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To: Amy J who wrote (118830)	11/22/2000 3:32:31 PM
From: pgerassi	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Dear Amy: What was improper is the illegal rewriting of the rules after an election by the canvasing boards and now the Florida Supreme Court. The Palm Beach canvasing board went against its own 1990 ruling disallowing dimpled chad votes. The Florida Supreme Court (which now the media are stating (after the fact, why did they not say anything before the fact) is embroilled for the last two years in a "pissing match" (direct quote from an Democrat analyst) with the Florida State Legislature and Governor) has rewritten the laws (the recounts could have been continued and the election certification changed in the contest phase of the election) regarding election deadlines and procedures (they tried to say they did not, but nowhere in the law (and I have read it) does it allow for the protest phase to continue beyond seven days after an election. The only reason why ten days for overseas and military ballots are allowed is due to federal law which overrides all the states election laws. The manual recounts appear to start when asked and are told to put all resources required to finish by the seven day deadline. If the canvasing board can not do this (they set the way the ballots are counted), the totals simply do not get into the certified totals. In the contest phase, one can ammend the vote totals due to a recount or disallowing vote counts because of improper counting methologies, fraud, gross negligence, or any other illegal act as set forth in the law. Federal law superceeds state law where they come into conflict. A very good law is the one where the election must be done to procedures and laws in force BEFORE the election window. This is quite fair and equitable to all parties. The US Constitution gave the power to set election laws to the US Congress. They wrote the laws long ago to give the State Legislatures the power to set their own procedures on elections with a few ground rules such as the law above and the one wrt overseas and military ballots. The Florida Legislature gave certain powers to the SOS, some powers to the canvasing boards, and other ones to the courts. At no time, did they give the courts any say in the protest phase. Their powers start in the contest phase. At that time, they can order a recount, adjust the totals, pull in or throw out ballots and the votes on them as long as they do not alter the laws covering elections. The Congress did not give the Legislature the option of conveying that power anywhere, period. IMO, the Florida Supreme Court has actually broken the US Federal Law governing when election law changes take effect. The ruling should not take effect in this election but, the next one. Its too late for this one. The appropriate procedure is for the SOS to certify the election as the SOS wanted (the 18th), and for the contest phase to start. Gore would have to petition the Palm Beach State Circuit Court to continue the manual recount per the procedures given in previous elections (here the 1990 rule applies). Gore would then petition the Leon County State Circuit Court to amend the certified totals. Then that judge rules, it then can be appealed and the FSC can take it up. At that time and only then can the FSC force the SOS to change the certification. IMO, Gore does not want it to go to this stage because he does not have as good an argument for ammending the vote totals and the loss of face in the election being called for Bush. Also, the dimpled chad rule would be much harder to get used as the standard because of the increased scrutiny and because it is different than in past elections. Things just do not happen on the fly in the contest phase and if Gore could not finish the challenges required by Dec 12, its all over. ONe thing that will happen (as it will in my state), is that PCBs will no longer be an approved type of ballot. And forever gone will be the arguments of dimpled chad, x corner rules, etc. There is (at least in my state) a ground swell to go completely to OSB type systems, photo id checks (to prevent fraud), and systems to prevent anyone from voting more than once (or the famous "dead person" vote). Much tighter rules as to when, where, and how things happen. Two other common ideas seem to be uniform poll closing country wide, and election day being a holiday. Pete