posted on December 10, 2000 09:19:22 AM
The Supreme Court has taken possession of the Florida ballots.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla.--The U.S. Supreme Court has ordered that more than 12,000 Florida ballots contested by Al Gore be sent to Washington along with other legal papers in the case of Bush vs. Gore.... Bush lawyer Phil Beck said that "it's routine for [the Supreme Court] to get all the exhibits and it so happens that in this case the ballots from these cases are exhibits."... Gore lawyer Laurence Tribe, however, saw the request for the ballots as hardly typical. He said he had heard a Florida Supreme Court clerk joking with a counterpart at the U.S. Supreme Court about the possibility of taking the ballots off of Florida's weary hands. But he was surprised to learn that such an order actually had been issued.
Mr. Tribe, a professor at Harvard Law School, said that while he "wouldn't ordinarily speculate" about the future of the ballots should the U.S. high court reverse the Florida court, "the opinion of Justice [Antonin] Scalia invites it." Five justices, including Justice Scalia, ordered the counts stopped, at least until the high court hears arguments on Monday. In a separate opinion only he signed, Justice Scalia said that counting the votes threatens "irreparable harm to [Mr. Bush], and the country, by casting a cloud upon what he claims to be the legitimacy of his election." Given that, Mr. Tribe said, "you wouldn't have to call it too elaborate a conspiracy theory if the court were to conclude that no legitimate purpose can be served by counting them" -- ever. That would prevent any future embarrassment to a possible Bush presidency should a later count show that Mr. Gore got more votes. "It does seem to be the view of five members of the court that there's something illegitimate about counting them," Mr. Tribe said, and those justices may wish to head off "the specter of having them counted after the inauguration by some doctoral candidate from Michigan State armed with a Freedom of Information request."
posted on December 10, 2000 09:28:12 AM
"In fascist countries, when the votes, the will of the people, go against the newly-elected dictator, one of the first things the dictator does is to destroy the evidence or at least prevent the citizens from looking at the evidence. If you think this could not happen in the United States, think again. Although Florida has laws that provide access to the ballots after the election, Republican Governor Whitman of New Jersey has already proposed in public that the Florida votes be sealed for an undetermined period of time. This would prevent citizens from looking at the ballots and, say, counting them to see who really won the 2000 presidential elections. In the days to come, more Bush backers will propose sealing those votes from the people. In the days to come, steps should be taken to insure that those votes are neither lost nor destroyed. If you believe the Florida votes should remain safe and open to scrutiny by U.S. citizens, as the law indicates", it's too late now.
posted on December 10, 2000 09:37:44 AM
Sickening! This, of all the things in this mess, should serve to open some eyes, Republican and Democrat alike. Who could defend such an action? I haven't turned on the news this morning, but I hope the press is on this like...nevermind.
posted on December 10, 2000 09:46:54 AM
Am I reading this correctly? The U.S. Supreme Court is now a part of the vast right wing conspiracy. If I'm mistaken please enlighten me.
posted on December 10, 2000 10:00:02 AMeyeguy6 Look at it this way. Time is of the essence here. It is critical. Why would the Supreme Court have the ballots schlepped all the way from Florida to Washington, if they were going to rule that they should be recounted. If that were the case, then they'd have to be schlepped BACK to Florida to BE recounted. Why in the world would the Supreme Court NEED the actual ballots as "exhibits"? Are the individual justices going to be sifting through each and every ballot before making their decision? Yeah, right. All that will happen is that both sides will stipulate that these are the Florida ballots in dispute. That can be done with the ballots remaining in Florida under secure possession of the courts. There's no need for them to be in D.C. unless there IS something else going on here.
posted on December 10, 2000 10:02:30 AMThe firm represents GW, and Eugene is Justice Scalia's son. WHAT??!! Then there's absolutely NO way that Justice Scalia should be hearing this case. Can a Supreme Court Justice recuse him/herself?
posted on December 10, 2000 10:03:58 AM
Wasn't the basis of the Gore's appeal that Judge Saul never even looked at the "evidence". Now the lawyers are upset that the US Supreme Court might want to look at them? And what ever happened to the Democratics cry of the sanctity of the judicial system. Everyone was quick to accuse Bush of a scorched earth policy when his lawyers spoke out against the initial FSC decision. So Mr. Tribe thinks this is "hardly typical". Nothing about this whole mess has been typical. This hypocrisy is unbelievable!
posted on December 10, 2000 10:24:35 AM
Someone better stop the auction on Yahoo of the truck.
hopefulli,
If the ballots are not in Florida, Florida freedom of information laws can be circumvented and noone will ever know the truth about the ballots.
You can talk of the sanctity of the judiciary when ALL FIVE justices of the supreme court who voted to stop the counting this time are appointees of either GW's father or of Ronald Reagan?
posted on December 10, 2000 10:25:00 AM
Let's start a raffle...
Will the ballots be lost to:
Fire
Flood
Theft
Explosion
Transportation Mishap
Toxic Contamination
Building Collapse
Earthquake
Train Wreck
Plane Crash
Hijacked by Pirates
The boat sank
My dog ate it
Sinkhole
Direct hit from an Astoroid
Eaten by Moths
Accidntily used to wipe sniveling little Bushy's nose after all his whining.
Choose yours.
Shrubs dad's new motto:
"Read my lips", NO NEW COUNTS!
posted on December 10, 2000 10:32:04 AM
Naw, they'll release them after the inauguration, maybe a year after, in a great fanfare of claimed honesty and will for the truth to be known. It shouldn't take them any longer than that to doctor them up.
posted on December 10, 2000 01:41:25 PM
Waters, the Florida Supreme Court spokesman, has announced that no ballots were sent to the U.S. Supreme Court. It was only court records that were sent.
Everyone can relax...about this particular conspiracy, at least.
posted on December 10, 2000 01:50:00 PM
According to this AP story it was the FL Supreme Court which considered sending the votes to DC. The US Supremes nixed that and directed that they stay in Tallahassee.
posted on December 10, 2000 03:03:01 PM
The supremes may not have had the balls to take possession of the ballots, but it still won't be a cakewalk to get them counted after the inauguration.
The GOP will do anything to keep that from happening.
In the meantime, wouldn't it be great if Justice O'Connor swung to the other side tomorrow? Hey, it could happen -- nothin' would surprise me anymore.
posted on December 10, 2000 03:04:53 PM
It's a new idea to me to think that the Supreme Court might seal the PUBLIC records, and I hadn't heard that Christie Whitman suggested it -- shame on her.
BUT, even aside from these two, don't think for a minute that once Jan. 20 comes, if the unofficial FOIA recount hasn't gotten done, that the Bush-Cheney administration wouldn't do whatever they could to see that they're frozen, and they can do a lot.
Remember, Bush is the guy who said, in reference to some websites that he didn't particularly like, "There's such a thing as too much freedom of speech."
I'll also note that having bopped around some very anti-Bush sites over the last week or so, it became clear that the Bush team have been very aggressive in their efforts to shut down anti-Bush sites.
On a funny note (hilarious, actually), one of the things they did before even having a formal campaign (and therefore questionable from a FEC point of view) was to buy up about 50 domain names that expressed anti-Bush sentiment. For example, if you enter www.bushsucks.com (and 49 other domain names that I haven't guessed or read about) you'll land squarely at the official Bush-Cheney campaign site. So funny to me, it's like they're saying, "Yeah, it's official."
posted on December 10, 2000 03:19:01 PMsiggy's report is on the money. Shortly before that story was filed, the FLSC spokesman read a statement that NObody had requested the ballots and that they were staying in Tallahassee.
BTW, IME as a paralegal, the appeals process naturally triggers the transfer of exhibit documents to the higher court.
posted on December 10, 2000 06:36:00 PMKRSEugene Scalia, Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Washington, D.C., [email protected]. The firm represents GW, and Eugene is Justice Scalia's son....Really??????
Man! My bubble over-burstest!.......or burstest over...
This must be a real blow to thousands of immigrants, newly Naturalized US Citizens, who look up to Big Brother, and took such great pride in voting for the very first time!....And WE dare criticize the "other" countries! Oy!!!!
As a foreign-born myself, I am truly dismayed by these new events. So I can understand what American-born people must feel!
posted on December 10, 2000 06:40:58 PM
No one would be concerned if the ballots were COUNTED as opposed to INTERPRETED when the interpretation is done by partisan hacks with new rules that serve THEIR purpose and not justice or fairness.
posted on December 10, 2000 06:53:01 PM
fedupreublican - Don't blame us because a republican florida legislature wrote such ludicrous language into the law. What you bet they change that as soon as this election is over save it comeback and serve to hurt them when their terms in Florida come up.
I bet that language on the absentee ballot is clarified also save other groups use it to generate extra votes. But wait you need an insider to correct the computer errors.
posted on December 10, 2000 08:37:25 PM
Democrats would not be interpreting without republicans in any case.
----
Those statutes would be working the other way right now if the margin favored Gore over Bush. Kinda' like a Republican backup system, enacted by Republicans.
------
This Bush lawyer Phil Beck certainly made it sound as though the ballots would be sent along with the other exhibits.
-------
Even if he is a 'close personal friend' of Al Gore's as you somehow understand, it's not quite the same thing as having a family member, a son, who is sharing the millions in legal fees associated with presenting GW's case(s) before the supreme court.
As I said, Eugene Scalia is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of the law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, along with Bush's chief supreme court litigator, Ted Olsen.
posted on December 10, 2000 11:22:13 PM
Yeah, CNN reported that the ballots were being sent to D.C. Then CNN took that back. CNN also reported on election night that Florida went to Gore. Then it took that back. Then it reported that Florida went to George Bush, and declared he was the president. Then CNN took that back. Fool me once?
I'm glad to see that Gore isn't giving Laurence Tribe another chance to get up in front of the U.S. Supreme Court and bleat "disenfranchising people just isn't very nice," and, at almost the last moment, has substituted Boies for Tribe, just like I said Gore should have after the last U.S. Supreme Court hearing. (If I were running this whole Florida recount thing, I'd do it better than Gore and his crew.)
Unfortunately, I see that Katherine Harris' lawyer, Klock, has again been allotted, from Bush's side, some time to argue (Boise gets 45 minutes, Olsen gets 35, Klock gets 10.) In all of this I've never seen Klock offer a persuasive argument, he just goes on and on about "voter urrhhh," no matter what the actual focus of the trial is. Could be that this is the case where that finally applies, maybe if you keep on bringing up the same argument over and over, in every case, you'll finally happen upon a case where it's pertinent. Scalia might actually want to consider if voter error makes a vote illegal, I wouldn't be surprised. On the whole though, Bush would have done better to give all the time to Olsen, and none to Klock, his 10 minutes are going to be best used for everyone to go get a coke or something before the next real argument begins.
posted on December 10, 2000 11:36:59 PM
KRS "Eugene Scalia, Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Washington, D.C., [email protected]. The firm represents GW, and Eugene is Justice Scalia's son....Really??????"
And Jeb, the governor of the controversial State is George's brother - this new association is no suprise. Why do you think they went to the Supreme Court - b/cuz they knew thye already had some in their pocket - as they say.
While Georgie Porgie sits back getting ready to stick his fingers into his pie........
Considering your posting to this board, I think it safe to say that if you were argueing either side before the supreme court you'd run out of time before you were half done.
posted on December 11, 2000 02:10:07 AM
Its gotta be a setup, this whole close race in of all places Florida. With G.W. Bushs' brother their as govenor, of course! They set this whole thing up before the elections, gotta be one of those conspiracy things that Grand Old Party does all the time right?
A lot of scenarios on this
This could go into overtime, go to the Senate, and vote, with a 50/50 split partisan vote, the tie breaker would be
V.P. Gore he could elect himself!
But then, the other would be the split. They would put Bush in as the President, and Lieberman as Vice President. Its how the first elections worked, ya know the founding fathers? Not sure up to what year they did that either.
