Amendments on Holt can't save presidential 08
The following single point is completely fatal to Holt, and won't change. Let's keep our EYES ON THE PRIZE, the presidential election 2008. That's a Holt-supporter focus even though as explained below the presidential is uniquely vlunerable to not being counted properly as we all know from Bush v. Gore 2000.
Remember the December 13 drop-dead deadline for the PRESIDENTIAL election???? That was the reason Bush v. Gore could decide the presidential election in 2000 by first staying or terminating the Florida recounts via a stay order, and then a few days later claiming that "time ran out" in the subsequent opinion and effectively deciding the election for Bush. The Bush v. Gore opinion is dated December 12, 2000. http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-949.ZPC.html The deadline was December 13.
But it's even worse than just running out the clock. The Supreme Court granted the STAY on the grounds that Bush's apparent victory would be "irreparably damaged" by continued recounting, and this rationale applies at all times after the first count. So, we certainly can't count on an audit or recount in the PRESIDENTIAL election. (maybe in dog catcher, OK, and in lower courts, fine.).
I mean, c'mon guys. Eyes on the prize, am I making an "argument" here or is it proven historical fact that the US Supreme Court can and will terminate a recount/audit in Florida especially??? Aren't these post-election "remedies" of recounts/audits the only solace that Holt is offering us for ANY election? (They are). But a legal reality check shows us that the first counts are essentially the only ones that matter.
The Holt Nutshell on Vote Counting: With regard to vote counting, the Holt bill is a trade off that lets vendors keep completely secret first counts, and in extraordinarily poor compensation for those totally corrupt and unreliable secret first counts, Holt substitutes "verifiability" in the form of audits of 3% to 10%. Because these audits in turn then change precinct results, they are the functional equivalents of partial recounts. But partial recounts/audits are something that even Florida state courts found unconstitutional when Gore asked for them.
(I will grant you that the vast majority of local courts lack courage to follow bush v. gore, but again we are keeping our eyes on the prize of the presidential election, and the Supreme Court).
But of course the presidential election merits US Supreme Court treatment....
But we know of one court that has the courage to terminate an election in the recount phase, and it's not a lower court. It's a court that only takes big cases of its own choosing. It's a court that's more partisan today than it was in 2000. It's the US Supreme Court. It can grant certiorari if only to interpret its own language in 2000 saying that the Bush v Gore case was decided on its own facts.
In all cases of constitutional interpretation the US Supreme Court is the final un-reviewable and un-appealable authority on what constitutional Equal Protection means, period. They alone get to decide what is meant by the Constitution.
But people keep saying, in favor of Holt, that we've got to have something, anything, in place for 2008. That's what motivates well-intentioned folks to sell out their public first count democracy in favor of expensive, litigious, hazardous and unworkable post-election pipe dreams. But even pursuing pipe dreams might be understandable if only Bush v. Gore, 531 US 98 (2000) weren't there to teach us the error of investing in post-election "fixes."
I'm one of the handful of lawyers that do congressional election contests. I could make more money with more disputable "paper trail" elections but I'm saying "don't go there" because you are hurting our democracy if you do. WE can't tolerate secret first counts in the vain hope of a proper recount or audit not stayed by the US SUpreme Court or some other politically "sensitive" court.
PR Finn.
PS If you seek the solution to this huge problem, invest your time only in first count & public count democracy. Those investments, while they may take longer to bear fruit, will continue to pay dividends endlessly. Whereas if you are either for or against the complications of the Holt bill, your entire investment in public education is largely or totally wiped out every single time the details of the bill change. JFK said the work of democracy never ends. We got into this trouble because too many people stopped teaching and working democracy. Use it, or lose it.
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