Colleen Thomas
Ultrafemme
- Joined
- Feb 11, 2002
- Posts
- 21,545
Huckleman2000 said:Colly, in the time you've had me on ignore, I've probably agreed and supported your arguments more often than not. I know I've complimented you, said that you invariably give reasoned and well-supported arguments, and stick to them without going off the deep end and flaming out, so to speak. I didn't spend a good part of my night going back and re-reading articles about this case because I don't respect you, or because I want to hurt you somehow. You honestly provoke me to question myself and re-affirm (or not) the conclusions I hold.
However you've taken that last post, I can assure you that I didn't mean to attack you personally. Believe me, if I wanted to get personal, I'd have been far more insulting.
When I said that your post making excuses for voting irregularities because of the complexity of the system was a copout, I meant exactly that. It wasn't a personal attack - I meant that there are far more complex systems that we rely on every day, especially where money is exchanged, that function perfectly well. The phone company keeps track of who I called, how long I was connected, what tariff to charge, whether it's taxable on a federal, state, or local level, not to mention my last payment and customer service call, to say nothing of keeping the system up and running despite power outages. They do that because the government requires them to. Same thing with banks, although they'd probably do it even if the government didn't require them to. Lord knows, they don't miss charging you for any little thing they can.
The voting system isn't unfair because it's too complicated. It's unfair because politicians want it that way, or because no one has held them accountable to fix it. Probably a combination of the two. You can argue that the money hasn't been allocated to implement a decent system, and you'd be right. But, given the irregualrities over the years, the fights over Jim Crow laws, murders of voter registration activists, court battles over motor-voter laws, etc., plus the felon (and near-match) purging and all the other shenanigans that took place particularly in Florida in the run-up to the 2000 election, settling on "the system is too complicated" as a reason for voter disenfranchisement strains credulity. It's pretty clear that one side or the other has a vested interest in unfair voting systems, and they're both working the system to try and institutionalize whatever they deem advantageous to themselves.
All of this serves to say that, I agree with you that undervotes in one county are as worthy of being counted as in another county. They all should have been counted. It wasn't just the Gore campaign that was selective - the Bushies had their axe to grind about the absentee ballots postmarked late through the Armed Forces Post as well.
So, the system is unfair, which makes it a federal case. Not because it's unfair to the candidates - equal protection protects the rights of citizens, eg, the right to vote and have their vote counted. The Constitution doesn't confer express rights to candidates running for office, at the expense of regular citizens' rights. The right to a free and fair election is a right of the citizenry, not a candidate, and an obligation of the government - the state government, specifically.
Well, except in this case.
This is where it gets murky, because the Supremes agreed pretty much that selectively recounting in one area wasn't fair to the entire state, because the various voting methods weren't uniform. They said something to the effect that voters' who followed the instructions' votes would be diluted by counting votes that didn't get counted the first time because their chads were hanging. Arguably, counting votes even in just those counties would still lead to a more accurate statewide vote, since more legitimate votes would have been counted. Colly listed a whole string of counties, but without population figures it's impossible to determine whether the 4 counties in question represented 10% or 95% of the statewide vote. My guess is closer to the latter. Okay, kick it back to the state to see what they can do to remedy the situation....
The state Supremes responded by extending the certification deadline, so that they could do a statewide recount or something. Except, their state law didn't specify that as the remedy. I don't think it specified any remedy, but that's a moot point now.
Because once it got kicked back to the Supremes, they intervened to enforce the state laws that they had, in effect, just ruled were in violation of the equal protection clause. They said that the state law didn't allow for judicial review, and so the court had no recourse to extend the deadline, thus voiding the recount, because there was no way it could be completed by the state's deadline to certify electors.
Offhand, I can see several complications arising from this. First, in intervening where they decided that a state's laws allowed no judicial review, they are opening up a can of worms that federal courts can review state election laws - a power granted to the states specifically in the Constitution - to disenfranchise legitimate votes. Second, in identifying voting inequities in a state, but choosing not to rectify them, nor allowing the state to rectify them, they are usurping the voting power of that entire state to their own interpretation.
I"ll freely admit that I'm pissed at the Supremes for this decision, and that my anger stems from partisan ideology. And a lot of that anger results from what I, and many more learned legal people, consider a judicial coup.
I respect you and your arguments, Colly, but I just don't think they're entirely valid, and furthermore, I don't think that your arguments are any less partisan than mine, regardless of the fact that you're arguing for the winning side. I'm not some lone voice inthe wilderness accusing the Supremes of partisanship in this case, and from what I can find, even those who agree with the outcome aren't very enthusiastic about the legal arguments.
Huck,
I most likely get the feeling you are attacking me because the language you use is provcative. If such is not the case, then I owe an apology for reading more into it than was intended. So I will apologize, I'm sorry for taking things personally when that was not your intent.
I've been to the Atm before. It has been, out of order, out of money, taken my card for an invalid PIN when it's the same pin and same card I have been using for years & months respectively, processed a transaction, debited my account and given me no money, etc. It is well run, but ATM machines are also money makers and thus, it behooves the owners to see them run efficiently, yet like any complex system, it fails. In my experience it fails often. Nuclear power reactors fail, airplanes fail, buildings fail, my car radio has failed, my car has failed. These systems don't approach the complexity of the voting process. Assuming it does not fail or should not fail is ignoring the fact that is is predisposed to fail, by virtue of it's complexity.
You have over 200 million individual voters, god knows how many poll workers, observers, technicians, a wide variety of voting machines, all prone to their own particular kinds of failure, an Ad Hoc procceduarl system for how votes are cast, tallied and recorded. The odds of every voter who wants to vote, being registered to vote, making it to his or her polling place on the specific day, clearing the check in proceedure, casting their vote, having their vote tallied, verified and recorded are simply astronomical. That assumes no human or machine error will occur in registering voters, in getting up to date valid lists to all polling places, of every single machine used to tally votes functioning as it was designed to do, etc. the odds are astronomical this would occur just once, much less as a matter of course. there is no cop out inherent in admitting failures both large and small are probable, if not guarenteed. It would seem to me, the position that ignores reality is that of people who refuse to accept these mistakes do occur or who look to them to explain away a loss, not those who admit they occur and have been in practically every election ever held.
Perhaps one side or the other or both are politically motivated not to fix certain problems, but no perfect solution exists which either can be accused of implicitly ignoring. A better system certainly exists, but to implement it you face huge outlays of money, time, manpower and endless rows over the exact nature of the system as well as constituional questions of states rights and equal protection. It's so daunting, there should be little wonder most politicos just don't feel like investing their prestige in such a campaign.
No, the equal protection clause does not guarentee the rights of a candidate over the rights of voters. That does not, however, mean that federal laws don't extend such protetion to candidates. They do. They are a response to and hopeful fix for machine politics. And it mkes sense, that the fed should keep individual districts, municipalities or states from making the voting process in their respective territory biased for or against a candidate. Equal protection of those who voted was not the issue at hand when the supremes took the case, Bush V. Palm County canvassing board. The issue at hand was whether or not manual recounts in selected districts was fair. They decided it was not fair to the candidates as it gave one an advantage. Deciding that selective recounts was unfair in no way superceeded equal protection for the voters. It simply demanded all voters be given the same opportunity to have their votes counted, reguardless of what county they voted in.
In the 5-4 decision, the supremes said no more recounts would be conducted. Let's assume for a moment Scalia recused himself and let us further assume without his influence one or more conservative justices decided to vote with the liberals. Recounts may now continue and it's 10 o'clock on the 12th. Would it have made a significant difference? Lets look at what you have to assume for it to make a difference.
You have until midnight on the twentith to submit your state's electors.
1. We must assume Al Gore can get all of the undervotes, in all 22 counties manually counted. Sher said the Herald's outside firm took weeks to do the recount, but you have days.
2. We must assume that no one in the republican counties makes any effort at obstruction, either through court action or simple inaction. We must assume this because if even one county isn't done, then the results from none of those hand counted can be tallied according to the 7-2 decision. That has made it all or none.
3. We must assume these counts are done in such an efficient, methodical and uncontestable way that the GOP has no grounds to ask for a stay while a court reviews the process. Keeping in mind that they don't even really need a valid excuse, simply one a court finds plauisible enough to hear.
4. We must assume the total of the under votes gives Gore a victory. And we must further assume that the margin is sufficent to make hand recounting the absentee ballots a moot point. Else the GOP will file suit that they must be tallied manually as well and that relief is likely to be granted by a lower court based on the 7-2 decision.
5. We must assume Al gore gets this done and still has time to file suit and have a court order Harris to repudiate the results she has already certified and re certify the results of the hand recounts. We must further asume harris and Govenor Jeb Bush don't challenge that ruling, dragging it to district court and appealing it to the high court.
6. Al must then file suit again, because the odds of a GOP dominated state house overturning the slate of electors they have already approved is practically nil without said court order.
7. We must assume the GOP will not resubmit the original slate in competition with the new Gore slate and we must assume if they do resubmit it, they will still vote quickly and in favor of Gore's electors.
And he has to get all of that done in just 194 hours. Is that realistic? Probable? Plausible?
It would seem to me more plausible the GOP would immediatly file suit claiming that the method of determining vaild undervotes differed from county to county and thus was not fair as Democratic canvassing boards were using less stringent methods. Lets also assume no GOP contolled county beings its recount while that contention is before the courts, on the grounds that they would be wasteing taxpayer money if they were forced to start over again with a newly agreed upon standard. We will also assume the GOP files this complaint in one of their GOP controlled districts in order to get a judge who will grant a stay of ll recounts while the issue is before him. And the beat goes on. I'm not even a razzel dazzel lawyer and I can come up with enough "issues" to keep things tied up for six days. How many do I legitimately need to see frittered away before completing the count in all 22 counties becomes an impossibility? Do I even need to burn one?
I find myself spending an inordinate amount of time here because I am being baited into arguing the wider implications of the election.
My contention was I was tired of hearing the Supremes being bashed. I need to stick to that as i freely admit, the wider implications are just too contentious and too deeply held to make it worth the struggle for either side.
If there was judicial wrongdoing, it was, IMO, at the state level. Had the Fla. Supreme court not taken a partisan stance, but instead said manual recounts had to be conducted in all counties that had undervotes, the issue would not have even been reviewable by a federal court to begin with. It is only when they approved the Manual recounts in selected counties that the Bush camp had recourse to the federal courts. This decision could have been issued early enough to actually allow counties to get the recounts done and might still have yeilded a Gore Victory. But it was a far less assured result than just counting Democratic strongholds.
Still glad you're back. 
