|
|
|
|
The Red and Blue Civil War
One of the greatest journalistic contributions to understanding the 2000 presidential election is the map of the Bush-Gore vote by counties first published in USA Today (USAToday.com/news/vote2000/cbc/map.htm). It shows, among other things, that Bush country (colored in red) is everywhere except urban centers and that Gore country (colored in blue) is largely confined to the coasts. Its "fly over" country for Bush, New York and California for Gore. The Red versus Blue Civil War rages on.
Are the Red and the Blue nations that much different? Consider what happens when you look at the situation as a national tie vote (after the state Supreme Court decision of Friday, Bush led in Florida by .00257 percent out of 6 million votes). Gore’s half, the Blue nation, is 677 counties with 127 million population. Bush’s half, the Red nation, is 2,434 counties with 143 million population. The Blue nation has 19 states with 580,000 square miles. The Red nation has 29 states with 2,427,000 square miles. (Some columnists have suggested looking at succession. The Blue nation has an average murder rate per 100,000 residents of 13.2. The Red nation’s rate is 2.1.)
Because of the Florida Supreme Court’s 4-3 ruling on Friday, the Red and Blue nations now are nearly in open warfare. The Red nation replies on its air power, going to court after court in search of finality. The Blue nation is waging ground war, looking for advantage ballot by ballot, one selected precinct at a time. The Blue nation fights with the passion of citizens whose homes have been invaded, their careers and livelihoods determined by the final result. There hasn’t been a Republican Presidency, Senate and House for many decades. Some Democrats intend to win or, failing that, leave the presidency in such tatters that no one can rule.
As of midnight Friday, the battlefront looks like this:
The Florida Supreme Court, in a 4-3 vote, has directed a state-wide recount of approximately 45,000 ballots which have no machine-readable vote in the presidential column. The count began Saturday morning with no ruling on counting standards. Each county must set its own rules. Three of the four majority Florida justices are all recent Lawton Chiles appointees and are not scheduled for a review by the electorate for many years.
The Bush campaign has asked for injunctive relief from the US Supreme Court, the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta and from Justice Anthony Kennedy individually. A stay of the count would be followed by a hearing. The court would consider whether or not a lack of uniform standards violates equal protection, whether or not changing election rules after election day violates the US Constitution and whether or not the Florida Supreme Court has substituted its judgement for the judgement of the state legislature which has plenary powers in federal elections given it by the US Constitution. A stay was granted by the US Supreme Court at 2:45 pm EST on Saturday. In a 5-4 decision, hearings were set for 11:00 am Monday. The granting of a stay requires five votes and a reasonable judgement that the plaintiff (the Bush Campaign) will prevail. The 11th Circuit issued an order restraining any certification of results in Florida, pending action by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The on-the-ground public relations war will shift dramatically if the count is allowed to continue and news of Gore’s overcoming Bush’s lead is broadcast hourly. It is a paramount goal of the Gore campaign to get their candidate ahead in the vote and then quit counting and return to court. Depending on the order of completion, the news of the vote could actually shift back and forth.
Gore lead attorney David Boies revealed on Saturday morning that any votes not received by 2pm on Sunday might not be counted. Since Miami-Dade county would be completed, Boies indicated that he would ask the state Supreme Court to certify the election based on Miami-Dade alone.
Statisticians who appeared for the Gore side in the "Butterfly Ballot" case reported to Reuters that they estimate that in a state-wide recount Gore’s chances are less than 50-50. Without universal recognition of dimples, Bush would actually add 300 votes to his total, according to the Miami Herald. In an effort to counter such publicity as well as the effect of the federal Supreme Court stay, Gore campaign attorney Ron Klain announced to the media partial results indicating a slight unofficial gain of 58 votes for Gore from 13 county recounts. Such comments from either side were prohibited by Judge Lewis Friday evening. He banned all discussion official and unofficial of partial results until the total state-wide recount is completed. The AP wire service has been issuing "unofficial" vote tallies.
The Seminole and Martin counties cases in which 25,000 absentee ballots are challenged by Gore partisans due to errors on the ballot applications but not the ballots themselves will be appealed to the same state Supreme Court. At the moment, the mostly military ballots are valid and remain counted.
The Friday ruling of US District Judge Lacey Collier may prove critical if the recount continues. Collier ordered the inclusion in all 67 counties of discarded military absentee ballots if they were properly signed and dated, regardless of whether they had a postmark or not. Under his mandate, the Democratic effort to have military ballots rejected will not succeed where the only item missing is a postmark. In a late Saturday ruling, Federal Judge Maurice Paul held that overseas ballots arriving up to ten days after the election were still valid and should be counted. This added another 2,000 valid ballots to the count and further dented the Democrat’s effort to invalidate military and other overseas ballots that they presumed favored Bush.
The Florida state legislature has begun a special session that can act at any time next week. Media pressure on the legislators and the Governor will be intense. Rumors of threatening "expose" profiles of state legislators favorable to Bush by the liberal media abound. The media issue? "Politicians should not decide elections." The facts? Our Founders did not trust appointed judges and mandated that elections be decided by elected representatives directly accountable to their constituents.
A study by John McLaughlin of the Network’s premature call of Florida results points out that statewide, 68 percent of registered votes went to the polls. In the portion of Florida located in the Central Time Zone, the number dropped to 65 percent. The difference, based on prevailing patterns, would be 5,000 additional votes for Bush. A Miami-Herald study also indicates that about 5,000 felons successfully caste illegal ballots state-wide. No one is mentioning the illegal votes cast by immigrants who are not citizens and live in Haitian precincts of Miami. Aliens seeking drivers licenses are given motor voter registrations, often with no proof of citizenship. None of these considerations are included in the Democrat threat to make sure academics "prove" that Gore won later on after Bush’s inauguration if their tally of invalid ballots is impeded. The Miami-Dade disputed ballots have been presented as "evidence" by the Democrats. The U.S. Supreme Court has taken possession of them as part of the Monday hearing. Without them, no academic study could be completed.
Florida state Chief Justice Charles Wells issued a devastating dissent to the court’s 4-3 decision in which he wrote "the margin of error in this election is far greater than the margin of victory, no matter who wins. Further judicial process will not change this self-evident fact and will only result in confusion and disorder."
Democratic operative Bob Beckel continues his effort to find at least three Republican electors to either switch to Gore or abstain from voting on December 18th. The Democrats have already admitted to doing personal profile research on county canvassing commissioners, in order to "get to know them better." The written reference for their tactics and strategy is a recount election guide called "The Primer," by John Young, Chris Sautter and Tim Downs.
At midnight on Friday, the manual recount was to be performed by county personnel under county rules without any uniform standards but supervised by local judges. The count will be overseen by Judge Terry Lewis. He was selected by random computer after Judge Sauls recused himself. Lewis is the other judge, besides Sauls, who has been reversed on appeal by the state Supreme Court and is very familiar with the issues.
Chief Justice Wells cautioned his fellow justices that they did not appreciate the magnitude of their decision. He said " The Court fails to make provision for: (1) the qualifications of those who count; (2) what standards are used in the county; are they the same standards for all ballots statewide or a continuation of the county-by-county constitutionally suspect standards; (3) who is to observe the count; (4) how one objects to the count; (5) who is entitled to object to the count; (6) whether a person may object to a counter; ( 7) the possible lack of personnel to conduct the count; (8) the fatigue of the counters; and (9) the effect of the differing intra-county standards."
The military tactics are simple. The Red nation is relying on airpower and will succeed if the US Supreme Court rules in its favor. The Blue nation relies on ground troops and will win if it succeeds in overwhelming the local counting apparatus with imported observers. As in all wars, the public depends on the press to tell them how the battle goes.
###
George Mason, 1725-92, was known as the Sage of Gunston Hall.
His Virginia declaration of rights, written in 1776, was the model for the first section of the Declaration of
Independence. A friend of Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson, Mason was an original drafter of the Constitution
and the first ten amendments to the Bill of Rights. He refused, however, to sign the final version of the Constitution
because he thought it did too little for individuals and, without the Bill of Rights, gave too much power to the
government.This column honors his memory.
CURRENT NEWS: ALL HEADLINES
Timeshare || Financial || Resorts/Casinos || Misc. Travel ||
NEWS ARCHIVES EMAIL SEARCH
HOME
To report broken links or other problems with
this site please contact:
webmaster@thetimesharebeat.com
©1999-2000 The Timeshare Beat
all rights reserved