Debunking the 2000 election theft CT

zaphod2016 said:
Not sure if this is appropriate for this thread, but this article was written by RFK Jr. after the 2004 election.
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On the whole, I found his evidence that vaccines cause autism more compelling. ;)

I pointed out several years ago, that his claim that the GOP simply changed 80,000 votes from Kerry to Bush in 12 rural counties was completely ridiculous:

You see, these really are rural counties so the idea of shaking an 80,000 vote swing out of them is contrived. Bush got 382,000 votes in those counties, so we reduce that to 302,000. And we up Kerry's 168,000 to 248,000. So Bush got 54.9% in those twelve counties, as compared to his 67.4% the prior election, a 12.5 percentage point decline in Bush's share of the major party vote in those twelve counties between 2000 and 2004. How does that stack up with the rest of Ohio? Well, actually Bush didn't lose 12.5 percentage points compared to 2000 in any other county. His worst performance was about a 5 percentage point drop.
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Farhad Manjoo, writing in Salon, dismissed the rest of Kennedy's article.

Here's an amusing thought, though: What would the conspiracy theory have looked like from the GOP side had Bush narrowly lost Florida in 2000?

Media complicity: The decision to call Florida for Gore initially would have been cited as the reason Gore won. Remember, the call of Florida came before all the polls in the state were closed; there's a part of the Florida panhandle that's actually located in the Central Time Zone. It's a conservative part of the state, and I'm sure there would have been claims that many people didn't bother to vote, or turned around when they heard the rumor that Gore had already won.

Vote-O-Matic guy would be a household name.

The three other states that narrowly went for Gore would have come under a lot of scrutiny. Gore won Wisconsin, Iowa and New Mexico by a combined margin of about 10,000 votes. The statistically unlikely scenario of Gore winning all four very close states would be cited as evidence that the Democrats had voted early and often as the old gag goes.
 
zaphod2016 said:
Bush v. Gore

Holy smokes, what a clusterf***.

Scalia is right- Gore initiated the first legal proceedings, however, there were also several actions taken by Bush, Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board. This moved quickly, bouncing though several courts and appeals before landing on the Supreme Court's desk.
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Gore didn't initiate the court battles. The Bush campaign filed the first lawsuit by either campaign in the Florida recount, Siegel v. Lepore.

Plaintiffs' Complaint alleged that the manual recounts violate the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantees of due process and equal protection, and deny and burden the First Amendment's protection of votes and political speech.
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I find it hard to believe that counting the votes by a method known to be more accurate is a violation of the First Amendment.
 
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Kestrel said:
Gore didn't initiate the court battles. The Bush campaign filed the first lawsuit by either campaign in the Florida recount, Siegel v. Lepore.



I find it hard to believe that counting the votes by a method known to be more accurate is a violation of the First Amendment.
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The Supreme Court found for Bush on the equal protection argument (14th Amendment). Remember, that Gore's lawyers only wanted recounts in four heavily Democratic counties. It was a colossal blunder.
 
Brainster said:
The Supreme Court found for Bush on the equal protection argument (14th Amendment). Remember, that Gore's lawyers only wanted recounts in four heavily Democratic counties. It was a colossal blunder.
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The Florida election law in effect during the 2000 recount didn't take into account that a recount might be required in a statewide race. Recounts had to be asked for on a county by county basis. If I remember correctly, the possible errors in that county had to be enough to sway the entire race.
(I would check this, but link I had to Florida law as of 2000 no longer works).

Yes, the Supreme Court did invoke the 14 Amendment in Bush v. Gore. However, the ruling found an arbitrary December 12th deadline in election law as more important than a Constitutional guarantee of equal protection.
 
Caustic Logic said:
To clarify Gore started legal moves. Bush didn't need to, had Harris' certification. This then led to the more famous counter-suit Bush V Gore.

also 9-7 above should read 9-0. ;)
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Oops. That should read 7-2. From the wiki: "Seven justices (the five Justice majority plus Breyer and Souter) agreed that there was an Equal Protection Clause violation in using different standards of counting in different counties."
 
zaphod2016 said:
Oops. That should read 7-2. From the wiki: "Seven justices (the five Justice majority plus Breyer and Souter) agreed that there was an Equal Protection Clause violation in using different standards of counting in different counties."
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Oh. The 9-0 was for Bush v. PBC canvassing board, thot that's what you meant. Did they ever rule on the different voter roll purging practices from county-to-county? Some allowing felons, some barring saints, some doing both. That's not equal protection, but I guess they weren't ruling on that.

There's sure a lot of confusion here!

Kestrel, you're on the ball - the thread's yours as well.
The Florida election law in effect during the 2000 recount didn't take into account that a recount might be required in a statewide race. Recounts had to be asked for on a county by county basis. If I remember correctly, the possible errors in that county had to be enough to sway the entire race.
(I would check this, but link I had to Florida law as of 2000 no longer works).
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I don't know primary sources on the law, but I am still reading a bit. Indeed, a statewide recount was never pursued - just four counties is nightmare enough. the counties specified for hand counts were Palm beach (PBC), Miami-Dade, Volusia, and Broward, and represented "nearly one-third of the total ballots statewide."

For the record, I checked for Fund's book but no luck at my local library. I got Palast's book tho, the Bush V Gore book (compiled rulings + essays, ed Kristol and someone, right leaning), the Miami Herald investigation book version, and Wash Post's Deadlock book. The las has some interesting bits on this. How it was decided in PBC, on Nov 11, the canvassing board met to meet the Gore campaign's challenge - a manual recount would be decided if enough errors surface on a sample run of 1% of county ballots, from four precincts selected by the Gore camp.

The three-person panel was SoE LePore (reistered Dem at the moment), Carol Roberts (Dem, county commission), and chaired by Circuit Judge Charles Burton ("an enigma"). If the panel decided the sample was problematic, a county-wide re-count would be required. [p 86-87]

Gore's lead lawyer Kuehne pushed for inclusion of all marks of voter intent - pinpricks, hanging and dimpled chads. Personally I think that's the right way to go for non-partian reasons. But it was also political - "Democrats make more mistakes than Republicans," one expert says. LePore explained this was against standard PBC policy - the neddle had to have passed though the ballot. Dimpled ballots were thus out, ruled under-votes (ie - voter intent was ruled to NOT VOTE FOR PRESIDENT AT ALL).

From there they discussed various acceptable standards - three-corners rule, etc. At first they proceded on the "sunshine rule" - as long as you could chad was separated enough you could see sunlight trough part of it. Fairly liberal, basically a one-corner rule. Bush's leadllawyer Mark Wallace consented until he saw too many Gore votes laid down. "They were finding light and glimmers of hope," he later explained his objection. [88] Kuehne suspected Judge Burton was working with the Bush team. One day he took a long lunch break (actually visiting with K Harris' lawyer Carpenter to discuss the standards) and came back to announce the sunshine rue was no good - at least two corners had to be broken.

Final result - 33 more gore votes, 14 for Bush. Roberts decided this justified a full recount and announced so to Dem cheers and Repub jeers. Carpenter passed on Harris' view - that "only evidence of machine malfunction or a natural disaster" would justify a re-count." LePore, author of the butterfly ballot, retorted "The vote difference ... was not due to machine error." Nonetheless, "Roberts and LePore voted to proceed. Burton voted no." [89]

A passage, p 90
tens of thousands of ballots across Flroida had registered no vote on the counting machines, and they were overwhelmingly concentrated in Democratic precincts. Could anyone truly believe that all those people turned out to vote but then skipped the biggest race on the ballot?
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Probably not. But since more of these active non-voters happen to also bump the Gore spot in a non-voting way, then state law permitted people to pretend they believed that.
 
Kestrel said:
Gore didn't initiate the court battles. The Bush campaign filed the first lawsuit by either campaign in the Florida recount, Siegel v. Lepore.
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Filed Dec. 6, nearly a month after the election? Monday November 13, 10am local was when:
Volusia County sues to extend certification deadline. Lawyers for Palm Beach County, Gore campaign join suit. Bush lawyers join Florida to block extension.
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http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/election/magtimeline.htm
Others for fun:
11/15: Harris asks the Florida Supreme Court to make counties stop hand-counting ballots “pending resolution as to whether any basis exists to modify the certified results” after Tuesday’s deadline. She seeks consolidation of all election lawsuits in Tallahassee.

11/20: 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.
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Also, on re-vote, "Deadlock" p. 77 says in the days after the election "Democratic county commissioners were talking openly about conducting a whole new election."

Also, the county-by-county appeal standard is in Florida law. There's no provision for statewide recounts, only county-level. [77]

I find it hard to believe that counting the votes by a method known to be more accurate is a violation of the First Amendment.
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The 14th ammendment consideration is always that standards for re-counting have to be uniform, and they weren't. No one seems to care if they should be uniformly excellent or evil, just consistent. Point being that would take time to draft and approve new standards and there were various timelines ticking, legal and psycho-political.

The constitution demanded uniformity, or so thought the five judges who wrote the consistent re-count policy, which is "no one recounts." That blurry snapshot, that 537-vote lead, is the POTUS official portrait of winning margin. Snap. Thousand copies in Post Offices nationwide beneath Bush and Cheney. Oh well, it works.

ETA: And the slippery fish here is that even in all this hooplah, if the hand counts still going had NOT been blocked, and kept the same standards, Bush still would have won the state. ... Right?
 
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Kestrel: okay, sorry I missed that. Nov 11 that would make it the first or among the first lawsuits then. I'm not sure when Gore's first challenge was, but no later than Monday the 13th, and that to extend the time for recounts already underway.

Now if Florida was suing anyone before/aside from responding to Gore challenges, it would have to be autonomous county-level actions - automatic re-counts. This is worse than stopping a partisan campaign maneuver, it's Florida intervening against pre-existing Florida law there to protect Democracy. And remember Bush's campaign was running Florida. More or less.

Ben Burch: Ben, Ben, Ben... you pop in here on page 3... (lost for words)
:tstongue:
In context of a very good link however, thanks!
 
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Brainster said:
</snip>Kennedy <snip>
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There you go, hop on the acknowledged derail track... ;)
Hey, welcome back!

Here's an amusing thought, though: What would the conspiracy theory have looked like from the GOP side had Bush narrowly lost Florida in 2000?

<snip>

Vote-O-Matic guy would be a household name.

<snip>

etc.
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That's more than amusing. It's actually a pretty good thought exercise. But I can't dive into it so no bother even wading, but still a worthwhile perspective. All things considered I think a Gore victory emerging from the ugliness of Florida would have been worse, in a lot of ways. The 9/11 nutters looking to stolen-election POTUS Gore and his Globalist cabal... you think Birthers are bad...

Okay that was a little wading but that's all.
 
BenBurch said:
Well, actually, it was stolen. By the Supreme Court. In a ruling unlike any other ruling in the history of that court.

See; http://www.daveross.com/marklevine.html
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This is a damn interesting read, and very entertaining. However, it come across as a tad... biased. I'd love to see one of our resident right-wingers post a response to this.

Even if we assume Bush would have won Florida anyway, this article doesn't help my opinion of the SCOTUS any.
 
BenBurch said:
Well, actually, it was stolen. By the Supreme Court. In a ruling unlike any other ruling in the history of that court.

See; http://www.daveross.com/marklevine.html
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Minadin said:
I also find it funny that the exact same people who were mad about the popular vote in 2000 when Bush won the Electoral but not overall Popular vote, were trying to obtain a victory via the Electoral vote in 2004 when their candidate clearly lost the popular vote.
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Yeah.
 
BenBurch said:
No matter who SHOULD have won, the votes needed to be counted.

It was not a proper thing for the SC to decide.

You can steal an election you would have won like you can frame a guilty man - neither is right.
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Can anyone find me some concrete evidence that Thomas and Scalia had a conflict of interest; that their sons were working for Bush directly? This is the most egregious claim (IMO) of the above link. Its something I don't want to believe.

It also strikes me as extremely fishy that Bush v. Gore applied "only to this one case", whereas most (if not all) SCOTUS rulings have established a more general precedent.

As far as "count every vote", I wish it were that simple, but its not. Gore had no interest in counting every conservative vote, and once Harris was on board, Bush had no interest in counting any votes. And it would seem our entire national voting system is one big clusterf*** that violates equal protection under the 14-Amendment. I agree with you that every lawful vote should be counted, but that's the issue exactly- what was a lawful vote, once the equal-protection clause had been violated? Were ANY votes lawful? The way I read this: technically no.

But more disturbing to me, two elections later, very little in our election system has changed.
 
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BenBurch said:
I can find you that, but so can you, if you google. And Mark Levine (who, BTW, was a Fullbright Scholar and worked as a Nazi-hunter for the DOJ) is not the only lawyer to have made those observations.
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It was my sub-par Google-Fu skills that first led me into the land of conspiracy, so I like a little guidance now and again when dealing with unfamiliar topics. I can find plenty of hits for anything I search for; determining truth is more difficult.

The first hit says it best:

Conflicts of interest in Bush v. Gore: Did some justices vote illegally?

This article cannot accurately be cited for the proposition that any particular justice did or did not violate conflict-of-interest law by voting in Bush v. Gore. A well-equipped law library contains all of the resources needed to determine how the law treats certain facts. But determining what the facts actually are requires more. In the field of history, that "more" is the relentless digging of historians committed to resolving a mystery. In law, it is a forum where witnesses can be heard and cross-examined and evidence can be subpoenaed. Ultimately, the question addressed by this article is not whether any of the justices violated conflict-of-interest law by deciding Bush v. Gore. Instead, the ultimate question is whether it is worth investigating to find out whether the press reports are true.
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When the highest court in the land does not avoid even an appearance of COI that would merit an investigation, the battle is lost already. And go google up some other legal opinions on Bush V Gore. It was an abortion of a SC decision.
 
BenBurch said:
When the highest court in the land does not avoid even an appearance of COI that would merit an investigation, the battle is lost already. And go google up some other legal opinions on Bush V Gore. It was an abortion of a SC decision.
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The more I learn about it, the more it offends me. That said, I would appreciate an opposing view.
 
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