With a little help from our friends

Palomar · 2004-08-12 10:27:11

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s … 2230054]Do we need assistance?

*Actually I -am- all for this. If it weren't for the 2000 Presidential Election my sentiment would be different.

Thousands of Florida voters were wrongly listed as felons and therefore unable to vote.

Good luck this year, Jeb. :down:

--Cindy

Cobra Commander · 2004-08-12 10:36:13

I figured this would come up sooner or later... :hm: Somewhere I read that none would be sent, but time will tell.

It's absurd. We're supposed to invite UN observers, an organization made up of nations that oppose our interests, two-bit dictators and "republics" that can't get their own elections in order to help us?

What this is really about is setting up legal action in case of a Bush victory. Anyplace that's close gets contested. Between those electronic, paperless voting machines and election observers from who knows where noting anything "suspicious" we'll have all sorts of challenges to the outcome. This is a monumentally bad idea.

Certain quarters are so consumed with anger over 2000 that in their efforts to "remedy" what they perceive as wrong they may bring down the Republic. If we have a slurry of court cases over the election going on in January I'm calling up the Blackshirts, I swear. :angry:

Palomar · 2004-08-12 10:38:03

*Can't help remembering the Saturday Night Live skit after the election debacle with Gore and Bush as "The Odd Couple" having to share the White House/Oval Office. Grabbing each other's brown-bag lunch in the mini-fridge by mistake, confusing each other's phone messages, etc. It was hilarious. IIRC it was Gore and Bush portraying themselves and not actors.

That's the only humorous aspect of Election 2000.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2004-08-12 10:43:45

I'm calling up the Blackshirts, I swear. :angry:

*That's your prerogative, sugar plum. :;):

I would be opposed to this any other time. And yeah, I suppose some of the observers will be from nations who are as you described them.

What I'm wondering is why more Americans didn't question the 2000 election results. Ho-hum, :sleep: , who cares?

I don't think so. And I'd hope to god I -would- have been disgruntled and uncertain about the results even if I had voted for Bush in 2000. Question Authority!

--Cindy

P.S.: If Bush wins the election fair and square, so be it. But make sure it IS "fair and square" -- and not by foul means as suspected the last time.

Cobra Commander · 2004-08-12 11:09:33

I did question what was going on in Florida. Now we have all the information.

Here's a good rundown: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/elect … meline.htm

A slurry of counts, recounts, lawsuits to allow recounts, lawsuits to stop them, all pretty straightforward. Then this:

11:30 a.m. Palm Beach Circuit Judge Jorge Labarga rules that county election officials can’t discard ballots with “dimpled chads,” ballots indented but not perforated. Democrats had challenged policy of discarding such ballots.

Judges changing the criteria for a vote count. Legislating from the bench.

Then it got real nasty, both sides no longer as concerned with truth as with pounding the other.

2 p.m. Absentee ballots trickle in, adding to Bush’s total.

Now the Dems really freak out. But wait...

5 p.m. In a major blow to Bush, the high court halts Harris from certifying the vote and says pointedly “it is NOT the intent of this order to stop the counting.”

Doh!

10:30 a.m. Joe Lieberman tells Face the Nation that every last dimple should be counted or millions will say, "We were robbed."

Hey, that's not the rule! You have to punch a freakin' hole, that's what the law says.

10:46 a.m. Palm Beach Circuit Court Judge Jorge Labarga rejects a Democratic petition asking for a county re-vote because its "butterfly" ballot was baffling. Labarga says he "lacks authority" under the U.S. Constitution to call a new election.

10:15 a.m. "I'm not going to manage the minutiae of each ballot being counted," decides Florida Circuit Judge David Tobin. He refuses Republican requests to set "an objective" standard for ballot review and to authorize a garbage-can search for missing chads.

Chads?!

11:30 a.m. Bush goes to court to force inclusion of hundreds of overseas ballots that lacked proper postmark or signature.

Well why not, if we're looking for chads? Wouldn't want to disenfranchise anyone after all.

4:33 p.m. Palm Beach opts to examine "dimpled" ballots.

Further amending election law on the fly.

7 p.m. Bushites drop plans to call for a statewide review of questionable military ballots. Instead they sue for a re-evaluation in four Florida counties.

Ahh! More lawsuits.

7:30 p.m. Two and a half hours past the deadline, Harris officially certifies the count; the tally shows Bush ahead by 537 votes: 2,912,790 to 2,912,253.

Well damn. This won't do.

12:15 p.m. Like so much about the election, the week begins with the unprecedented: The Gore campaign files the first formal contest in the history of a presidential election, seeking to reverse the certified outcome of the Florida vote for George W. Bush. Gore attorneys challenge vote totals in three counties and ask a state judge in Tallahassee to order a hand count of some 13,000 ballots in Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties that showed no votes for president during prior machine recounts. Simultaneously, the Gore legal team files an emergency motion to accelerate the contest proceedings.

11:42 a.m. The week begins inauspiciously for Al Gore: In a unanimous order, the U.S. Supreme Court sets aside the vice president's critical win in the Florida Supreme Court. The state court ruling had extended the deadline for verifying the Florida vote, enabling Gore to narrow Bush's lead by adding hand-recounted ballots to his tally. In an unsigned opinion, the justices in Washington remand the case to their Florida brethren, admonishing them that there is "considerable uncertainty" as to the precise grounds for their ruling.

The Supreme Court, in a show of hypocrisy, berates the Florida court for making up law from the bench.

4:43 p.m. Gore suffers a double judicial whammy. Leon County Circuit Court Judge N. Sanders Sauls rejects all of Gore's arguments in contesting the election results and his request for a count of more than 12,000 ballots in Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties that registered no vote for president in machine recounts. Sauls declares from the bench that there is "no credible statistical evidence and no other competent substantial evidence" to establish a reasonable probability that Gore might win if granted a hand recount of the undervotes.

Gone too far, grasping at straws. Can't quit now...

4:01 p.m. The Florida Supreme Court stuns observers, reversing Judge Sauls in a 4-3 decision. The justices go well beyond ordering recounts of 12,300 undervotes in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties sought by Gore, directing instead that a manual recount of undervotes begin immediately in all counties where a hand count has not already occurred. The court also directs the lower court to add to Gore's tally 168 votes in Miami-Dade and 215 in Palm Beach from earlier hand counts excluded from the certified count. The added votes narrow Bush's statewide lead from 537 votes to just 154. Perhaps 45,000 undervotes statewide will have to be counted.

All that and Bush is still winning!

3:39 p.m. A committee of the Florida House votes 5 to 2 to approve a resolution to name presidential electors for George W. Bush. A half-hour later, a Florida Senate committee approves a similar resolution by a 4-to-3 vote.

9:54 p.m. The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-to-4 ruling split along ideological lines, steps in to end the election and Al Gore's quest for a final recount. It reverses the Florida Supreme Court decision ordering a statewide recount of undervotes, stating, in the per curiam section of its opinion, that differing vote-counting standards from county to county and the lack of a single judicial officer to oversee the recount violated the equal-protection clause of the Constitution..."

Around 1:45 p.m. Based on Al Gore's anticipated concession speech, the Florida Senate votes to recess and scrap its plan to name electors for George Bush.

Ah, it's over.

8:56 p.m. Al Gore calls Bush to concede the presidential race.

A big clusterf**k, but not the Bush coup that we hear about endlessly.

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#1 2004-08-12 10:27:11

Re: With a little help from our friends

#2 2004-08-12 10:36:13

Re: With a little help from our friends

#3 2004-08-12 10:38:03

Re: With a little help from our friends

#4 2004-08-12 10:43:45

Re: With a little help from our friends

#5 2004-08-12 11:09:33

Re: With a little help from our friends

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