Flint on "how it is SUPPOSED to work"

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Umm...I probably knew the answer to my own question a while ago, but I've forgotten -- why didn't Florida's electoral votes get thrown completely out? Why give them to anyone?

-- helen (b@r.f), January 07, 2001

helen: That's not the way things are supposed to work. In case of a tie (or unresolvable dispute), the slate of electors is supposed to be selected by the state legislature. If the nature of the dispute is such that this slate is doubtful, then it's the job of the US House of Representatives to select between two slates. In case of a tie in the House, it goes to the US Senate, etc. This was all laid out a couple of centuries ago. You will notice that, very deliberately, the courts are *not involved* in this process. It's a political and not a legal process.

This would have worked just fine in Florida, as intended, except that Florida has a very liberal, very activist supreme court. That court, painfully aware that the legislature is dominated by republicans, that the governor is a republican, that the secretary of state is a republican, decided to override inconvenient laws, and interpret existing law as saying whatever was necessary to assist Gore.

I can't really blame Gore for his attempt to get the Florida Supreme Court to override the *proper* branches of government and attempt to impose its own unconstitutional will. After all, Gore was trying to win, whatever it took. The USSC tried to hand the FSC a very broad hint by vacating their first attempt at judicial legislation, saying "Hey, guys, where'd you get the authority to do this?" The FSC flat ignored this hint, put their first decision right back where it was, and bulled on obliviously.

Once the FSC had insisted on pissing in the soup, the USSC was stuck. They could live with this defilement of the entire process, or they could throw it all out. Neither is a good choice, but they HAD no good choices, the FSC hadn't left them any.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), January 07, 2001.

Meme in green, FYI.

The "soup" as it were, was to push thru GW Bush as the winner of Florida. Problem was a few lines of obscure vote counting statutes in Florida Law. These set forth procedures of recounts but left out specific "how-tos". Unfortunately unlike the procedures in GW's state of Texas, Floridas' lacked any procedural specifics. Thus entered the "chadology", the "manufacturing of votes" mantra of the Memes, which ultimately ended the efforts for hand recounts.

Overriding problem with the Memes case has to do with INTENT. The Bush camp NEVER wanted anything but "their" count to stand. They NEVER wanted as accurate a count as is humanely possible to ever see the light of day. Evidence enough the intent and mode of operation of these Republicans.

These crooks went as far as organizing mob riots to shut down efforts at counting the vote. Why would they do this? If they had indeed won, why sweat it? Why doubt the judgement of the folks doing the manual recounts? Cause the truth is they didn't win. What they did was manufacture a win using every trick in the book. Fact it was "so close" I think clear, had them scratching their heads. THEY never thought it would be even within 2,000 votes to be honest with ya.

Thru the absence of Jeb Bush and the Legislature of Florida, the Presidential Election there TIMED OUT. Thus their final contingency plan, "extend till boredom" bore the ultimate fruit.

Bottom-line is from hours after November 7 the plan was to stamp the lead as the lead and elect GW. Rest is NOISE.

-- Doc Paulie (fannybubbles@usa.net), January 07, 2001


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