Iraq election (one day after): Who is counting the votes?

[Mark Graber]

With only a mild touch of amusement, I wonder whether Mr. Ismail would
have been placed in the top 10 or top 20 percent of American voters in
terms of political sophisticated had he been surveyed by Campbell and
the other authors of THE AMERICAN VOTER during the 1950s. Given the
other answers they received, I literally cannot imagine Mr. Ismail worse
than the 50th percentile and suspect he would he higher.  My more
general suspicion is that in terms of political sophistication, Iraqis
would probably be ranked higher than the people Campbell et al.
surveyed, and might do reasonably well with a great many Americans, many
of whom voted against infidels like me (and the label is not entirely
inaccurate) in the most recent election.

Mark A. Graber



>>> "Sanford Levinson" <SLevinson at law.utexas.edu> 10/16/05 7:31 PM >>>
 From tomorrow's NYTimes (I think):

A Sunni, Mr. Ismail said he had voted for the constitution, despite
appeals by many Sunni leaders for it to be rejected, and threats from
Islamic militants to kill anybody participating in it. He said he did
not really know what was in the constitution, but the fact that his
opinion had been sought was enough for him to back it. "It gives me hope
in God, and in my fellow men," he said. As for the insurgents, he said,
they were "infidels," and added, "I don't accept them."

I think this captures a great deal of the complexity.  One must respect
Mr. Ismail greatly for voting at all.  But what does his vote actually
tell us about his support for what is in the constitution?  And does it
matter?  In what sense is "his opinion [being] sought"?  And what,
exactly, is his opinion in this context, other than (justified)
opposition to the insurgents (but is it for the right reason, i.e., that
they are 'infidels').  The mind reels....

sandy
_______________________________________________
To post, send message to Conlawprof at lists.ucla.edu
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see
http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/conlawprof

Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as
private.  Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are
posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly
or wrongly) forward the messages to others.