>The electorial college is not a bad idea -- but not for the reasons our forefathers chose. If popular vote was the only criteria, then all campaigning would be done in the 10-15 most populous states and the rest of the states ignored. With the present system, every state is important in a close election. If you look at the electorial map -- Bush won most of the states and if he wins the electorial majority, then his victory has to be considered legit. However Florida law makes it all the more confusing.
>

I see your points here, but is there really all that much campaigning in the "smaller" states now? I don't know the accurate answer to this.

>Florida law states (to my best knowledge) that punch holes have to be to the
right of the name and in Palm Beach county, obviously, there were holes to the left of a few candidates.
>
>Also, votes (by law) can be reassigned to a different candidate if proof of error is found (Buchanan vs. Gore) I don't know what they will do about the 19,000 votes that were thrown out.
>
I was born/raised in Florida but I don't know florida law on these points. However, if some of these pints are accurate, it seems it could easily open the door for a few people to "take over" the process and skew elections by declaring ballots ineligible, etc.

These are dificult issues to be sure. I hope rationality is applied in the current case.

>In any case, I think we will see what kind of men Bush and Gore really are!
>

Agree completely ... I hope that we are pleasantly surprised. :-)