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Politics : Al Gore vs George Bush: the moderate's perspective -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Northern Marlin who wrote (8307)	12/3/2000 10:08:28 PM
From: long-gone	Respond to of 10042

Gore will just try anything - won't he? Gazette Staff/ New York City GVG EXCLUSIVE! CHENEY'S WYOMING RESIDENCY IS CHALLENGED IN NEW FEDERAL LAWSUIT A federal lawsuit is being filed today by 1,915 citizens from all fifty states in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, Austin Division, challenging the legal status of Dick Cheney's Wyoming residency that he declared in July 2000. According to attorney Phillip J. Berg, of Philadelphia, PA., who is representing the citizens filing this action, Mr. Cheney "does not live in Wyoming and George W. Bush and Dick Cheney both reside in Texas." The lawsuit cites the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution which states that state electors cannot vote for presidential ticket where both candidates are "inhabitants of the same state." Mr. Berg claims "the electors of Texas cannot vote for two people from the same state. The court is being asked to nullify the electoral votes from Texas since Mr. Cheney does not meet the residency requirements in Wyoming. There is no question that Mr. Cheney has been and still is an inhabitant of the state of Texas." Wyoming law does specify that establishing residency does require twelve months to finalize, even if, as in Mr. Cheney's case, one has lived in the state in the past as a legal resident. Mr. Cheney, originally from Wyoming, moved to Dallas, Texas in 1995 when he became Chief Executive Officer of Halliburton Company. Mr. Cheney has also received special tax credit, under the Texas Homestead Exemption Act, on his mansion in Dallas due to his current Texas residency status. Mr. Berg thinks the law will prevail and that "George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and James Baker have been talking about following the Constitution and not creating new laws, so I'm curious to how they will react to this lawsuit, which goes to the heart of their argument of following the Constitution." nycny.com

To: Northern Marlin who wrote (8307)	12/3/2000 10:10:28 PM
From: Roger A. Babb	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10042

Phil, I agree that Gore has no future if he loses now. And a short 4 years if he wins. If the facts in Seminole are as you reported, ie Republican rejected absentee ballots given to Republican workers for correction while Democrat rejected absentee ballots were placed in a discard box, this is a criminal act. If it can be argued (and I think it can) that the mistakes should be corrected and the ballots accepted, then all parties should have had the same opportunity. "In a deposition last week, Goard said she had rejected ballot requests that did not contain voter ID numbers as required by Florida law, but then approved a telephoned GOP plea to let Republican workers add those numbers to Republican applications. Goard said her office sorted out the Republican rejects so they could be revised, but left rejected Democratic and independent applications sitting in a discard box." I do not favor rejecting the GOP absentee ballots, I think all possible votes should be counted. Therefore I would argue for adding the voter registration number to the other party ballots also. How can we possibly defend correcting the GOP ballots and not the Democratic ballots IF this is what happened? I find it very hard to believe that this actually happened and even harder to believe that anyone can defend it!

To: Northern Marlin who wrote (8307)	12/3/2000 10:30:23 PM
From: ThirdEye	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10042

Philip, your post over on the AMAT thread is all quite reasonable, but the devil, of course, is in the details. There are undervotes in all of the counties in Florida (and throughout the land, for that matter), though the percentages differ. it has already been established that the undervote rates in these counties are exceptional, and in particular, the error rates related to the butterfly ballot were statistically off the charts-five times higher than those resulting from other equipment. You could have a thousand hand recounts; each will provide a different result. Not if performed by the same person using a single standard, which is what I take to be what the Dems are asking of the court right now. The voting system used by most of the counties in Florida is antiquated and provides plenty of opportunity for error and mischief. Yes, and that "error and mischief" includes 40 years of using the law and technicalities to deny voting rights to selected groups of people, including in this election. One thing we can agree on, I don't see Gore being the nominee in 2004. That would be demo suicide, IMO. OTOH, I don't know where people are getting the wild idea that Hilary will be running in 2004. That also would be suicide. But let me get to the main point: The part of the law that Republicans should be really concerned about is not the technicality of filling in voter IDs but whether that act "corrupted" the process. If Goard had offerred the same service to Democratic absentee applications that she rejected, there might not be a case here. But if it is shown that she did not do so, well.......

To: Northern Marlin who wrote (8307)	12/3/2000 11:11:49 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10042

Here are the KEY OPERATIVE FACTS in the Seminole county case, if the facts you present are correctly stated: In Seminole County, the Democrats included voter ID numbers on absentee ballot requests they printed up and sent to their supporters, but a software glitch omitted that information from 80 percent of the forms the GOP mailed. Thus, both parties had the intent to include the necessary voter ID numbers. A malfunction prevented one party's applications from be valid, through NO FAULT OF THE VOTER. The GOP party officials then sought to correct THEIR ERROR, and requested the access to include the erroneously ommitted Voter ID numbers. So alright... some of the facts that the judge will have to work out is whether or not there was a deliberate attempt by the voter who applied to not follow the proper rules for obtaining an absentee ballot. Clearly this is not the case. They were not instructed to include their voter ID number, even had they known it. They just filled it out, signed it, and sent it off. Now if that absentee ballot had not been mailed back to the voter due to fault of the GOP's software glitch, there is an implicit liability or tort against the GOP for not including the ID number in the first place. And since this number had apparently been included on 20% of the applications the GOP sent out, it makes sense that they meant to include it on the other 80% of the applications and that not taking steps to fix THEIR ERROR would be negligent behavior on their part. The fly in the ointment is whether the Democratic representative, Mr. Poe, can prove that he called Goard and was told to fly a kite. He can testify that this happened but this would not likely be sufficient to claim bias unless verified by another party. And then there is the issue of WHY the democratic applications were rejected. Since they didn't report any software "glitch", nor offer an explanation as to why their democratic applications were rejected due to anything other than voter error, this could prove a key point. Were I an ABA card carrying attorney, rather than a mere sh*thouse lawyer hanging out here on SI, this is what I would be focusing upon. I would also be focusing upon how the GOP folks discovered there had been such a software glitch. Did they happen upon the information that thousands of their applications were being discarded, or were they informed by Seminole county officials. Btw, I think Gore is preparing himself to ease out of this campaign. It could happen next week, or maybe even tomorrow after the Leon county judge makes a ruling in the morning. Regards, Ron