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

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (8663)	12/10/2000 3:52:18 AM
From: Sig	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10042

I guess finality is a legal term used when one does not want to live up to the exact date of a contract. IMO there is so much crossing and double crossing going on we will never know which Party is stopping the counts. But it will be the forever told story of the Democrats ( since they cannot win anyway) that the Republicans stopped the counts. Yesterday for example, you may find ( from publicly released figures against the Judges orders) that the Bush team was gaining more votes than Gore.! Previous counts were stopped when the highly Democratic precincts had been counted and it was time to count the highly Republican precincts. Very Interesting.Hmmmmmmmmmm IF yesterdays count had continued, and Bush won, the Democrats would have looked liked fools, lost all credibiliy,proven themselves to be sore losers. Whereas: With the count now stopped, Democrats can continue for 4 years to blame their loss on Republican interference, on defective Florida laws, on unfair counting rules,(no dimples),on the Electoral College, on their own Democratic Canvassing boards who refused to count , ( lets sue somebody here)G, on the Votomatic machines, on Florida Courts that prevented them from disqualifying 14,000 absentee ballots, on the Secretary of State, on the sad Constitutional law that permits the the Florida Legislature to name a set Electors from the the majority party instead of from the (sob) minority. Looking forward to an interesting day, to see which news organizations will have the guts to publish the preliminary counts from yesterday after the Judge said not to release them, and which ones will show Gore gaining- and which ones will show Bush gaining. Sig

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (8663)	12/10/2000 5:54:50 AM
From: ColtonGang	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10042

NYTIMES......... the prospect of an enormous constitutional pileup involving the courts, the Florida Legislature and both houses of Congress seemed diminished, but only at the cost of some of the prestige of the Supreme Court, and only with some diminution of the authority that the new president will wield. No one knows how much the eventual winner has been harmed, but the sudden burst of worried comments about legitimacy, no longer from mere commentators and other bystanders but from the participants themselves, speaks volumes. Still, the court may suffer more, at least in the short term.

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (8663)	12/11/2000 3:07:31 AM
From: Math Junkie	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10042

*Re: "Manual recounts aren't impossible, but accurate and fair ones are the closest thing to being that way."* It sure does seem that way in Florida. "No one that I recall ever stated that having a statewide manual recount was impossible..." I guess you weren't following the conversation that closely. Sector Investor did make such a statement, and it was his statement that I was disputing: Message 14986195 "This is another aspect of this election that people don't seem to understand. The florida legislature mandated that certification shall (must) be completed in 7 days unless there were extenuating circumstances that prevented it (like acts of god, hurricanes.. etc). The reason this is part of the law is to maintain the voter's right to FINALITY" The delay in the certification date was set aside in the first U.S. Supreme Court ruling, so that discussion is pretty much moot at this point. But it's not true that certification gives finality. Section 102.168 of Florida Statutes says that contest proceedings don't even begin until after certification. leg.state.fl.us "Now some folks are claiming 'Why should that be such a hard and fast rule since the electors don't have to be selected until Dec 12th??' Why not use the additional time?" I think the courts have been trying to meet that deadline up till now. But it is not exactly accurate to say that the electors must be chosen by December 12th. The only significance of December 12th is that 3 USC 5 says that if the selection of electors is finalized by then, according to rules in place by election day, then the state's selection of electors is conclusive. So if the contest proceedings are not finished by that date, it just creates a possibility for the electors to be challenged, but it does not automatically mean that Florida loses its electoral votes. caselaw.lp.findlaw.com "Well, one can make the same statement with the meeting of the Electoral college, can't they? Why do they have to meet on the 18th of December?" Because 3 USC 7 says so. caselaw.lp.findlaw.com "Why do we have to have the inauguration on the 20th of January? " Because the 20th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says so. However, that same amendment does provide contingency plans in case the presidency has not been decided by then. nara.gov "This is why there are laws that are set down by the legislature and NOT THE COURTS..." Actually, the reason for that is that Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution says the rules for selecting presidential electors must be set by the legislatures. nara.gov "Thus, in the interest of finality, the FLSC has NO RIGHT to be overturning the legislative intent as securing finality." Note however, that the Florida legislature specified in 102.168 that election contests would be decided by courts. However, it is possible that the Florida Supreme Court overstepped their bounds. Presumably that will be decided shortly by the U.S. Supreme Court. "They have essentially opened up the can of worms EVEN MORE by not specifying the criteria for what constitutes a "valid vote", as well as only providing for manual recounts of the undervote." Yes, the Florida Supreme Court sure has made a mess of it.