"Boise did try to show they could err, but he didn't lose by his failure to prove it, as you suggested"
I did not mean to imply at all that he lost the case because of this point. That was one of many points that he lost during this case. The point you bring up that "he couldn't prove that the recount would change the result of the election" is far more important to the overall case. Even your post shows that he failed on both of these points.
"I have never defended Gore's suits against the canvassing boards"
I know you havn't, and I think that is good. I bring that up because it is important to the overall issue of fairness that many dems say was circumvented by the repubs. I would think this point would be tough to justify for anyone, repub or dem. Have not seen a good justification of it from anyone ever.
"If the SOS had wanted to encourage careful counting"
She did not want to encourage it. But she interpreted and executed the laws in the manner that was consistant with how they should have been interpreted and executed no matter who the SOS was. It's nice (and easy) to say she did it just because she is this or that. She was correct.
"In this election, the machine count favored Bush, not by design but just by the types of machines used"
Bullcrap. The machine counts favored nobody. That is why they are fair. Your logic is fuzzy (no pun intended) in this entire paragraph. Explain why you feel that "Florida's decentralized counting system must be unconstitutional now"
Regarding US SC fairness - I think they were consistant and fair throughout. You say they
"stayed a court-ordered recount to protect the "legitimacy" of Bush's victory"
I think they stayed the count because it was an unfair count. The US SC judges agreed by 7-2 that it was unfair. I asked you (maybe it was LoF) earlier which ones were being political. Well?
"used a novel interpretation of the equal protection clause to declare the recount unconstitutional because it had no standard beyond "the clear intent of the voter". We'll never know for sure if the FSC would have been overturned for setting a standard, but they certainly behaved as if they believed it"
So you are saying the FL SC did not set a standard, even though they legally could, because they thought they would be overturned by a politically based decision from the US SC? If that is what you are saying, I will say that is ridiculous imo. I thought us repubs were the suspicious ones.
"stopped the recount, certifying a vote count that had the same equal protection problems as the recount"
How do you figure? All standards and counting methods had been known and used for quite some time. This was not the first election in Florida with these laws or voting machines. Your logic is confusing me here perhaps. Please explain why you think that the machine counts had the "same equal protection problems as the recount". That is a good example of an emotional argument, because it is not based on fact.
"Doesn't this have an air of suppressing votes to hand Bush the victory?"
Yes and No. Yes if you take your assumptions in the three points above as fact. No is the real answer because you can't make those assumptions without anything to back it up. And an add in a very liberal newspaper from some unhappy professors doesn't help me. I realize there are a LOT of people upset about this.
The long and the short of it is that I don't think your side can be argued without lots of help from an emotional standpoint. I have said before I will debate this with anyone. I would like to debate Al Gore himself, or even Mr. Boise. |
