Re: PLEASE IGNORE THAT ONE! All screwed up, multi-duplicated text, ...

From: Mark Cook (mcook_at_prodigy.net)
Date: 02/12/04 

Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 04:49:17 GMT

"Raffael Cavallaro"
<raffaelcavallaro@pas-d'espam-s'il-vous-plait-dot-mac.com> wrote in message
news:2004021114165075249%raffaelcavallaro@pasdespamsilvousplaitdotmaccom...
> Much of your post is a very confused misreading of what I wrote.
> Despite quoting (as opposed to *citing*) large chunks of articles,
> you're rambling post misses the very simple fundamentals:
>
> 1. The US Supreme Court prevented a statewide manual recount that would
> have shown Gore the winner. That's *why* the Bush campaign appealed to
> the US Supreme Court - the Bush campaign did *not* want the manual
> recount to go forward - they knew that Gore would win if it did.

The media proved this reasoning to be false. First, there was not a full
statewide recount. There was only a recount of the 60,000 undervoted
ballots. That left 110,000 other disputed ballots unchecked.

Second, the NORC study recounted the votes as ordered by the FSC in Gore vs.
Harris on 12/8/2000 (the case that was reversed by the SCOTUS). They found
that Bush would have TRIPLED his lead, not lost the election.

Since the media recount proved (within their margin of error) that Bush
would have won, your point is invalid.

> 2. Two Conservative Republican Justices, Thomas and Scalia, acted
> *illegally* by failing to recuse themselves even though each had a very
> close relative (Thomas, his wife, Scalia, his son) with a substantial
> interest in the outcome of the case. Absent these two votes, the US
> Supreme court would have handed down the *opposite* decision, the
> recount would have proceeded, and Gore would now be President of the US.

Again, as noted above, the recount would shown Bush as the winner. So this
point is invalid from the start.

Further, IF the recount (with counting standards deemed illegal by Judge
Sauls) was allowed to be completed. All Bush would have to do is file a safe
harbor complaint under 3 USC 5, and have all the state's electors thrown out
of the electoral college (as Judge Sauls - Democrat - noted was very
possible). Thus neither candidate would have the necessary 271 electoral
college votes to win the office. That would throw the vote into the
REPUBLICAN controlled congress. Of course, they would NOT have voted Gore
into office.

The other REAL possibility was because of what was perceived as the
violations of the Safe Harbor provisions. The Fla. Legislature may have been
able to sent their own slate of electors. It would have been up to the
Congress to pick the electors that would have been allowed to participate.
Again, as Judge Sauls (D) pointed out, Palm Beach County had illegally
changed their counting standards, thus the Republican Congress would have
picked the slate sent by the legislature, i.e. Gore would lose this contest.

With or without the SCOTUS, once the FSC issued the order to include ballots
recounted under an illegal standard, Gore lost.

> 3. Thousands of african americans, overwhelmingly likely Gore voters,
> were either,
> a. denied the right to vote at all, or,

Where is the proof? Both the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post found
otherwise.

> b. had their ballots invalidated in circumstances where white
> voters were allowed to recast their ballots and have their votes count.

If this is true, why did the Democrats do this (you made the case against
the Democrats in the previous post).

Where is the proof that the Democrats were trying to throw the election to
Bush? And why would they?

> a. was accomplished when Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris hired a new
> private firm, at a cost of millions of taxpayer dollars, to illegally
> put as many likely Gore voters on a "purge list" as possible, whether
> they were really felons or not.

Where is the proof??? The USCCR could not prove this, how can you?

> b. was accomplished by failing to provide voters in predominantly
> african american counties with the opportunity to recast misread
> ballots. This part is just simple racism operating here, not party
> affiliation.

You can't run away from party affiliation. Since the DEMOCRATS were in
charge of those counties in your example in the previous post, they are
responsible for not allowing voters who spoiled their ballots, another
ballot to vote.

No matter how hard you try, the FACTS are the Democrats controlled the
elections in those counties (Gadsden and Leon). If you are going to lay
blame, you have no choice by to blame the Democrats. You can't blame
Republicans for the actions of Democrats.

> The number represented by a is larger than that represented by b, and a
> was orchestrated by George Bush's brother, and his brother's protege,
> and chair of the Bush campaign in Florida.

Why did were the Democrats involve? You made the argument, but now you are
ignoring them?

> The conclusion is quite straightforward, and doesn't require
> complicated analyses of various court opinions to see: The Bush
> campaign stole the Presidency by a combination of illegal means.

Your conclusion is invalid on every point. The fact is that you made the
case that the Democrats were out to make sure the Gore lost.

> Now a few details:
>
> On 2004-02-11 03:41:40 -0500, "Mark Cook" <mcook@prodigy.net> said:
>
> > While you are tying to assert that the Republicans were biased in their
> > decision
>
> No. Read what I wrote. I said *nothing* about any bias of the Florida
> Supreme Court. I spoke about Jeb Bush, his appointees, and the *US*
> Supreme Court.

Since Jeb Bush did not order the purge, not did he remove a single name from
the voting rolls. I not sure what you are talking about. Who are these
appointees that you speak of?

> I wrote that the conservative Republicans of the US Supreme Court were
> biased, so theyeither failed to recuse themselves as legally required
> (Thomas and Scalia), or broke with their own states rights position to
> overturn the ruling of a State Supreme Court (Florida) in a matter of
> the interpretation of *State* election law.

That argument fails because it would not have put Gore into the white house.

> Scalia and Thomas were both acting illegally by not recusing
> themselves. This alone was enough to change the outcome of the case
> before the US Supreme Court. All those Republican-appointed Justices of
> the US Supreme Court who had previously staked out a position in favor
> of states rights, acted in a biased and hypocritical manner, when they
> overturned a state Supreme Court ruling in a matter of State election
> law. Read the dissent - there were *no* issues of *federal* election
> law raised in the Florida case.

3 USC 5 is a federal law. The dissent is clearly wrong. They argued that the
state did not have the right make election law (granted to them by the US
Constitution) that allowed for them to take advantage of the Safe Harbor
provisions in the US Constitution.

> Nevertheless, stated advocates of
> states rights overturned a State Supreme Court ruling in a matter of
> State election law. Pure hypocrisy, resulting from party bias.

This is also false. The case was NOT about state's rights, it was about the
rights of the state legislature as spelled out by the US Constitution (Art
1, Sec 2, Cl 1).

> What happened in Florida was about what candidate one supported, and
> race. African americans were unlikely Bush supporters, so their votes
> were less likely to be cast and counted fairly.

The example that you cited in your previous post makes the case that the
Democrats did not want voters who would support Gore to vote.

> Whites were more likely
> Bush supporters, so their misread ballots were recast, unlike the at
> least 2000 such misread votes of african american voters.

Your example in the previous post was in a county where the Democrats hold
the majority. You are making the case that the Democrats were trying to
throw the election. Further, the majority of the voters in those were going
to vote for Gore no matter what race they were.

> Whites were
> also far less likely to be put on the "purge list" incorrectly.

Like in Miami-Dade? Where whites were twice as likely to be incorrectly
purged?

> This is why Jeb Bush and Harris were happy to spend so much money to
contract
> with a new private firm to increase the size of the "purge list." They
> knew that those "purged" were likely Gore voters.

Where is the proof? The USCCR could not prove this, how can you?

> >> " Of the 19,398 voters removed from the rolls, more than 14,600 matched
> >> a felon by name, birthdate, race and gender."
> >>
> >> Which means that even your source can't account for close to 5000 who
> >> were removed illegally. But the reality is worse still:
> >
> > The did account for them. Remember they checked all 19,398 and could
only
> > find 1,104 who were wrongfully removed.
>
> Wrong. They could only *verify* that 1,104 of the almost 5,000 who did
> *not* match "a felon by name, birthdate, race, and gender" were denied
> the right to vote illegally. That is, the Herald researchers proved to
> their satisfaction that these 1100 people, who didn't match felon
> names, etc., were definitely not former felons. That means that over
> 4,000 people were on the purge list who couldn't be matched to felons,
> and whom Herald researchers couldn't verify were removed illegally.

I don't buy this reasoning, but that doesn't matter. You still have not
defeated the 5,643 illegal votes that were cast by felons.

> But guess what - there's no legal requirement to *prove* to the Miami
> Herald that you're not a felon to vote in Florida. You can only be
> removed if the State can affirmatively show that you *are* a felon.

If you re-read the law as enacted by Gov Chiles (D), you will see this is a
false statement.

> And those 4,000 people were on the list for *no* reason, other than being
> black and/or likely Gore voters.

Where is the proof? The Democrat majority of the USCCR could not prove this,
how can you?

> Moreover, the firm doing the "purge list" subsequently admitted, under
> threat of lawsuit by the NAACP, that the purge list was far larger than
> they admitted at the time of the Herald article you cite. In fact,
> there were actually many more than 5000 people denied the right to vote.

And there were more than 5,600 who were illegally allowed to vote. It is a
wash.

> This was a systematic attempt to cut as many african americans from the
> voter lists as possible, since the Bush Campaign, chaired in Florida by
> Florida Attorney General, Katherine Harris , the same person
> responsible for overseeing the generation and application of the purge
> list - no conflict of interest there! - knew that the larger the
> number of african americans voting, the less likely Bush was to carry
> Florida.

Where is the proof??

> Then, when it looked as if a fair count would show Gore the winner,

An illegal partial recount with an illegal counting standard is not a fair
count. As I pointed out 11 Judges and Florida Campaign Chair found this to
be unfair, with 6 DEMOCRATS who wanted to throw out the rules.

Your point is not backed up with fact.

> the Republican Conservatives of the US Supreme Court acted illegally by
> failing to recuse themselves (Thomas and Scalia) or hypocritically, by
> going against their own stated position, as well as precedent, and
> reversing a State Supreme Court decision on a matter of state election
> law.

Where is the proof that this changed the election??

It is easy to make assertions that Bush did this and Harris did that, but
you have to BACK it up with FACTS.

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