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To: hjz who wrote (118862)	12/13/2000 11:17:48 AM
From: Lane Hall-Witt	Respond to of 120523

hjz: That ruling made clear last night that, so far as the Gore campaign is concerned, the election is over. I think it's unlikely that election uncertainty will affect the markets from here on out. That said: The only further action that I think likely at this point is a legal challenge from an independent organization -- for example, the NAACP or the ACLU -- that claims the Florida election violated the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment and thus was unconstitutional and should be thrown out in its entirety. If the fact that Broward counted dimpled chads, but Palm Beach only counted hanging chads, is a violation of the Equal Protection clause, then there's a compelling argument to be made that the use of different voting machines in different counties also violates that clause. In its opinion, the Supreme Court has tried to insulate itself against this argument -- knowing that its extremely literal construction of the Equal Protection clause in this case runs the risk of making most elections unconstitutional, simply by virtue of the fact that it is impossible to replicate the voting system identically in different states, counties, precincts, etc. But the Court was clearly struggling to prop up its use of the Equal Protection clause, and I'm sure it hopes that no legal challengers will attack it. I very much doubt the Court would agree to hear a case, at this point, that attacked Florida's election on Equal Protection grounds, though I personally believe such a challenge would be valid and should be tried, if for no other reason than to test the extremely shaky case law articulated in Bush v. Gore.