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[mainiac]

The 2000 elections took place according to the rules agreed to before hand.  In the US the government didn't actively tamper with the results to get the candidate the incumbent wanted.

[Another]

I didn't imply that any US laws were violated in that election. But the result was strictly speaking not democratic.

[mainiac]

According to a narrow enough definition of democratic it wasn't.  But that's not the charge that is levied against Iran.  The charge is outright rigging the election so that the clear winner was denied office.

[Another]

According to a narrow enough definition of democratic it wasn't.  But that's not the charge that is levied against Iran.  The charge is outright rigging the election so that the clear winner was denied office.

That may very likely be what have happened. And the evidence is ...?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

The 2000 US election wasn't fraudulent, it was a failing of the electoral college, which can and has before led to situations where the popular vote and electoral vote were different. This occurred in 1880, 1888, and 2000. Mathematically speaking, you could win the US presidential election with only 22% of the US voting for you if they were all the exactly correct votes.

There is a growing movement to remove the electoral college now, which will likely succeed eventually.

[RedWarrior0]

I'm fine with the electoral college, I just wish it was by districts or by percentage in more states.

[Mephansteras]

I'm fine with the electoral college, I just wish it was by districts or by percentage in more states.

Yeah, I hate that my vote in California is pretty much worthless. I may not want to vote different from the rest of the state, but even if I did it wouldn't matter.

[i2amroy]

There is a growing movement to remove the electoral college now, which will likely succeed eventually.

I'm all for it, or at least for a change in it to require percentages in all of the states. In my opinion the reasons for the electoral college were more because of:
1)It was impossible to get the news to everyone about the various candidates quickly and easily.
2)A large portion of the people weren't educated enough to be able to understand what the people were talking about. By having an electoral college, it allowed the "educated" portion of the population to have a larger influence on the vote if an idiot had the popular vote.
3)It was an "older tradition" of kings and popes being elected by a college of their upper peers (nobles and cardinals respectively). By choosing the candidates before this election, the reason for such a college based on tradition is largely removed.

[Helgoland]

I'm fine with the electoral college, I just wish it was by districts or by percentage in more states.

Yeah, I hate that my vote in California is pretty much worthless. I may not want to vote different from the rest of the state, but even if I did it wouldn't matter.

I'm very much for percentage voting in the red parts and electoral college voting in the blue parts of the country

BTW what did you think of the debate yesterday?

[mainiac]

That may very likely be what have happened. And the evidence is ...?

I linked to the Times article but I am not going to do your research for you on this one.  Were the subject matter controversial or esoteric you might reasonably expect me to explain myself.  But this is such a basic point that I believe the burden lies with you, not me.  If you want to debate a subject you are expected to bring at least a little knowledge about the subject to the conversation.  The 2009 elections and subsequent protests were a BFG and you should know about them if you want to discuss Iran.

[Reelya]

I'll go with what Chomksy is saying, which turns out to be pretty much what i was saying, that evn if there were irregularities, there's no real evidence that it would have been a landslide for the other guy. Ahmadinejad might have been around 51% of the vote, and the possibility that the other guy could gain enough to get elected made loyalists paranoid.

Also do you believe Obama and Romney are personally orchestrating everything done by local Democratic and Republican officials? One common thing i see is that people in the West easily see that actions of a local political party, may not be authorized from the top-down. But automatically assume that if there is any local corruption in, for example, Venezuela that President Chavez is personally overseeing every detail.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sk04v2yq4PQ

I really don't like the line that "my point of view is so self-evident that i don't need any evidence at all" no matter what the topic.

Hell, florida 2000. Talk about stealing elections. And a lot more solid evidence than Iran. Is bombing of the United States justified from that? That election-stealing administration went on to kill MILLIONS of people in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not to mention all the torture camps and rendition you guys seem to like running.

[mainiac]

That's a whole lot of blind faith that Chomsky is putting out there.  He's basically just giving them the benefit of the doubt.  I'll watch the video later but given what I've seen of Chomsky's other work I have low expectations.  He see's propogandists hiding in every closet.

[mainiac]

So the Chomsky video really doesn't say much of anything.  It's pure speculation.  He comes up with a scenario by which he can say "hey, maybe they do support Ahmadinejad".  Problem is that we have no evidence of that.  And why would they want to avoid a runoff if they thought he would win?  Chomsky is such a damn lazy "academic" 

About the polls showing Ahmadinejad ahead, basically worthless: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2009/06/about_those_iran_polls.html

If you want to read some academic work on the subject, why not read the 538 stuff written at the time?
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/search/label/iran
Pay special attention to this: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/06/worst-damage-control-ever.html

The guardian council comes out and admits there was voter fraud on a massive scale.  At the same time there are completely nonsensical figures that result in a fairly uniform Ahmadinejad victory across the board even though the protests showed that his support clearly was not uniform.

Please for the love of science realize the obvious here, Ahmadinejad lost the election but the guardian council rigged the results.

[Duuvian]

In 2000 US president elections more Americans voted for Gore than for the person who became the president. Do we have any sanctions against the US as a result? Proposals to bomb the US until they give all the power to the person whom most of the citizens so clearly preferred?

Another, you have to understand, that made every single American of both sides question our system if not made them angry about it because it showed that our government at the time cared more about sticking to the letter of the obsolete law than the people's will. Even the common man conservative who 'won' from it didn't feel right about it because it was obviously some kind of shenanigans and look where it led us. I was a child conservative (as in I was still quite young and unknowledgeable except what others had seen fit to show me) at the time through no fault of my own and even I thought the other guy should have won since that's what the people wanted; so it sort of hurt my respect for the way 'democracy' works in America at that point and set me on the path to here. The current lack of faith in the government that conservatives hold stems from that partially I imagine.

Also, yes the electoral college really needs to go and be replaced with a real popular vote. It was designed in a time when there weren't even telegraphs if I remember correctly. Maybe an internet petition is in order for that or something.

Maybe said petition could be linked in a post here so that we all know about it and can tell people.

[RedWarrior0]

Now, I think the thing is that no, he didn't win. Whether or not he lost is debatable. It's like when someone uses a logical fallacy, that does not automatically make them wrong.