BoatBanter.com - Bill Moyers on environment, politics and Christian fundamentalists

"KMAN" wrote in message
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A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:

in article , Scott Weiser
at
wrote on 2/20/05 5:59 PM:

A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:

in article K53Sd.37676$t46.25480@trndny04, No Spam at
wrote on 2/20/05 11:42 AM:

just after Bush stole his first presidency.

Bush won the election by every recount so far - have you found a
different
result? I would like to see it. I am not some blind follower of
Bush
but
I'm
getting tired of this stupid "Bush stole the election" crap. What
happened
in Florida was absurd, but the result has been verify many times.

???

Perhaps you are unaware that the the Republicam members of the
Supreme
Court
stopped the recount.

Well, that would be because the recount was being performed in
violation
of
state and federal law in a biased manner that threatened the
accuracy
of
the
election, and therefore the recount was ruled to be unlawful. The
Supreme
Court is neither Republican nor Democrat, it's a neutral body that
rules
on
the law, not on politics.

True or false: it was the Republican appointees to the Supreme Court
that
voted to stop the recount.

The logical fallacy of the false dilemma. The political affiliation
of
the
Justices is irrelevant.

Apparently it wasn't since they voted exactly along party lines.
Coincidence? Only a nut like you would believe that.

Apparently you have not read Gore vs. Harris, which became Bush vs.
Gore,
or
Palm Beach County Canvassing Board vs. Harris.

Down party lines???? More Democrat propaganda.

I think you'll find this useful. It was designed for teens, and you seem
to
have an adoloscent approach to things...

Starting the personal attacks. I see that you know that you are losing this
debate. Thank you that admission.

I noticed that you decide to quote Mark Levine, the attorney for
Democrats.com. Is there a reason why you didn't supply a link?? You weren't
trying to hide the fact that this was a biased piece were you?? Did you not
want us to know that he was an attorney for the Democrats???

====

Q: I'm not a lawyer and I don't understand the recent US Supreme Court
decision in Bush v. Gore. Can you explain it to me?

A: Sure. I'm a lawyer. I read it. It says Bush wins, even if Gore got the
most votes.

HOLD ON!!!!!!

Mr. Mark "itsnotover" Levine knows better, HE WROTE the challenge under 3
U.S.C. section 15, that was used by the Congressional Black Caucus, on
1/6/2000.

IF he really believes that the court gave the election to Bush, then he
would NOT HAVE FILED this challenge.

http://www.mediasense.com/itsnotover...gressbrief.htm

Q: But wait a second. The US Supreme Court has to give a reason, right?

A: Right.

Q: So Bush wins because hand-counts are illegal?

A: Oh no. Six of the justices (two-thirds majority) believed the
hand-counts were legal and should be done.

Q: Oh. So the justices did not believe that the hand-counts would find any
legal ballots?

A: Nope. The five conservative justices clearly held (and all nine
justices
agreed) "that punch card balloting machines can produce an unfortunate
number of ballots which are not punched in a clean, complete way by the
voter." So there are legal votes that should be counted but can't be.

Q: Oh. Does this have something to do with states' rights? Don't
conservatives love that?

A: Yes. These five justices have held that the federal government has no
business telling a sovereign state university it can't steal trade secrets
just because such stealing is prohibited by law. Nor does the federal
government have any business telling a state that it should bar guns in
schools. Nor can the federal government use the equal protection clause to
force states to take measures to stop violence against women.

WHOOPS. Wrong again, The DEMCORAT majority of the Florida Supreme Court
ruled twice that the State Legislature wanted to take advantage of the safe
harbor provision of the Electoral Count Act of 1887. Since Art II of the US
Constitution gives the State Legislature the right to enact election law, it
would be a VIOLATION of the rights of the State Legislature to allow a
recount to take them OUT of safe harbor.

"........The only disagreement is as to the remedy. Because the Florida
Supreme Court has said that the Florida Legislature intended to obtain the
safe-harbor benefits of 3 U.S.C. § 5 Justice Breyer's proposed
remedy-remanding to the Florida Supreme Court for its ordering of a
constitutionally proper contest until December 18-contemplates action in
violation of the Florida election code, and hence could not be part of an
"appropriate" order authorized by Fla. Stat. §102.168(8) (2000)."

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

Q: Is there an exception in this case?

A: Yes, the "Gore Exception." States have no rights to control their own
state elections when it can result in Gore being elected President. This
decision is limited to only this situation.

Q: C'mon. The Supremes didn't really say that. You're exaggerating!

A: Nope. They held, "Our consideration is limited to the present
circumstances, as the problem of equal protection in election processes
generally presents many complexities."

Q: What complexities?

A: They didn't say.

Q: I'll bet I know the reason. I heard Jim Baker say this. The votes
can't
be counted because the Florida Supreme Court, "changed the rules of the
election after it was held." Right?

A: Wrong. The US Supreme Court made clear that the Florida Supreme Court
did not change the rules of the election. But the US Supreme Court found
the failure of the Florida Court to change the rules was wrong.

Q: Huh?

A: The Legislature declared that the only legal standard for counting
vote
is "clear intent of the voter." The Florida Court was condemned for not
adopting a clearer standard.

BUT, the problem with the recount was not that they counties were using the
"clear intent of the voter", that problem was they were NOT using any
standards at all.

".........But evidence in the record here suggests that a different order of
disparity obtains under rules for determining a voter's intent that have
been applied (and could continue to be applied) to identical types of
ballots used in identical brands of machines and exhibiting identical
physical characteristics (such as "hanging" or "dimpled" chads). See, e.g.,
Tr., at 238-242 (Dec. 2-3, 2000) (testimony of Palm Beach County Canvassing
Board Chairman Judge Charles Burton describing varying standards applied to
imperfectly punched ballots in Palm Beach County during precertification
manual recount); id., at 497-500 (similarly describing varying standards
applied in Miami-Dade County); Tr. of Hearing 8-10 (Dec. 8, 2000)
(soliciting from county canvassing boards proposed protocols for determining
voters' intent but declining to provide a precise, uniform standard). I can
conceive of no legitimate state interest served by these differing
treatments of the expressions of voters' fundamental rights. The differences
appear wholly arbitrary."

http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-949.ZD1.html

Q: I thought the Florida Court was not allowed to change the
Legislature's
law after the election.

A: Right.

Q: So what's the problem?

A: They should have. The US Supreme Court said the Florida Supreme Court
should have "adopt[ed] adequate statewide standards for determining what
is
a legal vote"

Nothing stopped the court from telling the counties to go back to the
standards that were in place before the election. That would NOT be a new
counting standard.

Q: I thought only the Legislature could "adopt" new law.

A: Right.

Q: So if the Court had adopted new standards, I thought it would have been
overturned.

A: Right. You're catching on.

Q: If the Court had adopted new standards, it would have been overturned
for
changing the rules. And since it didn't, it's overturned for not changing
the rules? That means that no matter what the Florida Supreme Court did,
legal votes could never be counted if they would end up with a possible
Gore
victory.

A: Right. Next question.

Q: Wait, wait. I thought the problem was "equal protection," that some
counties counted votes differently from others. Isn't that a problem?

A: It sure is. Across the nation, we vote in a hodgepodge of systems.
Some, like the optical-scanners in largely Republican-leaning counties
record 99.7% of the votes. Some, like the punchcard systems in largely
Democratic-leaning counties record only 98% of the votes. So
approximately
2% of Democratic-leaning votes (several thousand) are thrown in the trash
can.

Q: Aha! That's a severe equal-protection problem!!!

A: No it's not. The Supreme Court wasn't worried about the 2% of
Democratic-leaning ballots thrown in the trashcan in Florida. That
"complexity" was not a problem.

Q: Was it the butterfly ballots that violated Florida law and tricked
more
than 10,000 Democrats to vote for Buchanan or both Gore and Buchanan?

A: Nope. The courts have no problem believing that Buchanan got his
highest, best support in a precinct consisting of a Jewish old age home
with
Holocaust survivors, who apparently have changed their mind about Hitler.

HOLD ON!!!! This was NOT part of Bush v. Gore, i.e. this case was NOT
settled by the SCotUS.

The DEMOCRAT majority of the Florida Supreme Court found the ballot to be
legal. Under both Florida and Federal Case Law, a candidate has no
Constitution right to a position on a ballot, thus the DEMOCRAT election
supervisor who designed this ballot did not violate the law.

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/election/sc00-2373.pdf

BTW, an example of this ballot was sent to every voter BEFORE the election
had taken place. The Democrats had plenty of time to have this ballot
changed, yet they did not take any action. IF they thought that this ballot
was unfair, why did they wait until the election was over to complain??

Q: Yikes. So what was the serious equal protection problem?

A: The problem was neither the butterfly ballot nor the 2% of
Democrat-leaning voters (largely African-American) disenfranchised. The
problem is that somewhat less than .005% of the ballots (100 to 300 votes)
may have been determined under slightly different standards, because
judges
and county officials -- doing what Americans have done for more than 200
years -- will look at the ballots under strict public scrutiny and record
voters' votes. At the end of the day, they may have a slightly different
opinion about a few hundred votes, but a single judge was overseeing the
entire process to resolve any disputes under a single standard.

Q: A single judge? I thought the standards were different. I thought
that
was the whole point of the Supreme Court opinion.

A: Judge Terry Lewis, who received the case upon remand from the Florida
Supreme Court, had already ordered each of the counties to fax him their
standards so he could be sure they were uniform when the US Supreme Court
stopped him from counting the uncounted votes (because they were favoring
Gore, according to Scalia's stay opinion).

That does NOT solve the problem. Remeber this recount was NOT statewide, it
was for 64 of Florida's 67 Counties. The FSC had entered into the state's
totals ballots that had been recounted with this "arbitary" counting
standards. Lewis had done nothing to fix this problem.

"As implemented by Judge Terry Lewis, the Florida Supreme Court's decision
gave short shrift to Bush's basic right to judicial review of the thousands
of disputed ballot-interpretation decisions made by (among others) openly
partisan Democratic officials. In a series of late-night rulings hours after
the Dec. 8 decision, Judge Lewis refused to suggest (or hear evidence on)
what chad-counting standard vote-counters should use; assigned hundreds of
untrained counters to plunge into this world of standardless
chad-interpretation, without even requiring that they be nonpartisan;
refused to require that a record be kept of chad-interpretation decisions,
thereby making appeals virtually impossible; ignored Bush's request for a
recount of those hundreds of rejected overseas military ballots; and
shrugged off claims that some Gore votes would inevitably be counted twice."

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...2000-12-28.htm

Q: Hmmm. Well, even if those .005% of difficult-to-tell votes are thrown
out, you can still count the votes where everyone, even Republicans,
agrees
the voter's intent is clear, right?

A: Nope.

Q: Why not?

A: No time.

Q: I thought the Supreme Court said that the Constitution was more
important than speed.

A: It did. It said, "The press of time does not diminish the
constitutional concern. A desire for speed is not a general excuse for
ignoring equal protection guarantees."

Q: Well that makes sense. So there's time to count the votes when the
intent is clear and everyone is treated equally then. Right?

A: No. The Supreme Court won't allow it.

Neither with the DEMOCRATS on the Florida Supreme Court. The count between
the two courts was 6 DEMOCRATS, 5 Republicans, and 1 Indepentent.

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/election/sc00-2346.pdf

Q: But they just said that the Constitution is more important than time!

A: You forget. There is the "Gore Exception."

Q: No time to count legal votes where everyone, even Republicans, agree
the intent is clear? Why not?

A: Because they issued the opinion at 10 p.m. on December 12.

Q: Is December 12 a deadline for counting votes?

A: No. January 6, 2001 is the deadline. In the Election of 1960, Hawaii's
votes weren't counted until January 4, 1961

WRONG again. Article II of the US Constitution gives the right to hold
elections to the state legislatures. Just because the Hawaii State
Legislature did not want to take advantage of safe harbor does NOT mean that
the court could force the state of Florida to do the same.

From: Palm Beach County Canvassing Board vs. Katherine Harris, 11/21/2000.

"Ignoring the county's returns is a drastic measure and is appropriate only
if the returns submitted the Department so late that their inclusion will
compromise the integrity of the electoral process in either of two way: (1)
by precluding a candidate, elector, or taxpayer from contesting the
certification of an election pursuant to section 102.168; or (2) by
precluding Florida voters from participating fully in the federal electoral
process." (reference to footnote 55)

"Footnote #55 See: 3 U.S.C. § § 1-10 (1994)."

The Safe Harbor date can be found in the above US Code.

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/election/sc00-2346.pdf

Also see their decision on 12/11/2000

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/election/...346-remand.pdf

Q: So why is December 12 important?

A: December 12 is a deadline by which Congress can't challenge the
results.

Q: What does the Congressional role have to do with the Supreme Court?

A: Nothing. In fact, some 20 states still (as of December 13, 2000)
haven't turned in their results.

BUT it has everything to do with the rights of Florida State Legislature.

Q: But I thought...

A: The Florida Supreme Court had earlier held it would like to complete
its
work by December 12 to make things easier for Congress. The United States
Supreme Court is trying to "help" the Florida Supreme Court out by forcing
the Florida court to abide by a deadline that everyone agrees is not
binding.

Who is this everyone???

Q: But I thought the Florida Court was going to just barely have the
votes
counted by December 12.

A: They would have made it, but the five conservative justices stopped
the
recount last Saturday.

Q: Why?

A: Justice Scalia said some of the counts may not be legal.

Q: So why not separate the votes into piles -- hanging chads for Gore,
indentations for Bush, votes that everyone agrees went to one candidate or
the other -- so that we know exactly how Florida voted before determining
who won? Then, if some ballots (say, indentations) have to be thrown out,
the American people will know right away who won Florida?

A: Great idea! An intelligent, rational solution to a difficult problem!
The US Supreme Court rejected it. They held in stopping the count on
December 9 that such counts would be likely to produce election results
showing Gore won and that Gore's winning would cause "public acceptance"
and
that would "cast a cloud" over Bush's "legitimacy" that would harm
"democratic stability."

Q: In other words, if America knows the truth that Gore won, they won't
accept the US Supreme Court overturning Gore's victory?

A: Yes.

Q: Is that a legal reason to stop recounts? Or a political one?

A: Let's just say in all of American history and all of American law,
this
reason has no basis in law. But that didn't stop the five conservatives
from
creating new law out of thin air.

I suggest that you read Article II of the US Constitution. Pay close
attention to the passage about the State Legislatures shall enact.......

Q: Well, if the December 12 deadline is not binding, why not count the
votes afterward?

A: The US Supreme Court, after admitting the December 12 deadline is not
binding, set December 12 as a binding deadline at 10 p.m. on December 12.

Except that they deferred to the ruling by the DEMOCRAT majority of the
Florida Supreme Court who found that Dec 12 WAS the deadline.

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/election/sc00-2346.pdf

Q: Didn't the US Supreme Court condemn the Florida Supreme Court for
arbitrarily setting a deadline?

A: Yes.

Q: But, but...

A: Not to worry. The US Supreme Court does not have to follow laws it
sets
for other courts.

Q: Tell me this, are Florida's election laws unconstitutional?

A: Yes, according to the Supreme Court, the Legislature drafted the law
in
such an unfair way that the Florida votes can never be fairly counted.

Since dimpled chads were not legal votes in the state of Florida, the
ballots HAD been fairly counted. It was only after Gore needed more votes
did DEMOCRAT Controlled canvassing boards made up new rules as they went
along.

Q: Are the election laws of any of the other 49 states unconstitutional
as
well?

A: Yes, if one logically applies the Supreme Court opinion. The voters of
the 50 states use different systems and standards to vote, and 33 states
have the same "clear intent of the voter" standard that the US Supreme
Court
found was illegal in Florida.

Q: Then why aren't the results of 33 states thrown out?

A: Um. Because.um...the Supreme Court doesn't say.

Q: But if Florida's certification includes counts expressly declared by
the US Supreme Court to be unconstitutional, we don't know who really won
the election there, right?

A: Right. But a careful analysis by the Miami Herald shows Gore won
Florida by about 23,000 votes (excluding the butterfly ballot errors).
See

http://www.herald.com/thispage.htm?c...000/decision/1
04268.htm

Bad link.

Q: So, what do we do? Count under a single uniform standard? Have a
re-vote? Throw out the entire state?

A: No. As there's no time for a re-vote or a re-count based on the
non-binding "deadline", the Supreme Court will just choose itself who will
be President, and it picks Bush to win 5-4, based on the flawed count it
just called unconstitutional.

WRONG. Bush already held Florida Electors. Under the law, there was NOTHING
the court could do to take those electors away from him.

And of course, Levine knows this to be true, because he wrote the challenge
to those electors that was presented on 1/6/2001 to Congress.

Further, the Florida Courts found that a revote was UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/election/revote.pdf

Q: That's completely bizarre! Were there any apparent conflicts of
interest?

A: Scalia's two sons are both lawyers at law firms working for Bush.
Thomas's wife is collecting applications for people who want to work in
the
Bush administration.

What conflict??? The Court had NO AUTHORITY to take Bush's elector away,
thus there was NO REMEDY available to Gore for him to win Florida outright.
He has to win in CONGRESS.

Q: Why didn't they remove themselves from the case?

A: If either had recused himself, the vote would have been 4-4, the
Florida
Supreme Court decision allowing recounts would have been affirmed, and
Scalia feared Gore would have won the election.

Q: I can't believe the justices acted in such a blatantly political way.

A: Read the opinions for yourself:
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/00pdf/00-949.pdf
(December 9 - stay stopping the recount)

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/supr...-949_dec12.fdf
(December 12 - opinion)

Q: So what are the consequences of this?

A: The guy who got the most votes in the US, in Florida, and under our
Constitution (Al Gore) will lose to America's second choice (George W.
Bush)
who won the all- important 5-4 Supreme Court vote, which trumps America's
choice.

Q: I thought in a democracy, the guy with the most votes wins. At least
in
the Electoral College, shouldn't the guy with the most votes in Florida
win?

A: That's true, but in this election it seems that the guy with the most
US
Supreme Court votes wins.

Q: So what will happen to the Supreme Court when Bush becomes President?

A: He will appoint more pro-Republican justices.

Q: Is there any way to stop this?

A: YES. No federal judge can be confirmed without a vote in the Senate.
It takes 60 votes to break a filibuster. If only 41 of the 50 Democratic
Senators stand up to Bush and his Supreme Court and say that they will not
approve a single judge appointed by him until a President can be
democratically elected in 2004, the judicial reign of terror will end..and
one day we can hope to return to the rule of law and the will of the
People.

Q: What can I do to help?

A: Email this article to everyone you know, and write or call your
Senator,
reminding him or her that Gore beat Bush by several hundred thousand votes
(three to five times Kennedy's margin over Nixon) and that you believe
that
VOTERS, not JUDGES should determine who wins an election. And to protect
our judiciary from overturning the will of the people, you ask your
Senators
to confirm NO NEW FEDERAL JUDGES APPOINTED BY A NON-DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED
PRESIDENT until 2004 when a president is finally chosen by the American
people in a new election.

Q: What do the four dissenting US Supreme Court justices have to say
about
all this?

A: Read excerpts below:

Justice John Paul Stevens (Republican appointed by Ford):
"Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the
winner of this year's Presidential election, the identity of the loser is
perfectly clear. It is the Nation's confidence in the judge as an
impartial
guardian of the rule of law."

Justice David Souter (Republican appointed by Bush):
"Before this Court stayed the effort to [manually recount the ballots] the
courts of Florida were ready to do their best to get that job done. There
is no justification for denying the State the opportunity to try to count
all the disputed ballots now."

Fine, let them stay out, Gore loses in Congress. Apparently Levine does not
know who controls the US House.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Democrat appointed by Clinton):
"Chief Justice Rehnquist would "disrupt" Florida's "republican regime."
[In
other words, democracy in Florida is imperiled.] "The court should not
let
its "untested prophecy" that counting votes is "impractical" "decide the
presidency of the United States."

Justice Steven Breyer (Democrat appointed by Clinton):
"There is no justification for the majority's remedy . . . We risk a
self-inflicted wound -- a wound that may harm not just the court, but the
nation."