At 02:28 PM 2/23/01 -0500, Doug wrote:
> Sounds familiar. Do they have courts that throw elections?
I'm going to respond to this separately, only because there are so many
people who take this seriously.
The US Supreme Court did not throw out an election, in fact, it did not
even affect the outcome.
No matter what the US Supreme Court ruled, the Bush slate of electors for
Florida would have voted on Dec. 18th. Presumably, *if* further counting
had occurred, and *if* further counting had produced a Gore lead, then the
votes from the Gore slate of electors for Florida would also have been
submitted to Congresss.
Congress, having received two slates of electors would have to choose one.
The Republican House would select the Bush slate. The Democratic Senate
would have selected the Gore slate. With Congress split, the matter then
would have gone to...... the executive of the State of Florida. i.e. Jeb
Bush and Katherine Harris.
End result: Bush is still President.
Of course, the real irony here is how simple the dispute is. The only
question, is what constitutes a legal vote? If a legal vote is one
registered by the appropriate counting equipment according to the
instructions provided with the ballot, then Bush was clearly the winner of
Florida. If a legal vote is any sort of mark at all on a ballot, then
perhaps Gore was the winner of Florida. Its not surprising that
reasonable people disagree - and that indeed, two American courts
disagreed.
JDG
__________________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - ICQ #3527685
"The point of living in a Republic after all, is that we do not live by
majority rule. We live by laws and a variety of isntitutions designed
to check each other." -Andrew Sullivan 01/29/01
