learning the recent changes to federal election law so that we are ready to go on November 2. But, we’re going to put this election to bed by no later than 10 PM on November 2, probably earlier, with the American people deciding that they are still willing to fight the war on terror. Republicans will also pick up at least 3 seats in the Senate, which will go a long way to ending the problems we are having confirming judges.
Most pundits think a gain of 2 votes in the Senate, given Bush’s lately-lengthening coattails. More and more Ree-pubs seem to be jumping on the tail, where very few Dems are seen to be doing the same thing with Kerry a la Daschle’s publicizing of a picture of him and Bush in a sort of hug.
The House, due to dicennial redistricting is seen as a safe Ree-pub majority regardless.
I’m not really up on election law anymore, but I don’t think that the loser is going to go quietly into that good, good night 
Tony
Lengthening coattails, and Dems that don’t go the polls when it’s cler that W has won just like in 1980. The networks won’t call the election until 11:00 PM, but it will be obvious to anyone that can count who has won long before then.
You will definitely see efforts by the Dems like they do every four years to file lawsuits to keep the polls open solely in areas where they have a substantial majority of voters. For example, here in Michigan, they sue to keep the polls open solely in Detroit.
But you would not see challenges to the vote itself unless the electoral college is very close and there are enough states where the election is decided by very few votes. Recounts rarely change vote counts by more than a very small percentage of the vote. You are just not going to see a 5,000 vote change in a statewide recount unless there is wholesale cheating involved. In fact, I don’t think you would normally get a change of more than a few hundred votes in a fairly large state, and you might not even see that because error is likely to be distributed fairly randomly. So, I just don’t think that the planets are likely to align in the way that it is necessary for there to be a lot of litigation again.
But, if the Dems want to fight, we are gearing up.
Have the networks totally scrapped Voter News Service? Also, I just don’t think that personal hatred of GWB will be enough of a prime motivator to mobilize vast armies of voters to the polls in Kerry’s favor.
It’s going to be a wild 5 weeks.
Tony
I’m not an election law specialist. I guess that it’d have to survive constitutional scrutiny, but it usually is left up to “the several states” as to the manner and method of conducting the election. CTL can probably speak more to it than I can.
As to the whole “we’d have a different President” thing, well, that’s the woman we brought to the dance, and we were all fine living with it until it didn’t deliver what at least half the population thought it should. You have to leave out the so-called “overvote” and “undervote”. Again, that’s also happened many, many times in our past history. I don’t find anything particularly upsetting about a person winning the popular vote but losing the in the Electoral College. That’s what representative (not direct, or “pure”) democracy is about.
Bush wasn’t the first President chosen through the Electoral College, and probably won’t be the last, unless some sort of proportional distribution is decided upon, and it can withstand judicial review.
Tony
It’d be an interesting experiment, at any rate. My guess is that if the '04 election goes like the '00 did, and we all get hammered into the ground by weeks of post-election lawyering (not a slam, just a figure of speech) the population might be amenable to it.
As you say, it depends upon if it’d get out of the House and sent on to the states, should it be determined at the judicial level that an amendment must be sought.
Tony
Election law is a hobby that I practice every two years, not a full time profession so I could be a little off on the details here. States do not have to have a winner take all system for deciding how their members of the electoral college vote. I think two states, one of which may be Nebraska, have a system where their electoral college votes are apportioned, and I think that the apportionment is by congressional districts won. Other states have considered doing so. I think that the potential legal challenge to Colorado’s system is that whether to apportion votes is on this year’s ballot and will be given retroactive effect if it is passed. The constitutional challenge would be related to the fact that voters don’t know how their vote is going to be counted at the time it is counted.
Maine and Nebraska have the proportional system. Winner gets two electoral votes automatically, and the rest are doled out by cong. dist.
From what I understand, if CO had a proprtional system in 2000, it could have changed the outcome of the election. However, in most cases it pretty much makes the state a non-factor in an election.
What I did just learn is that in CO, voter registration is 36% Republican, 30% Dem, and 32% Independent. Not that I’m complaining, but that seems like a pretty high % of Independents. Maybe it’s just polling data, citizens checking the box as “Independent”.
Sounds like an interesting area of law to have as a hobby.