Another Reason Why Gore Will Win

[tim]

I want JIM ROME to host this debate and he can "break it down" for us...

[Jeff K]

There's a very interesting lawsuit pending in Seminole county, that may be Gore's last chance. It seems the Republicans improperly filled out 4000 absentee ballot requests that did not have a registration number, which may be illegal. The suit asks to nullify the ballots, or throw out all absentee ballots (15,000). In either case, Gore would win Florida quite easily.

Dumb: Palm Beach Dem Election Supervisor makes a stupid butterfly ballot.

Dumber: Seminole Rep Election Supervisor allows Rep's to change absentee ballot requests.


[This message has been edited by Jeff K (edited 11-20-2000).]

[Jeff K]

Judge orders hearing on absentee-ballot suit
GOP handling of applications is challenged
BY PHIL LONG AND MARK SILVA

A potentially explosive legal battle over the presidential election is developing in Seminole County, where a judge has ordered a hearing in a lawsuit that seeks to throw out more than 15,000 absentee ballots in one of the GOP's biggest strongholds.

Circuit Judge Debra Nelson has scheduled a hearing for next Monday in the suit, filed last week by Central Florida attorney Harry Jacobs. Earlier this week she rejected a Republican motion to dismiss the suit.

If the court were to rule for Jacobs, the math would certainly break Al Gore's way: In Seminole County, Bush got 10,006 absentee ballots to Gore's 5,209. With recounts under way in three South Florida counties, Bush leads by 930 votes. Eliminating Seminole's absentees would give Gore more than a 4,000-vote lead.

At issue is whether Seminole County Elections Supervisor Sandra Goard violated state law by giving two GOP workers what the suit calls ``unrestricted'' and ``unsupervised'' access to the ballot applications.

Jacobs' lawsuit claims that for two weeks before the election, the two Republican volunteers sat in an office in Goard's department ``correcting'' several thousand absentee-ballot requests that lacked essential information and had already been rejected. Similar provisions were not made for absentee-ballot requests from Democratic and independent voters, Jacobs says.

``Ms. Goard's misconduct . . . resulted in the counting of thousands of illegal votes by absentee ballots,'' the suit says.

The stakes are high. In a Miami mayoral race in 1997, the Third District Court of Appeal found misconduct with the handling of absentee ballots and tossed out all of them, changing the outcome of the election.

Both national Republican and Democratic officials are intensely interested in developments in the case.

``This is not an official action of the Gore campaign,'' said Gerald Richman, a Miami lawyer and former candidate for Congress who represents Jacobs.

But lawyers for the Democrats were en route to Florida on Tuesday from New York and Washington, D.C., to prepare for Monday's hearing, Richman said.

The Bush campaign declined comment, saying it was a state GOP matter. Calls to the Republican Party of Florida were not returned. Executive Director Jamie Wilson said the party never touched ballots -- only the requests. ``Another day, another lawsuit,'' he said. ``This is the Democrats MO now, frivolous lawsuits.''

The suit is the outcome of a push by both parties to press for the absentee vote. Both parties printed up thousands of applications for absentee ballots and sent them to voters. Those who wanted to vote absentee filled in the requests and sent them to the elections office.

But the Republicans' pre-printed form left off critical information required by law: the applicant's voter registration number.

When the ballot applications came in without voter identification numbers, they were rejected and placed in storage, the suit says.

When Republicans learned of the problem, they persuaded Goard to let them use their own records to add the voter ID numbers to the requests, the suit says.

Democrats and others were not made aware of potential problems with any of their ballots. Goard, a Republican, has declined to comment.

SEES NO FOUL

The local prosecutor says he sees no foul.

``Where is the fraud in allowing someone to put the voter ID on an application so the person can vote?'' asked Chris White, chief assistant state attorney for Seminole County. If the allegations were that ballots were stolen or people were somehow prevented from voting, that might be different, White said.

``We're still waiting for someone to make an official complaint,'' White said.

But a University of Miami Law professor said allowing the Republicans to change the forms was akin to ``putting a thumb on the scale.

``If the supervisor of elections' staff had been going through the requests and adding the information, that would be one thing,'' said UM law Professor Terence Anderson. ``But to let the Republicans come in and do it, wow, that's tricky.''

He added: ``This one is a serious lawsuit. I don't know why we didn't hear about it sooner.''

Florida law says that the supervisor may accept a written or phone request from absentee voters if they include their name, address, the last four digits of their Social Security number and their voter registration ID number.

There are two issues, Anderson said: Whether there was noncompliance with state law and whether what happened cast a reasonable doubt that the results reflect the will of the voters.

Another legal expert, Jon Mills, a law professor at the University of Florida, isn't as confident that the case is a slam-dunk for Democrats.

``This one isn't ripe yet . . . we need to see what the facts are before we can place any particular meaning on them,'' Mills said.

COMPLAINT RENEWED

Republicans renewed their complaint that Democrats are seeking to do in the courtroom what they didn't do in the voting booth.

``They are enthralled with the courts. They are making challenge after challenge if they don't get the results they want,'' said U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, an active partisan for the Bush campaign who was in Tallahassee on Tuesday.

``The judge may say that in the future, that discretion would say not to alter the ballot request, but they were using due diligence to identify their voters,'' said Foley, R-West Palm Beach. ``There was no fraud used to `create' a voter. They were using information to say `yes, this the voter.' ''

But Jacobs's attorney, Richman, said the case is unusual because it contains allegations of criminal fraud by the elections supervisor.

``We're definitely concerned about it,'' said Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Jenny Backus. ``Obviously anybody of whatever party would be troubled to know that a supervisor of elections let a partisan in to handle the ballot requests. It is somewhat disturbing to the whole electoral process.''

Gore campaign spokesman Doug Hattaway said he couldn't comment because the campaign is not a party to the suit.

[JT]

Couple of things. First, I know the military typically vote republican and I can understand their hatred of Clinton, but from what I understand (though I have not actually seen them) is that under Gore's budget he would actually spend more on the military then Bush. Second, anyone have a grasp of possible ways this could play out. Could this still end up being decided by the electoral delegates? Understand that in some states the delegates do not have to vote they way the state went. If this drags on past Jan. 21st then the Speaker of the House becomes acting president and then at some point there is the possibility that the acting VP becomes President for 2 years and then becomes President. Anyone know the details?

[JT]

Opps, mean there would be another election in 2 years. Didn't mean to repeat myself.

[MarkDel]

TO JEFF K. (Re..Seminole County)

I know this is an old thread, but in light of recent events, I brought it back to the top to issue an apology to Jeff K.

The events of the past few days have made me come to the conclusion that I owe you an apology. When you first made this argument about how Gore could win due to the lawsuit in Seminole County, I dismissed your conclusion because I assumed a reasonable and equitable remedy could never be achieved in this case even if the Democrats won in court on the issue. I now see that I was wrong not to give this lawsuit more thorough consideration. In retrospect, you may be right about this case. While I assumed Gore would win the election because of his ability to manipulate the hand recounts (dimpled chads, etc...) in Broward and Palm Beach counties, I overlooked the possibility that Miami-Dade might refuse to complete their hand recount and thus provide Gore with no net gain in that county.

But this Seminole case currently before Judge Nikki Clark is a potential TIME BOMB, and the media has under-reported and/or poorly reported on this case beacause it is REALLY COMPLEX!!! I spent the last day examining Florida law and Federal law, and this is a very difficult case. Under Florida law, the Republican election officials look to have clearly violated the Florida statute which prohibits anyone other than the individual voter or a family member from altering an absentee ballot application. While the Democrats are implying that the ballots were altered fraudulently, this is NOT TRUE. It was merely the ballot APPLICATIONS that were altered (by entering voter ID numbers) which is totally different than altering the actual ballot from a common sense standpoint. But legally, it doesn't really make a difference under Florida law which states quite clearly that any ballot application that has been altered improperly automatically disqualifies that subsequent ballot even if the voter executed the ballot properly.

But here's where we get into trouble. The Florida law says any ballot that fails under the "application law" must be disqualified, but in this case, those offending ballots have been mixed in with ALL the absentee ballots in the county (even the 12,000 or so that were not altered illegally) and can no longer be identified independently. So the onyl possible remedies for the court if they rule for the Democrats are as follows:

1. Throw out ALL absentee ballots in the county because you cannot ascertain which ballots were tainted.
2. Try and determine, via some complex mathematical formula, an estimated number of these tainted votes that would have gone to Bush and Gore, respectivewly, then disqualify that many for each candidate.

Either scenario would produce a Gore victory and would likely be totally consistent under Florida law. Thus, the judge here (Nikki Clark) could turn the election over to Gore and NOT violate Florida law, and the Florida Supreme Court might agree with her ruling based on Florida law. So Gore would then win, right??? Maybe not. As it turns out, there's a Federal statute governing Federal elections (like the Presidential race) that STRICTLY forbids any voter losing his legitimately cast ballot over a technicality that the voter could not have caused by his own action or lack of action. In simple language, if you cast an absentee ballot properly in Seminole County and the Judge in Florida either throws out your vote or throws out an estimated number of votes, then that Judge has violated Federal law by disenfranchising innocent voters. So the Judge here may be breaking Federal law by administering a valid Florida state law. So there's no answer??? WRONG-- In this case, the U.S. Consitution is very, very clear in what is known as the Pre-Emptive Clause of the Constitution which in simple terms states that a validly enacted state law is "trumped" by a validly enacted Federal law.

Now if I know the true legalities here, both parties and the Florida judges must also know this. My guess is that the Democrats won't talk about this because they would lose over the long haul because of the "Pre-Emptive" Clause of the Consitution, and they would rather cloud the issue with phony rhetoric. But the Republicans won't talk about it either because they are afraid to admit that Florida law is against them and they're also worried that even though they would eventually win on the Federal issue, they're afraid that the general public won't understand the arguments that lead to this conclusion. That may also explain why the media and their so-called legal experts aren't going into this much detail in their coverage.

So this is truly a nightmare scenario...since Gore cannot win once the Federal law is enforced and "pre-empts" the Florida law. But the question is whether or not the Florida court system will "play it straight" and honor the U.S. Consitution and the Pre-Emptive Clause or whether they'll try to claim that they are following the rules and enforcing Florida law. In light of the political makeup of Judge Clark and the Florida Supreme Court, we may be headed for a bizarre scenario where they throw out thousands of absentee ballots, thus seemingly giving the election to Gore, only to have the U.S. Supreme Court eventually step in and reverse the decision back to Bush based on the valid Federal law...but this would take so much time, that the electoral college may have already met by the time the U.S. Supreme Court gets the case on their desks, in which case Gore would have "won" in the electoral college, only to be informed by the U.S. Supreme Court that his victory was based on an improperly executed decision of the state court and then we are in NEW, NEW, NEW AND UNEXPLORED TERRITORY...this whole thing is just awful no matter who you want to win

[reno]

Why not call it a push, and have a re-vote?
If time is a problem, let Bubba occupy the White House for a few extra weeks. As long as he keeps his pants on, the country can survive until the re-vote is completed.

[chestrockwells]

It just goes on and on doesn't it?
All the legal and not so legal arguments aside, here's my line on this.
The next President.......
Bush -700 (max. bet $50 and only between 5-6am Eastern)

Gore +550 (max. bet,how much do you have?)

[Jeff K]

MarkDel... No apology necessary, because the media droped the ball on Seminole/Martin counties, until this week. The real crime of this election is, if all the votes in Florida were cast correctly, Gore would have won by a minimum of 10,000 votes.

Nikki Clark said she is going to follow the law, but whatever the result, it will end up in the FSC. Tomorrow, the Florida legislature is going to "end run" the process, and pick their own electors. Looks like there's a good chance it will end up in the U.S. Congress.

[Phil]

Mark, great write-up. I think I've become an election coverage junkie. For sure I've become a MSNBC junkie. They're way better than CNN plus they're female reporters are total babes!

Worried I'll hit the wall and withdrawl when this is all over. I mean what else is there to watch at 2 in the afternoon on a weekday.

[MarkDel]

Phil,

You are 100% correct about the "babe factor" at MSNBC. You've got Ashley Banfield, Nora O'Donnell, Chris Jansing, etc....Who did I miss? My favorite is Banfield, anyone else care to vote on this?

[MarkDel]

Jeff K,

Looks like you are right again my friend. The Florida Supreme Court just ruled (4-3) to overturn the lower court (Sauls) ruling. The hand recounts will begin immediately and Gore will be given the extra 180 or so votes that were turned in late by Palm Beach county AND the 210 or so votes that were found in the PARTIAL and INCOMPLETE recount of Miami-Dade county, plus they will hand count the extra 9,000 or so "under votes" from Miami-Dade, plus any other county that wishes to undertake a hand recount may also do so at the discretion of the local canvassing board.

If this sounds f*cked up to anyone, that's because it is, at best, illogical.

Jeff K---Since you are one of the few objective Gore supporters I've encountered on these boards, please give me reasonable answers to the following questions:

1. Why is Miami-Dade being forced to do a hand recount, while the other counties are allowed to do such a recount at their own discretion? Miami-Dade decided not to do one on their own discretion, why are they being forced but others are not?

2. Why has the court ruled that the 9,000 under votes in Miami-Dade are to be counted, and the results from a partial hand recount of the entire Miami-Dade county are to be given to Gore, but the rest of Miami-Dade county (never hand recounted) is not included in this new count? Before they suspended hand recounts in Miam-Dade, the canvassing board there had only done hand recounts of about 40% of the county and they had only completed the heavily black and democratic precincts and had not even touched the heavily Republican Cuban precincts. How can the Florida Supreme Court justify this?????????????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????????????????? ??????????????????????????????????

If there are any honest Democrats out there, please give me a rational explanation why this decision isn't blatantly unfair to those Cuban voters????????

[Phil]

and here I thought my +150 at WSEX was dead and buried along with Gore.

BRING IT HOME AL!!!!!!!

did anybody else notice the bounce in the step of Bill Daley when he was coming down to deliver the democratic response to the F.S.C's ruling. I think if he'd had a little more room he might have done a jig.

Also, if there are two slates of electors and the house (republican) and the senate (50-50 so who knows) can't agree on which one, then it goes to the Florida executive officer (Bush). Up to now it had sounded like that is it, he certifies the slate he wants (obviously for his brother) and game over for Gore. But I just heard on NBC (i think) that the Florida Supreme Court could ORDER him as the the Chief Executive to have to certify the slate they pick.

if that's the case this is realy going to get interesting, since up till now, no matter how many things broke for Gore, it seemed like in the long run (as Mark points out about the absentee ballots above) that Bush would win.

But now we have the possiblilty that Gore could come out of this with a clear electoral college majority.

My personal opinion.

1 - the US Supreme Court will overturn this FSC decision handing it all back to Bush.

2 - if that doesn't happen, the electoral college winner will cease to have meaning because of how politsized this will have become and it will all be decided in the HOUSE and SENATE. And since in the HOUSE it's a one state-one vote rule for this particular decision and since REPUBLICANS have majorities in 28 states, that means PRESIDENT BUSH, but maybe with...VICE PRESIDENT LEIBERMAN since the SENATE picks the VP and could (with AL Gore's tie breaking vote) go Democratic.

So in the long (and I do mean long) run here I guess I still don't like Al's chances too much, but guessing where this thing is going now is like betting a coin flip. good luck.

I personally like reno's idea, let Bill keep on trucking for a while. 3rd TERM baby!

[Cons]

Bush will still win the election. I can't see Gore getting away with daylight robbery. The guy has already proven that he has no honour, and I still think that justice will be served. Hopefully the election-rigger's campaign will end in a few days, and along with that his political career will be over. He's already made the US look like a third-world country over here, and it's time for this circus to end.

I wonder if there are still any odds available on teh outcome...

[MadameX]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Jeff K:
The real crime of this election is, if all the votes in Florida were cast correctly, Gore would have won by a minimum of 10,000 votes.

Jeff, I just had to throw into the equation the disservice that the media did to Bush by calling the election for Gore before the polls in the Florida Panhandle even closed. Although the media themselves are reticent to remark on this unless forced, thousands did not cast their votes after this mis-call was made....and of course the Panhandle is heavily Republican.
Concerning the preposterous ruling from Florida "high" (and foolish) court...thank heavens the US Supremes will give their Florid brethern a good comeuppance very swiftly.