Vote counting irony

After watching this year's election fiasco I've been reading a description of the Bush v Gore mess in 2000 for comparison. The book is Courting Justice by David Boies. He was one of Gore's lawyers during that fiasco. The last three chapters are about Bush v Gore.

Much of the Bush v Gore argument ended up being the Gore camp wanting more votes to be counted (though they really only cared about 4 left leaning counties). The Bush camp wanted the results accepted as is (understandable, they were ahead). A consistent theme throughout the book is that the more votes that are counted the more Gore will gain over Bush. In this case the extra votes being counted were questionable ballots -- those not properly filled out but where the "intent of the voter" can be discerned, something Florida law allowed to be counted. Mr. Boies even seems to argue that the more votes counted in Republican counties, the better for Gore.

This leaves me wondering why this is the case. Could it be that on average Democrats don't know how to fill out a ballot, don't know how to follow directions filling out a ballot, or are afraid to ask for help? How does this compare to common stereotypes today of stupid Trump supporters?

I've read arguments by scholars that we should have some sort of minimal test for voting. The arguments tend by those of the left against "deplorables" (to stereotype broadly) and are in terms of trying to prevent the return of old, regressive policies as opposed to newly enacted progressive policies. This dovetails with arguments that conservatives are more likely to not have a college degree, etc. which I've seen since the 1980 election when I was first involved with major party politics.

Yet election vote counting shows an interesting contrast. Apparently it's Democrats who are more likely to be unable to fill out a ballot correctly. Should we perhaps ask whether those who can't vote properly are intelligent enough to choose a candidate properly?

[NOTE: I do NOT advocate establishing some sort of eligibility test for voting. It's far, far too easy to turn any requirement for voting into a partisan test (e.g. literacy "tests" in the Jim Crow south).

Social Security confusion

 One of the things I've learned over the years is that one of the most confusing areas of personal finance is retirement, Social Security, etc. Having a technical degree and having filed individual income tax schedules not related to farming, I've been completely stymied when it comes to retirement. I first dealt with retirement income, taxes, etc. for my father in law. How to take benefits (monthly payments, lump sum, etc) for some types of pension is bad enough. He had a civil service pension and the 1099 form looked nothing like the examples in tax books (different numbers, etc). Figuring out the taxable amount of the pension is a disaster. No wonder tax preparation is a lucrative career.

Now I've seen another possible confusion. My wife passed away recently. Social Security was notified and I'm wondering how the final payments work. Social Security rules say you must return any payment "for the month of death" along with later months. Since her November payment was in the bank before she died I'm wondering if I need to return it. Add to this online complaints of "Social Security yanked the last payment out of the bank and caused everything else to bounce" and I wasn't sure what to expect.

Well, it turns out there's no problem. The Social Security payment "for a month" is paid the next month. Luckily there was no bank deposit the next month. Still, it took me a couple times reading the rules to figure out that "for a month" didn't mean the payment made "in a month", which is a reasonable assumption. I wonder how many people are confused by this. I wonder how many people return the payment for the month of death thinking this what is required.

In the days of the web this is made more difficult because searches related to Social Security and death turn up more responses about the SS death benefit or survivor benefits than how the last payment is treated.

So we have the irony that once somebody has finished their working life and is ready to relax in retirement it suddenly seems an advanced degree is needed to sort out the financial and tax issues.