Theos-Talk Archives (September 2002 Message tt00138)

Frank Reitemeyer wrote:
> Hitler's election was lawfull, Bush's not.

Don't write about what you don't know about. Everything was done
according to the law, except that the Florida Supreme Court tried to
change the election law after the election was held. As both U.S. Law
and Florida Law states that election laws changed after the election
cannot have any effect on the election already held, all the U.S.
Supreme Court did was to tell the Florida Supreme Court that they were
not above the law. 

In addition, by the U.S. Constitution, the electors are NOT chosen by
popular vote, but by the state legislatures. In addition, there are
deadlines. 

There were several recounts of the Florida vote. By Florida law, the
only way a manual recount could be done was if there was evidence of
mechanical failure above specifications accepted before the election, or
fraud. As the people in charge of election procedures in the disputed
areas of Florida were the members of the local Democratic party, it was
kind of hard to charge fraud, when they were the only people who could
have perpetrated fraud, and their own man lost. The voting machines
performed according to specifications. The ballots in question were
designed by the Democratic party, facsimiles were mailed to all
registered voters, and there was not a single complaint about them
before the election. 

The Florida Supreme Court called for an illegal, but fair, manual
recount, and gave a deadline. The deadline was reached, and the vote
count showed that Bush STILL won. So, the Florida Supreme Court called
for yet another recount, this time throwing out the legal standards of
what counts as a vote and what does not, and giving the Democratic party
wide latitude in deciding the standards. The Chief Justice of the
Florida Supreme Court declared that this was an illegal action. The
Supreme Court almost unanimously agreed (the 5-4 decision was whether or
not there was enough time to try other alternatives; as the deadline
given in the U.S. Constitution was only two days away at that point, the
5 member majority of the Supreme Court said that there was no longer
time, and the results had to stand based on the last recount done). 

Mind you, there were a number of illegal acts committed:

1) The recounters, who were required by law to admit the press and
members of the opposing party, locked the doors and tried to keep people
out. Wait a second, that was Gore's people who did that.

2) The ballot was, admittedly, somewhat confusing, and the instructions
were unclear. Wait a second, that was Gore's people who did that.

3) There was an attempt by the U.S. government to ensure that people
serving in the U.S. military could not legally vote. Wait a second, that
was Gore's people who did that.

4) In a number of areas, people couldn't verify their ballots, or had
to wait in long lines to verify their registration status. Wait a
second, that was in districts where the election proceedings were
controlled by Gore's people. 

Finally, let's note that, when manual recounts were done after the
election by the news media, it STILL came out that Bush won.

So, it was not Bush that was illegally elected. Gore tried to illegally
steal the election from Bush, and covered his tracks by saying that it
was Bush that was breaking the law.

Bart Lidofsky