The original post from ElvisL1ves, upon which I commented:
From this statement we divine the following:
An assumption that the opinion of Justice Scalia estblishes he has made up his mind already.
An assertion that his presumed coming decision is contrary to his general tenets of constitutional law which he often passionately expresses.
An assertion, buried in the first question, that the ‘fact’ Justice Scalia has made up his mind already is improper (‘prejudicial’ meaning pre-judged in absence knowledge sufficient to allow a correct judgment).
An assertion, made in the form of a question, that the justice in question is being hypocritical because he wants more conservatives on the bench, so he will do what is needed to get Mr. Bush elected.
In response to this post I established that:
Justice Scalia did not say he had made up his mind, merely that five justices thought it highly likely Mr. Bush would win on the merits.
His decision to issue the stay, and his indication that the opinion of the Florida Supreme Court likely violated federal law is not contrary to his usual tenets regarding construction or federal v. state balancing.
His determination, if indeed one exists at present, that the decision of the Florida Supreme Court is violative of the constitution is not ‘prejudicial’ or improper, since he already had sufficient information from the pleadings and his knowledge of law to reach a decision in the matter.
Thus, I took ElvisL1ves to task for reaching a clear determination that Justice Scalia was acting on the basis of political motivations, not his valid interpretation of the relevant law. I did so because that assertion was not based upon an understanding of actual fact or law. As I have repeatedly stressed on this message board: if you are going to make assertions, do so with application of reason and knowledge, since that is the main raison d’etre of The Straight Dope.
ElvisL1ves, if you can’t take being told that you are posting opinions which have no merit because you are misinformed or uninformed, you should be posting elsewhere.
The vote recount tallies themselves, and the disproportionate way original non-votes or incorrectly cast votes are becoming Gore votes in counties where Democrats are making the decisions.
Canvass board member and Democrat Sue Gunzberger’s calling EVERY SINGLE QUESTIONABLE BALLOT a Gore vote in Broward County.
The changing standards after the election over the criteria to discern voter intent. How many times did it change in Broward and Miami-Dade, Stoidela? Would you agree that each change made the standard more liberal as to what constitutes a vote (not that I care about your opinion; it did)? Did this have the net effect of putting more votes in the Gore pile? Were those decisions made by Democrats, over the protests of Republicans?
The chads on the floor that you so quickly dismiss, indicating the ballots are not in the same state that they were. Which would tend to mean that divining the will of the people on election night now involves evidence that’s different than what was there on election night.
Evidence enough for me – and a sizeable portion of the rest of the country.
I personally suspect that, if George W. Bush gets “elected” into the Presidency, that he will do something similar in his first six months of office.
Or maybe he’ll do something even dumber – “Since there has been so much arguing over the election, I’m a-gonna be a uniter and order that all of the ballots from Florida be burned…”
James Baker has said: “Machines are neither Republicans nor Democrats and therefore can be neither consciously nor unconsciously biased.”
True. But what about their PROGRAMMERS? If you think it’s not possible to program a punch-card machine to throw votes from one candidate to another, or to deliberately undercount votes, read this column by Molly Ivins.
She quotes a writer, Ronnie Dugger, who wrote an article on the unreliability of punch-card voting machines for The New Yorker. The article contained detailed instructions on how to rig a Votomatic counting machine. It also details how Illinois officials tested the machines back in 1980, discovered how unreliable they were… and did NOTHING.
The article appeared twelve years ago. More recently, Dugger said:
In 1988, Democrat Buddy McCay lost a Florida Senate race to Republican Connie Mack by a very few votes. A recount showed that in four counties 210,000 voters who DID vote for a Presidential candidate apparently cast NO vote for Senator! Three of those four counties are the counties wherein Gore asked for a recount, and they all use punch-card voting machines.
Isn’t it possible that a substantial portion of those 210,000 voters did vote for Senator, but the machines failed to count them? Isn’t it possible that the same thing happened this year in the Presidential race, considering the disputed counties used the same machines from 1988?
Could have something to do with the fact that there are far more Democrats in these counties to start with. A recount of the undervote would pretty much have to “find” votes in near proportion to the first-count votes, so that would add more actual numbers for Gore than Bush. Note that Bush has gained a significant number of votes through recounts, too.
This doesn’t look right, I agree.
Isn’t that more attributable to simple human confusion? This seems never to have come up before. Lack of statewide standards, as well as a statewide recount, is a real problem, I agree.
[quote]
4. The chads on the floor that you so quickly dismiss, indicating the ballots are not in the same state that they were. Which would tend to mean that divining the will of the people on election night now involves evidence that’s different than what was there on election night.
[QUOTE]
Only a problem if you think the chads were being poked out of “virgin” holes by partisan counters under the eyes of a ton of interested observers. But remember that chads are INTENDED to fall out if they’ve been poked, and that there were a hell of a lot of other offices being voted for that would also have chad problems.
Nobody’s perfect, no question, but the evidence for a malignant plot is still shaky.
Anyone who’s ever gotten a screwed-up phone bill (or electricity, or gas, or bank statement, or…) knows how erroneous that statement is. The fact that Baker keeps peddling it is just another sign IMO of how desperate the GOP is to win at any cost.
Are you actually willing to try to support your claim about the “beating” that states rights has taken under Clinton / Gore. I know it sounds good to the crowd who believes everyone Left of Attila the Hun is liberal, but is there really much evidence of this claim? I seem to recall, for example, that Clinton gave the states quite a bit of freedom to experiment on welfare reform, before a federal bill was eventually passed.
And, by the way, neither Clinton nor Gore has explicitly campaigned on the slogan, "I’m going to take away rights from the states and give them to the federal government. On the other hand, someone who is currently running to the federal courts has, I believe, talked about the federal government being too intrusive in lots of matters that should be left up to the states!
Well, I agree with you to a certain degree…On things like the drug war and the death penalty, Gore is no winner on individual rights. On the other hand, his opponent is even worse on civil liberties. Of course, if your definition of individual rights is one that includes “economic survival of the fittest” and basically failing to account for the benefits one reaps from society in such a way that screws the poor at the expense of the wealthy (not to mention any attempt to correct economic externalities), then yes, it is true that Gore is “worse” on individual rights than Bush.