At 04:07 PM 12/17/00 +0100, Jeroen wrote:
>The Supreme Court already decided that Bush has
>won the election.
You misunderstand. The US Supreme Court merely decided that Florida's 25
electors will be the 25 electors pledged to George W. Bush.
On December 18th, the 435 electors who will select America's President will
meet. Bush has pledges from 271 of these electors to vote for him. That
is only two more than the majority. Thus, it is within the realm of
reasonable possibility that two of these electors will vote for Gore, thus
making it a tie, or three of them will switch to Gore, giving the election
to Gore outright.
>but is that procedure not merely a formality?
Usually its a formality, because the margins are usually so high, it is
unreasonable to expect switching electors to have an outcome on the
election. Nevertheless, in the past 13 elections, we have averaged almost
one faithless elector per election cycle. (Admittedly, all of those
switched to non-candidates, not the second-place finisher.)
Given the very reasonable questions of the "moral fairness" (it is almost
unquestionably legally fair, at least to a Republican), due to Gore winning
the popular vote, and Gore losing so many votes due to the Palm Beach
ballot, it is not inconceviable for two Republican electors pledged to Bush
to decide to do what they see as "the right thing" and switch to Gore.
>He will also face the task of restoring people's faith in the legal system.
>After all, Bush won not because the people voted for him (Gore won the
>popular vote), but because the Supreme Court decided he had won. Based on
>democratic principles (the will of the people), they should have declared
>Al Gore winner.
Fortunately, America is not a Democracy, it is a Republic, and a Federal
Republic at that - a system of government well designed to protect the
interests of people who live in the sparsely populated rural areas, as well
as the heavily populated urban centers.
However, the individual judges apparently based their
>decision on which political party got them their job. IOW: they based their
>decision on their own political views, not on the law. That *must* have
>done a lot of damage to people's faith in the system.
That is just bogus. Of seven liberal Democrats on the Florida Supreme
Court, three of the justices agreed with the US Supreme Court decision.
JDG
_______________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - ICQ #3527685
"Now is not the Time for Third Chances,
It is a Time for New Beginnings."
- George W. Bush 8/3/00
******************VOTE BUSH / CHENEY 2000 *******************
