Your link didn't work for me, but I was able to browse the Orlando Sentinal and found quite a few interesting articles about the Seminole County case. This first one is the one you linked to I think, and gives some of the background facts, and compares it with a case in Volusia County where the Election Officials re-marked absentee ballots with a felt tip pen because their reader wouldn't read the ballots:
orlandosentinel.com
As far as bias, I would say that the article makes some legal conclusions that may not be accurate. If the case Zeev cites exists I would presume that the facts are much closer than the Volusia Case which involved actual tampering with the ballots themselves, but which presumably was unbiased tampering. On the other hand the Volusia Case may indicate a propensity to count ballots rather than throw them out, if possible.
This is just a background piece on the growth of absentee ballot use in Florida in general:
orlandosentinel.com
Here is an article on the status of events in Florida as of today:
orlandosentinel.com
I note that McKay agreed to allow the Senate to meet on December 13th, if necessary, which seems to me to be a reasonable timetable, and will allow the courts time to work. Hopefully it will be unnecessary.
Other tidbits from the piece:
1. Bush loses in Federal Court to have manual recounts thrown out. Note that 3 Republicans voted for the Gore position. Things like that, and Democrat Sanders Saul's decision for Bush are restoring my faith in the independence of Judges a bit.
2. "Legal experts give little chance that Democrats will win [in Seminole or Martin County]"
3. Rev. Jackson claims 16,000 black ballots were thrown out in Jacksonville.
4. Comments that a Constitutional crisis may be on the way if the FSC overrules Saul but the legislature acts.
5. Speculation as to how these bizarre events could turn in favor of Gore.
At this point I am just taking a wait and see attitude. As I indicated previously I have no knowledge of the precedents that may determine the outcome in Seminole County, so I have no idea at all what will happen there. As for the FSC, they certainly can re-instate their prior decision, should they choose to. Basically when the USSC vacated their decision, they told the FSC how to reinstate it if they wanted to; they said if their reason was A, it was void, if the reason was B it was valid. Thus all the FSC has to do is say that the reason was B. As for overruling Saul, that would be very difficult in my opinion, nearly as inappropriate as overruling the Circuit court ruling upholding the initial certification by Harris. They managed to overrule that one, so I'm sure they can overrule this one, too.
Thanks for the civil discussion, by the way. I agree with another poster on this thread that a civil discussion of the election alternatives is a rare thing on SI or anywhere on the web, for that matter.
Carl |
