Jill -- OT: I know the Democrats approved the ballot (in fact, a Democrat created the ballot), but I'm not sure what the legal implications of this are for individual citizens and their rights as voters. Can a party official approve a ballot and, in doing so, waive the right of any party member to challenge the fairness of the ballot? Obviously, if it gets into the courts, it'll be up to a judge to determine what rights individual citizens possess, what an "unfair" ballot may or may not be, what remedies may be applicable, and the like.
BTW, as for the double-punching of ballots, I can well imagine someone who didn't know the rules deciding that double-punching would register votes for both candidates, rather than nullifying the ballot. I know this sounds implausible because it's voting twice, but because this wouldn't be a case of voting twice for the same person, perhaps some would think both votes would count. This obviously would be an absurd notion to those of us who understand the mechanics of the voting process, but many people have no clue about voting rules and mechanisms.
As for the constitutionality of a Bush concession, even if he leads the popular vote in Florida: there's nothing in the Constitution to prevent this. In fact, there is precedent for this. In the 1824 election, no candidate won enough Electoral College votes to win the presidency. Andrew Jackson won the most Electoral votes, but John Quincy Adams struck a deal with Henry Clay whereby Clay gave Adams the Electoral votes Clay himself had won, thus putting Adams over the top and giving him the presidency. Bush certainly could concede his Electoral votes to Gore, thus giving Gore the presidency.
Civics is pretty interesting when reality gets so bizarre, isn't it? <GGG> |
