To: bob who wrote (8766 ) 12/9/2000 12:50:14 AM From: Zeev Hed Read Replies (4) | Respond to bob, I have not read the 70 pages of the opinion, I presume they went to great length (with the US SC breathing down their neck) not to write new law. The contest of results in the three counties in question, was within the law set by the legislature prior to the election. Throwing Sauls judgment based on finding that he did not apply the right law (that law that require the evidence, namely the disputed ballots, be examined), was not writing new law either. The place where I am not sure is the remedy, but one could argue (if one was a lawyer, which i am not), that if Sauls applied the law "correctly" he would have prescribed the remedy desired by the plaintiff (count the under vote), but where the FSC may ave gone over was to insist on counting all counties undervote (and I would presume that that would come under the principle of "equal treatment"). If they would have prescribed counting only the three counties in question (two actually), a serious question of "injuring" voters in other counties would have arisen, they must have ordered counting all to avoid such injury. I have not the foggiest how this is rationalized by the law, but I would advance the principle that Sauls could have not provided a remedy of counting only the counties in question if he would have found for the plaintiff, since the defendant based part of their argument on "unfairness to other voters, so possibly the FSC based their own ruling on Sauls proceeding to preempt such future finding of "unfairness". Personally, I believe that country will be much better off finding now what the real vote was and not wait until we have a {resident in place, and then, under the "Freedom of Information act" have the Miami Herald (?) count the votes and let us know in three months that the wrong guy is in the White House. The truth will come out anyhow, and Bush could still win. It was a grave tactical error not to accept Gore's offer early on to manually recount all votes in all counties.
