|
Yes, it's true that Bush did not legitimately win the 2000 election. Whenever a Republican claims that he did, I hit them with the following and they shut up:
One needs to understand what a legal vote is according to Florida law. According to Florida law, a legal vote is one where the intent of the voter is clear. It has nothing to do with whether or not a machine can count a vote and in some cases, it doesn't even matter if the voter followed instructions. All that matters is whether or not the intent of the voter is clear. For example, In 1998, there was a case in Florida where voters were instructed to use a number two pencil when voting. If they used a different kind of pencil or pen, the machine couldn't record the vote. It wasn't the machine's fault because the machine was doing what it was designed to do. It was the voters who goofed. According Bush and his supporters, those votes would be no good but the ruling was that they would count because even though the people used the wrong pencil, the intent of the voters was still clear and that's all that matters. That's the Florida law. If a machine spits out a vote, the only way to determine if the intent of the voter is clear is to examine the ballot. That's what a handcount is about. There were thousands of legal votes that were never counted.
One might ask what clear intent means. It's really simple. If there's no mark on the ballot, there's no vote. If two or more names are marked, it's not a legal vote because the intent of the voter isn't clear. If one and only one name is marked, BINGO! That's a legal vote and it doesn't matter what kind of chad it is. Says who? Says Bush. He himself signed into law in Texas for handcounts where ALL chads are counted. Not only that but what it said was “A manual recount shall be conducted IN PREFERENCE TO an electronic recount.” In Florida, when he saw that this could cost him the presidency, he made like handcounts were unheard of, illegitimate, etc. He did everything he could to sabotage and prevent a handcount.
There were a lot of hassles involving the courts. What it basically came down to is that there’s a law about a handcount and a law about a deadline. Bush was saying that the law about the deadline is what counts and the hell the law about a candidate being entitled to a handcount. That's not the way it works. If there are conflicting laws or conflicting interpretations about laws, the state supreme court sorts it all out. In other words, the state legislature writes the laws and the state supreme court decides what the laws mean if there's a disagreement. The law about a deadline is not designed to cheat the candidate out of his handcount. It's to prevent a losing candidate from demanding one handcount after another forever. The Florida Supreme Court correctly said to count all the legal votes that weren't yet counted. The U.S. Supreme Court said the hell with all of that and simply handed the election to Bush without counting thousands of legal votes.
While the handcount ordered by the FSC was in progress, the USSC stepped in and stopped it. They needed to come up with a reason for doing that. The best that they could come up with was that if the handcount was finished, it would do irreparable harm to Bush’s claim of being the winner.
Here is what Alan Dershowitz says about it in his book, Supreme Injustice:
“Realizing that there would be an outcry against stopping the count before any argument, Justice Scalia decided to write an unusual opinion explaining why he voted for the stay. Scalia wrote: “The counting of votes of questionable legality does, in my view, threaten irreparable harm to petitioner (Bush) and to the country, by casting a cloud upon what he claims to be the legality of his election. Count first, and rule upon legality afterwards, is not a recipe for producing election results that have the public acceptance democratic stability requires.” But disputed ballots are generally counted before they are challenged and their legality is ruled upon. Indeed, that chronology is explicitly mandated by Florida law—enacted by the very state legislature that Scalia believes has the power to make these decisions.”
Here is what Vincent Bugliosi says about it in his book, The Betrayal of America:
“Scalia, in trying to justify the Court’s shutting down of the vote counting, wrote, unbelievably, that counting these votes would “threaten irreparable harm to petitioner (Bush)…by casting a cloud upon what he claims to be the legitimacy of his election.” In other words, although the election had not yet been decided, the absolutely incredible Scalia, was presupposing that Bush had won the election—indeed, had a right to win it—and any recount that showed Gore got more votes in Florida than Bush could “cloud” Bush’s presidency.”
Well, yes, if a handcount showed that Gore won the election, it certainly would do irreparable harm to Bush’s claim of being the winner but what about Gore’s claim of being the winner and what makes the USSC think that Bush had the divine right to be the winner without having all the legal votes counted? The handcount was stopped on Dec. 9 and Dec. 12 was supposedly a deadline but it wasn’t a deadline for counting votes. It was a deadline for “safe harbor of electors,” meaning that the electors can’t be questioned as if the Republican House of Representatives was ever going to question or challenge the Bush electors.
The USSC never said that there was anything wrong with the idea of a handcount. They said that there wasn’t a proper method for counting the votes. If they had any integrity at all, they would have made up a standard that satisfied them and then had the handcount. Instead, at past 10 PM on Dec. 12, they said to Gore that if he can come up with a standard that satisfies them and also get the state handcount done, all of that within two hours, then everything is all right.
This was outrageous insanity, but the USSC needed to come up with a reason for doing this. What they came up with was a ridiculous interpretation of “equal protection.” On election day, different people used different ballots and different machines. Where was the equal protection there? In equal protection cases in the past, Scalia and the other conservative judges always demanded that a victim step forward and that the victim had to show that harm was done and that the harm was intentional. In this case no victim stepped forward or was named except that Bush, not a resident of the state, was trying to say that he was the victim and that it was somehow unfair to him if the rest of the legal votes were counted.
To make it simple, let’s suppose that it was only 100 votes involved instead of many thousands. Out of that 100, maybe there was a vote or two that shouldn’t have counted. In order to make sure that that vote or two wasn’t counted, the USSC decided to take away the votes of the other 98 or 99 people and called that equal protection. In other words, the best way to protect your vote is to take your vote away. Equal protection was designed to protect the votes of people but it was now being used to disenfranchise the very voters it was designed to protect. The reason no victim was named was because the victims were the thousands of people who were being screwed out of their legal votes.
It actually didn't matter what the Florida Supreme Court or U.S. Supreme Court said because the Florida game was rigged the whole time so that Gore had no chance to become the President even though he won the election. This is because the Florida legislature was going to give the electors to Bush no matter what, knowing that the Republican House of Representatives would decide for Bush no matter what.
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
