Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2022 July 9

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July 9

Manual recount question

When a manual recount occurs, do the ballots that are classified by the voting machines as legal votes get manually recounted as well to see if any of these ballots were improperly accepted by the voting machines? In Bush v. Gore , the US Supreme Court said this:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-949.ZPC.html

"In addition, the recounts in these three counties were not limited to so-called undervotes but extended to all of the ballots. The distinction has real consequences. A manual recount of all ballots identifies not only those ballots which show no vote but also those which contain more than one, the so-called overvotes. Neither category will be counted by the machine. This is not a trivial concern. At oral argument, respondents estimated there are as many as 110,000 overvotes statewide. As a result, the citizen whose ballot was not read by a machine because he failed to vote for a candidate in a way readable by a machine may still have his vote counted in a manual recount; on the other hand, the citizen who marks two candidates in a way discernable by the machine will not have the same opportunity to have his vote count, even if a manual examination of the ballot would reveal the requisite indicia of intent. Furthermore, the citizen who marks two candidates, only one of which is discernable by the machine, will have his vote counted even though it should have been read as an invalid ballot. The State Supreme Court’s inclusion of vote counts based on these variant standards exemplifies concerns with the remedial processes that were under way."

Anyway, what are the relevant laws in regards to this? Because the US Supreme Court's opinion in Bush v. Gore suggests that it would be a constitutional problem not to search through the ballots that were classified by voting machines as legal votes during a manual recount in order to find and remove any invalid ballots among them. 68.4.99.100 (talk) 00:27, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Almost every particularity of how to run elections is up to each state apart from some general standards of competence, rights, and fairness ensured by the U.S. Constitution. That includes how, when, and why recounts are done, though obviously plenty of recounts are demanded by courts. I've only seen a little bit of how Florida's elections are done in the media and worked two others (free day off and free donuts). At least in my state everything was a paper ballot that was then counted by machine, except for provisional and spoiled ballots. Either way we hand-counted every ballot before and after -- not for votes but to make sure all were accounted for. With the number of people the state somehow mobilizes for each election to fill its quite large minimum requirements per precinct, I can't imagine a full recount would be exceptionally problematic or long to run if it were simply about counting votes.

I can say regarding the text in bold that the machine would give error warnings to the voter if it read they marked two candidates for a position or omitted a vote. In the training session they said sometimes people do that intentionally, even though they know their vote for that office won't count. Regardless I'm sure any law or court would tell an elections official that they cannot attempt to glean a voter's intentions from anything beyond what is an unambiguously marked vote. Provisional ballots can be different but those are argued individually after election day.

Of course if lawyers put weird stringent rules on what can be recounted and how to objectively subjectively judge that (as often portrayed in films about the 2000 recount) then a recount can be delayed for weeks. But the U.S. President, VP, Senators and Representatives all have fixed term start and end dates (per Amendment XX). If a legislator dies or leaves office mid-term, many states would hold a special election and wait until the next cycle to do so, leaving the seat vacant for a year or more in some cases, so I don't know if a court has ever or could ever impose January 3 as a deadline for a recount of a congressional race. The U.S. presidency is however is considered to be somewhat more important. But even though in Bush v. Gore there was clearly concern for resolving the election such that certification and inauguration can proceed without delay. Thus the issue of a presidential vacancy due to lack of certification (in which case the line of succession determines the acting executive until a president is certified) has not been tested. SamuelRiv (talk) 06:23, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Extensive Gallup polling results for other years: Where to find?

I've found extensive Gallup polling results, especially in regards to World War II-related questions, for 1939, 1940, and 1941 here:

For 1939:

http://ibiblio.org/pha/Gallup/Gallup%201939.htm

For 1940:

http://ibiblio.org/pha/Gallup/Gallup%201940.htm

For 1941:

https://ibiblio.org/pha/Gallup/Gallup%201941.htm

Where do I find similar Gallup (or other) polling for other years? 68.4.99.100 (talk) 02:20, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Tony Scott's cancer

Tony_Scott#Death says "A coroner's official said Scott "did not have any serious underlying medical conditions" and that there was "no anatomic evidence of neoplasia [cancer] identified" and then goes on to say "Tony had been "fighting a lengthy battle with cancer—a diagnosis the family elected to keep private during his treatments". Both statements are referenced, but why there's such a contradiction? If anything, could be corrected right away, thanks. 212.180.235.46 (talk) 18:01, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

In the Variety interview, Ridley also mentions his brother's recovery, without going into any detail. I'll add that to the article, that should make it look less contradictory. Ridley also says Tony's death was "inexplicable", but you omitted that. It tallies with the fact that the coroner couldn't see anything serious, while still leaving some uncertainty.  Card Zero  (talk) 22:20, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Usually when we hear someone was "fighting a lengthy battle with cancer" and then died, it means the cancer caused the death. But although cancer treatments are (I hear) rather an ordeal for the patient, they don't always fail. Suppose that he had had cancer but was free of it when he died, then what we have is irony rather than contradiction. We can even imagine that he was depressed after the grueling treatments and worried that he might get cancer again. Now let me be clear: this is pure speculation on my part and not something that I think should go in the article. I know nothing of the actual facts of the case. I'm just suggesting that there isn't necessarily any contradiction. (And just for fun, an alternative speculation: it could also be that he was misdiagnosed and never had cancer, and then maybe his doctors tried to cover it up. No, I don't believe it either.) --174.89.144.80 (talk) 06:36, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

Well, about twelve years ago I had chemo for a rare form of a rare disease, Hodgkin's lymphoma: and here I still am, thanks to the UK's amazing NHS. In the linked interview with Ridley Scott from 2014, this appears: " Most of all, he says, “I miss a friend. I’d go to him even when he was doing his recovery, and I’d say, ‘F— the chemo, have a vodka martini,’ and he and I would go out.” "

I have no idea at all about any other type of chemo, but the sequence of my treatment went like this: initial visit to my GP, who referred me to my local hospital oncology dept.; the first of 8 or 9 monthly sessions started within a fortnight; I spent most of rest of the time asleep, it was absolutely exhausting; the drugs slowly blasted the naughty cells; my oncologist declared the treatment had worked very well; end of. I was very fortunate that the lymphoma hadn't penetrated into my bone marrow when it was diagnosed - perhaps stage 2 out of 4 (terminal). At no time was I counselled to change my normal habits in any way. I suppose there was a brief "recovery period" afterwards while I re-adjusted to some sort of normal life, but fairly soon I was back to the way I was before.

It may be that Tony Scott's treatment was very different to mine, but I can't quite grasp how the idea of "even when he was doing his recovery" sits with ‘F— the chemo’, unless the after-effects of the treatment might have been negated by having a drink. It all seems very mysterious. The coroner's report said there was no sign of neoplasia (which I would say sounds more like a tumour than cancer, but I'm no medic): but the family says he was had been having treatment.[1], [2] and [3] from October 2012 after the coroner's final report. It may be that the family used the excuse to cover up his "inexplicable" death. Some say it was cancer, including Ridley Scott, or "brain cancer" in reports; others strongly deny it. I would tend to believe a coroner rather than a film-maker whose whole existence deals with fantasy. I find the whole thing rather strange. Maybe best to leave it as "Tony Scott Suicide Remains a Mystery After Autopsy", as the Vanity Fair headline of the last ref states. MinorProphet (talk) 14:52, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Nation-states and ethno-states in the global South: Why less popular?

Is there a particular reason that nation-states, especially ethno-states, were less popular in the global South than in the global North? The global North also had a lot of multinational states 100+ years ago, but they subsequently broke up and evolved into various ethno-states. But a similar process never occurred in the global South. Why not? 68.4.99.100 (talk) 18:26, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

In 1964 on the heels of decolonization the Organization of African Unity made the famous Cairo Declaration (but apparently not famous enough for its own article), in which they committed themselves to maintaining their borders inherited from colonialism. They did this because they knew to not do so would be to give tacit approval to one separatist movement and civil war after another. The OAU was often considered ineffective, especially militarily after the Cold War, and the African Union succeeded it in the early 2000s. The AU adopted a "non-indifference" principle as opposed to the OAU's "non-intervention" approach to continental conflict, and where there were about 20 simultaneous wars in Africa in the 90s the AU's intervention has been largely credited with there being 4 in 2010 (de Souza 2019 p. 41). With these numbers, by the way, it's always good to reference how enormous (3x the size of Europe) and diverse (over 3000 defined ethnic groups and over 2100 languages) Africa is. This relatively good track record early on was broken with the Arab Spring, so most reviews on AU peace-brokering are mixed overall. Regarding borders again, in 2007 the AU Border Programme launched to address the persistent issue of border security in which "'less than a quarter of African borders' had been delimitated and demarcated." The ENACT report linked opines that is has not been effective so far.

South America, indeed all the Americas (Central America has had flare-ups but relatively few and minor) is an interesting case, as the 20th century through now has been called the "Long Peace" (Dominguez n.d.). Many flawed reasons have been given for this: Cold War moderation and mediation (conflict did go up after the Cold War but not with the same intensity or in the same pattern as elsewhere in the third world), relatively democratic governments (a somewhat dubious theory in general); more promising notions are the mediating role of the OAS (ibid. p.23- and many others). There is conflicting reasoning on the legacy of decolonization in Latin America -- in the 19th century several border wars came about between the relatively new countries, but the notion that they fought-out all those disputes is problematic (ibid. p. 26). Border disputes persist, especially when something lucrative turns up at a poorly-delimited boundary such as at sea or in rough terrain. (See for example the Chaco War (1932), another interesting example because both sides delayed fighting until they could build up suitable weaponry.) A grittier reading of the past century is known by contrast as "The violent peace" (Franchi et. al. 2017) - I didn't get far into that paper so I don't know what they actually conclude.

As for Southeast Asia, well, most of it is above the equator and I'm tired. I was going to raise a bunch of exceptions there to give myself an excuse not to research another paragraph, but maybe instead we should consider that in the age of the nation-state the Balkanization that has occurred periodically in Europe is the exception rather than the rule. SamuelRiv (talk) 02:27, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

• Part is physical geography... the Northern Hemisphere has more land mass with geography that is suitable for building large nation states, while a lot of the land in the Southern Hemisphere is either jungle or deserts. Blueboar (talk) 19:57, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

I don't think that's true. I had written an extensive tour of the industrial revolution and the resulting steam-powered European empires, Africa (containing a large number of nations now released from said empires), Brazil (Uruguay seceded), India (partitioned up), China (still China), the US (a large state in the northern hemisphere), Russia (still huge and full of ethnicities even after 1991) and the Mongol empire (now forty or more nation-states) in order to provide a mish-mash of examples, but this tour was getting long and messy and showing no pattern (which was the point), so actually I think you should provide examples of whatever it is you have in mind. Which nations specifically?  Card Zero  (talk) 21:29, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

My point here is that in the global North, national borders and ethnic borders correlate to a significantly greater extent than they do in the global South; you can take a look at an ethnic map of Europe and the former USSR to see what I mean here. It's not merely I who noticed this: https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/pegroup/files/muller-crepon_3.30.pdf 68.4.99.100 (talk) 22:04, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

African state borders have been and are still drawn with little reference to ethnic geography ... outright secessionist conflict is comparatively rare in Africa. This does unfortunately not imply the absence of ethnic conflict that fragments states without changing international borders. Interesting. ... politically misaligned ethnic boundaries seem to effect border change in Asia and Europe but not elsewhere. By which they mean to include South America.  Card Zero  (talk) 22:33, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

I suspect that both World Wars and Communism might have had something to do with this. National self-determination was a huge thing in the post-World War I peace settlement, mass expulsions was a huge thing in the post-World War II peace settlement, and national delimitation was a huge thing for Communists in the Soviet Union and to some extent Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia as well. Other parts of the world didn't really have that. India, for instance, had a religion-based partition but not an ethnic-based partition, at least in regards to external rather than internal borders. (India's states might be drawn more-or-less based on ethnic lines, but India isn't at risk of breaking up like the Soviet Union was, at least not yet.) 68.4.99.100 (talk) 23:07, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

In regards to South America, In *most* of South America, the borders were both made by Europeans and are maintained by those with significant European descent. The only place where native cultures *might* make a difference is Bolivia and its neighbors. In order words, it no longer *matters* whether a single pre-columbian culture inhabited both side of the mouth of the Rio Plata their descendants are pretty much gone (and/or completely interbred with the Europeans) Naraht (talk) 23:23, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

One classic whipping-boy for the discrepancies between ethnic and political boundaries in sub-Saharan Africa is the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885. Also, I have (or used to have) the book "A World of Nations: Problems of Political Modernization" by Dankwart Rustow, published in 1967 (just after most African countries had achieved independence) which has a fascinating set of tables in its Appendix, showing the degree of linguistic fragmentation within each of the countries of the world at that time (this is not always the same as ethnic fragmentation, but can be highly indicative of it). I haven't seen the book since my apartment move a few years back, so I can't look at it right now, but WorldCat has a list of chapter or section titles... AnonMoos (talk) 05:04, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Identity of Mystery Book

A birder in Ecuador shows a picture of the bird he's searching for 30 seconds into this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlnCzEYaMwc

Being as I'm a birder myself, I wanted to buy the same book, but I can't figure out the author/s or title. The best guess I have is "Birds of South America" but being as I can't see previews on sites such as Amazon, AbeBooks, etc, I'm not able to tell if the pages match. It might even be a different book entirely.

Can anyone provide any confirmation or helpful leads? Teal Reverie (talk) 20:11, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

GBS shows several books with a title like Birds of South America, but none appear to be a match. Did you have a specific one in mind (author? publsher?). Unfortunately, the shot of the page is out of focus and the birder covers most of the other species name on the page with his fingers, so a text search is not feasible.  --Lambiam 06:26, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

The one I considered the most likely candidate was "The Birds of South America" by Robert Ridgely and Guy Tudor, of which there are currently two volumes, since they seem to be the most comprehensive.

Are there any other avenues I can pursue or am I out of luck? Teal Reverie (talk) 20:27, 12 July 2022 (UTC)