http://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/12/09/president.election/index.html
One thing that the dissenting opinion alluded to, and which I think is very important, is that this ruling would essentially violate the rights of due process of the Bush camp.
Let’s say that the re-count suddenly shows Gore leading by 200 votes, and the state certifies his slate of electors on Dec 11. What recourse does the Bush camp have? How can THEY contest result? There is no time left. Thus, we’d have a situation where Gore gets to continue protesting and contesting until he gets a favorable result, at which point the Bush camp has no rights at all.
This is the constitutional crisis mentioned by the Chief Justice. If that were to happen, Bush would have to protest directly to Congress or the Supreme court. The slate of electors for Gore would therefore be ‘tainted’, and could be thrown out, disenfranchising the entire state of Florida.
This is what the Republican Legislature is defending against. By certifying a slate of electors for Bush, they make them available for Congress to choose should they decide that the Gore slate is tainted. Otherwise, they would have to reject Florida completely as I understand it.
Anyway, the Supreme Court has stopped the re-count. For them to take this step required them to believe that there was a ‘high probability’ that the FSC violated the Constitution.
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Gore has an equal right to due process, too. You’re looking at it.
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What basis would Bush have for a challenge, other than pique?
It’s especially interesting that the order was accompanied by a statement by Scalia essentially saying that he’s decided already. He’s made clear his quasi-religious faith in strict constructionism, federalism, and judicial restraint, all of which should point him in the other direction, one would think.
Could his motives in prejudging this appeal possibly be hypocritical? Could he possibly be thinking that a President Bush might appoint a soulmate (or 2 or 3) for him besides Clarence Thomas? We shall see his opinion soon enough.
Hmmmm, ElvisL1ves, once again your penchant for ignoring fact and law is present in your assertion regarding what Justice Scalia, as well as four other justices, has done.
I’m not condoning the stay order. I don’t agree that it is the best way to procede. I think that it has the terrible effect of ensuring that no slate of electors will be immune from challenge under the provisions of 3 U.S.C. §5, since there is no way for the stay to be lifted in time to finish the inspection of ballots in time to determine the final total of legal votes cast for each candidate. Thus, the action of the Supreme Court has ensured that the matter will be resolved politically in Congress.
On the other hand, your understanding of procedure before the Supreme Court is apparently not complete. It is wrong to assume that oral argument necessarily adds anything to an appeal. I assume that the petition filed on the behalf of Mr. Bush included arguements of law that asserted why the decision of the Florida Supreme Court violates federal law; indeed it must contain such arguements because one of the requirements for issuance of a stay is that the petitioner establish a reasonable probability of eventually succeding in his/her claim. Of necessity, this means that the petitioner makes his/her case in the petition, rather than relying on later briefs and oral arguements. After all, this isn’t like a trial court, and there isn’t some unknown ‘evidence’ that the justices need to hear before making up their minds. Indeed, they aren’t even required to HAVE oral arguement, and assuming that respondent(s) had time to file responsorial briefs to the petition for stay, the Court has the ability to go ahead and decide the case on the merits without any further procedings.
Chief Justice Wells of the Florida Supreme Court, in his rather unfortunately incomplete dissent, made pointed reference to the equal protection troubles inherent in the decision of the Court. Quite obviously, five of the justices are likely to agree that counting a statewide election without uniform statewide standards would indeed violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. The law on this is certainly not unknown to the justices, so why they would need to wait to hear from the parties arguements that they themselves can recite both sides of already is unclear.
Much more difficult to agree with is the assertion of ‘irreparable harm’. Justice Scalia points out that there is harm in clouding the result of the election by having a total that may be ‘wrong’ reported following the canvassing of the undervoted ballots. But this seems no more 'irreparable than the harm existing from having had previous counts followed by more accurate counts. And as for the absurd notion that the quality of the ballots somehow degrades significantly with each attempt to determine the ‘clear intent’ of the voter, well, that is spoon fed directly to him by the propaganda of the Republican Party, which has offered not one shred (to my knowledge) of actual expert opinion that this is actually the case.
In the end, what is likely to happen is this: the Supreme Court will say that there has to be a uniform standard of determining what is a ‘vote’. They will note that the standard established by the Florida legislature violates that rule, in that it leaves to the canvassing boards the discretion to determine how to determine ‘clear intent’. They will refuse to allow the Florida Supreme Court to remedy this by establishing some guidelines, since such guidelines would not be part of the elector selection scheme established by the legislature. What they do AFTER they have gotten that far is quite beyond me, because, of course, the whole damn election was counted based on interpretations of ‘clear intent’ that varied from county to county, so arguably ALL of Florida’s election was violative of equal protection. Of course, by this point the state legislature will have designated a set of electors, which, while not immune from challenge, won’t have a competing slate to worry about.
Is this justice? (sigh) Probably not. Goodness sake, all they had to do was complete the counting and find out that Mr. Bush had won anyway, and the whole damn thing woulda taken care of itself once and for all…
DSY: am I reading you right, that this contest can continue past the SC’s ruling to a challenge of the electors? What’s the complete doomsday scenario here? How long and how far can this go?
I decided not to post my #@%^*&^^%@ thoughts about the USSC to stay the count of FL undervotes [thoughts were more in line with the BBQ Pit than Great Debates]. So I wake up early this morning, start reading the news and SDMB. I am still PISSED OFF.
So, phwat; phwat, phwat; phwat, phwat, phwat:
-South Florida Key Lime Pie-in-the-face for George Dubya Bush for his attempts to avoid counting legitimate votes that happened to be kicked out the of machine. [Remember that the expert about punchcard machines said the machine count error rate is higher than handcount error rate; count the votes he says in a close election.]
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Another South Florida Key Lime Pie-in-the-face for the United States Supreme Court Justices who decided, at the last possible moment, to delay the count. I still cannot understand on what grounds they have the right to do this? The national constitution states delegates elections to the states. The FLSC was extremely careful in citing their legal basis.
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A third Florida Key Lime Pie-in-the-face for the Florida Legislature for deciding to play big bully and go forward with the special session to name yet another list of Bush electors…don’t they have a list already which they can just kiss on the check and send off to Washington DC?
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My final FLorida Key Lime Pie-in-the-face to all those folks who insist that:
> all the votes have been counted
> the FLSC has created law rather than interprete existing yet conflicting laws
> public opinion polls should be the basis for concession speeches in what is really a legal battle to count votes.
By the by, did I mention that I am really ticked off by the continued nastiness of the Republican party??? Well, sugar will not make your politer - so please stand warned that I did handmake these Florida Key Lime Pie without sugar. I guess that makes you a sourpuss.
Damn, kiffa, it’s futile to try to take exception to that flawless and eloquent argument that you so rationally present.
Anyways.
Any evidence to support this contention? And I suppose that their conclusions are the only ones that GOP research could have led to? Even though the Herald’s analysis is aimed at showing what the intent of the voters would have been if it were known, while legally only ballots where they made this clearly known can count. Thus the Herald’s study would count the results of the double punched ballots, while there is no way of legally counting those. They also seemed to ignore the fact that some of the undervote may have been people that didn’t actually vote for president.
pantom, it depends on what the Supreme Court of the United States does, as well as how persistent the majority of the Supreme Court of Florida are in coming up with ways to allow a continued effort to let Mr. Gore have a chance of winning (presupposing, of course, that both courts are politicized). For example, we have not yet had a decision from the Supreme Court of Florida regarding the absentee ballot application fiasco in Seminole and Martin counties. Further, since the United States Supremes Court cannot make a final determination, but can only tell the Florida court that what it has done has violated federal law, in theory the Florida court can continue to pump out new theories consistent with the determinations of the Supreme Court. In short, this could go on for quite a while.
At SOME point, Mr. Gore is going to have to either admit that the effort isn’t going to end up with a win, or he has to force the nation to experience all the seedy side of politics. I’ve been hoping for the former since the manual recounts ended Sunday, Nov. 26. I am guessing we are going to be treated to the latter, however. (sigh)
I suppose we can call it an interesting experiment in federal civics…
Appreciate your feedback. Some feedback for you: could you please acknowledge who you are quoting? It’s kinda hard to figure that out, put the quotes in context and, ergo, better understand what your comments mean. Thank you very much.
:heads back to the kitchen for make some Holiday nutcake:
I don’t believe it has been the intention of the Gore camp to actually win the election, for some time now. After all, they have to be aware of all the analysts that have been saying that it’s virtually impossible for Gore to be the next president, since the Republicans will make the decisions.
So why keep fighting? The clues to that come from about a week and a half ago, when the Democratic party, which had been wavering for some time in its support of Al, suddenly did a 90 degree turn and fell lock-step in behind his efforts. About this time, major Democratic figures like Dick Gephardt started showing up in Florida offering their support to Gore.
I believe the real intent of the current Gore campaign is to bloody the nose of the Republicans. The current Democratic strategy is to try and force the Republicans into increasingly politically-destructive acts.
You’ll note that about this time Democrats starting floating a trial balloon about getting half of the committees and half of the staff in the Senate. They want a shared Senate. And they may get it. But if Bush had been declared the winner after the first re-count, they wouldn’t have had a chance in hell.
So, people have been claiming that Gore is destroying his favor in the Democratic party. I don’t think so. I think he’s an unsung hero, and that they’re going to owe him.
And I believe you have nailed it down tight, sir. And the best part is, it’s working!
stoid
One person’s “counting the votes” is another person’s “manufacturing an illegitimate Gore win.”
If y’all are going to just keep repeating the disingenuous “count the votes” mantra, I guess I’ll just copy the above sentence and paste it repeatedly.
Common sense and right-before-your-eyes evidence doesn’t seem to be working for some of you. Maybe repetition will.
What ** proof ** do you have of this? Anything at all will do…ONE instance of some “manufacture” of a vote. I have yet to see anyone produce anything except innuendo. “Did you see how they were holding them up to the light!” “There’s chads all over the floor!” “Someone was EATING a chad!” - no proof of ANYTHING AT ALL. Merely taking certain observations of factual realities (except maybe the eating thing) and stating them in such a way that we are supposed to then leap to the conclusion that the process is illigitmate and votes are being manufactured. In other words…air.
What I have observed is standards being agreed upon (different from county to county, but that’s the way it is set up -can’t change the rules mid way, remember? And having some body decree a consistent standard for all counties would be doing just that - my guess about why the FLS did NOT do it, and neither did the Leon County judge Friday night) and followed, with observers and TV cameras staring down people’s necks as they apply them.
If you dislike the idea of handcounts, take it up with the Florida Legislature. Hell, take it up with the Bush witness who had to admit on the stand that the way to ensure a * more accurate * result would be to * hand count * the ballots.
And as has been said repeatedly: if you don’t like the “dimpled chad” standard, talk it over with Dubya, who signed it into law in his state…seems more than a little unsporting to say it works for Texas but not for Florida.
So…If y’all are going to just keep repeating the disingenuous “manufacturing an illigitmate Gore win” mantra, I guess I’ll just copy the above post and paste it repeatedly.
Common sense and right-before-your-eyes evidence doesn’t seem to be working for some of you. Maybe repetition will.
Give me some evidence that actually demonstrates something more than supposition, innuendo, and suspicion and I’ll listen. Til then…
stoid
Incidentally, nobody’s brought this up yet, but is there not an irony in Al Gore’s call for state rights? After all, under Clinton state rights took a beating like never before (and certainly appears likely to continue under Gore’s reign!!) and for him to bring that up comes across as rather hypocritical, wouldn’t you say? It’s also ironic that he stands up for individual rights when he certainly has no will to protect them once he gets elected!
“Al Gore is a conservative liberal and George W. Bush a liberal conservative.”
Strong words for someone who implies a conspiracy whenever two Republicans are in the same room.
The whole point is that determining the presence of a clear intent of the voter is necessarily a subjective task. Given enough counting, with partisans determining what constitutes a vote, a Gore win can be possible without a majority of actual votes being present. I know liberals are all honest, but if this election has shown us anything, it’s that people’s opinions on other matters are definately affected by their political views.
Personally, I thought the song applied equally well to either candidate.
Regardless of who wins, I propose a ban on the use of the word “mandate” by the winner, violation of which to be punished by immediate ejection from office. A little humility would go a long way…
jr8
CALVIN: When I grow up, I'm not going to read the newspaper and I'm not going to follow complex issues and I'm not going to vote. That way I can complain when the government doesn't represent me. Then, when everything goes down the tubes, I can say the system doesn't work and justify my further lack of participation.
HOBBES: An ingeniously self-fulfilling plan.
CALVIN: It’s a lot more fun to blame things than to fix them.
– Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes
Gee, DS, I can’t imagine what you’re tone had been if you’d actually been disagreeing with me. Please reread the post and you’ll find me simply wondering about Scalia’s partisanship. If you disagree, fine, but you’re way out of line commenting on the ignorance of someone’s not knowing something they haven’t even commented upon.
In the future, please keep personal comments like your above post in the Pit where they belong, OK?
That more or less coincides with the legal tides of fortune, does it not? The good old bandwagon effect has been present on both sides.
Not necessarily. Here, members of Congress aren’t as tightly bound by party membership as in parliamentary countries. Very rarely are there true party-line votes with 100 percent participation on anything, especially in the Senate with its 6-year terms. As a practical matter, there does have to be real power-sharing in a split body, no matter who gets what titles, and I believe Daschle and Lott both understand it.
The only way the GOP would control the Senate is by keeping Cheney chained to the chair and whipping every vote. Even the putative resignation of Lieberman to become VP, with replacement by a GOP appointee, would be effective only until the Conn. Leg. schedules a special election which would put Blumenthal in the seat, then it’s back to 50/50. Or there could be deaths or midterm retirements; you never know.
Could well be. Unfortunately, only sung heros get such debts repaid. If Gore gets another chance (assuming the Scalia wing of the SC hands the election to Bush), it will be because recounts by independent parties under the Freedom of Information Act show that he actually won this time. That seems entirely plausible, even discounting the PBC design fiasco and the Duval civil-rights problems.
<hijack>
Just when I thought this election couldn’t sink any lower, I read this in News of the Weird:
If she turns out to be correct, I’m losing what little faith I have left in both politics and religion.
</hijack>
jr8
“Discretion is the better part of virtue,
Commitments the voters don’t know about can’t hurt you.”
– Ogden Nash