-Caveat Lector- [I've always wondered what this SOB knows about VWF's death.] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57342-2000Nov9.html "The writer, a former deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, is a law professor at Harvard University." The Case for a Do-Over The Washington Post By Philip B. Heymann Friday, November 10, 2000; Page A45 Despite all that is to be said for the values of promptness in resolving a presidential election, there must be a new vote in Palm Beach County, Fla.--a vote that might be limited to those who voted on Tuesday. A Florida statute forbids the ballot form that seems to have confused so many. Without that ballot, the results in Florida probably would have been very different. This is not a conclusion that one should come to easily. It is not relevant that Al Gore seems to have won the national popular vote. We must either change the systems we have for deciding who will be president or follow them wherever they lead. In the meantime, if we have to pay a small price in responsiveness to voter preferences for immense rewards in stability, the cost is infinitely worth the gain. No ballot is perfectly clear. No voting process is perfectly managed. Different imperfections and mistakes generally hurt or help both candidates. The neutrality of judges is not always trusted and, even if it were, we would probably not want the relatively slow processes of litigation and appeals to follow every closely contested election. So before ordering a new vote it makes sense to place a heavy burden on the review of elections in the form of clear illegality and its likely effect on the electoral results. Where that burden is met, the necessary remedy is a new vote in the local jurisdiction alone, using legal ballots. There was, in fact, such a clear illegality and effect in Palm Beach County: An extremely confusing ballot flatly violated the law that Florida enacted to prevent this confusion. In a state where the candidates are separated by hundreds of votes, thousands in an overwhelmingly Democratic district seem to have been misled by a confusing ballot form used only there--a form that was directly forbidden by a Florida statute. Thousands more appear to have caught their error quickly enough to correct it, only to have their ballots rejected for voting for more than one presidential candidate. There is little dispute that these results of an illegal ballot form were (1) exactly what the Florida statute was designed to prevent, and (2) likely to have determined the Florida and national election. The confusion that the Florida legislature sought to avoid was created in this case by the location of the place where voters register their preferences. A voter might well have concluded that a mark to the right of the Gore box was a vote for Gore even though, also being left of the Buchanan box, it would be a vote for Buchanan if the mark was off-center. But the issue is not solely that the ballot form was confusing. It is illegal by Florida statutes designed to eliminate the confusion that infected this election. Section 101.560 of Florida law states: "When an electronic or electromechanical voting system" is used, "the ballot information shall . . . be in the order of arrangement provided for paper ballots." Section 101.27(3) repeats the same requirement. Section 101.151 states what these requirements are. They include: "To vote for a candidate whose name is printed on the ballot place a cross [x] mark in the blank space at the right of the name of the candidate. . . ." Still another provision of Florida law, Section 101.5609(6), also makes clear Florida's concern about such confusion, requiring the voting squares to be consistently on the same side of each candidate's name. The critical point is that, ignoring these requirements, the ballot asked the voters sometimes to mark on the right, as the law required, and sometimes on the left. That leaves us with a choice between two paths as we try to do the least harm to the credibility and stability of our democracy. We can end the uncertainty as promptly as possible by abiding by the recount of ballots, encouraging citizens to forget that the results of the recount were shaped by a plain violation of the law with significant effects. But that would mean that for the next four years, a high percentage of Americans will believe that a man who lost the popular vote and who may well have lost the electoral vote was made president in order to avoid suspense, uncertainty and delay. We are far too stable and dedicated a democracy to fear the consequences of a delay of at most a few weeks. The other and better path is to quickly order a new vote in Palm Beach County using a ballot in the legally prescribed form. The Constitution requires Congress to set a single date for electors to vote, but it imposes no such requirement for the time of choosing the electors. It hardly could, for hurricanes and natural disasters could easily make voting in a particular place impossible on a specific date. The supporters of Gov. George W. Bush will, of course, object that in the interest of finality, a candidate must be allowed to enjoy the advantages of even an illegally designed, confusing ballot. But whoever loses or wins, in the end, the offense to our belief in orderly but democratic choice will be far less. For the next president will have enjoyed at least the support--unmarred by the confusion of a ballot form forbidden by state law--of a plurality of the citizens in each of the states necessary to carry the electoral college. The writer, a former deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, is a law professor at Harvard University. © 2000 The Washington Post Company I've always wondered what this SOB knows about VWF's death. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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