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Circuit Court Okays Vote Swapping Site
scubacuda writes "C|net reports that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals court has ruled in favor of Alan Porter's website, Voteexchange2000.com, a site enabling Gore and Nader voters to swap their Gore votes in states where Bush was likely to win anyway for the Green party candidate Nader. In response to the court's decision, Mark Rosenbaum, legal director of the ACLU's Southern California office, said, "We're pleased that the court's ruling permits us to challenge the legality of the secretary of state's partisan attempt to silence political speech on the Internet during the 2000 election." (For a look at some of the legal issues behind "vote swapping," visit Gigalaw)"
"No, Gore won. In popular, and in the final Florida vote count across the state. Bush STOLE the presidency, fair & square."
Gore won California, but he did not win the nation. The nationwide popular vote NEVER has mattered. Bush also won Florida... many times. He win recount after recount, even with Gore throwing out absentee ballots of the military.
Bush stole nothing. All he did was win enough states to get enough electoral votes. That is not theft. It is, in fact, the same process by which Clinton won twice.
If Gore had won, he'd be in the white house. But he lost the electoral college, same way Bush I did against Clinton.... same way Ford did against Carter.....
Saying Gore Won is like saying Dukakis won. Might work in a Harry Turtledove novel, but it is not real history.
The electoral college is an ingenious solution to a large problem of voter apathy in the country. Only a sad, small percentage of people actually vote in this country. That doesn't sound very fair does it? This delegates the burden of the process of getting your states' citizens to the polls directly to the states themselves; it simply allocates a certain percentage of weight against the total national vote (the electoral college). This way, every states' residents are like "representatives" for that state's vote. Unlike other countries, here in the US we like to retain certain powers and stature to the states as individual entities. The only totally fair way to vote by popular vote, is to do something like the census, which we all know is impossible.
This court is one of the most-overturned circuit courts in the US. They are famous with coming up with some of the most crackpot far-leftist decisions. They recently came to fame by banning the Pledge of Allegiance. To quote from CNN:
I really would not hold any decision they make of any value at least until it has had a chance to go through the appeals system.
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
The problem with the rule is not the fact that it exists, but that the state of Florida didn't even do decent diligence in enforcing it. It counties more likely to vote democratic people were denied the right to vote if they shared the same last name as a felon in another state. The organization hired to compile the list seemed to just randomly put down names with out checking even basic things like first, last, and middle names. Or even cross-checking social security numbers. But I guess that's what you get when there is a lot of money to do it and the state hires a group with strong ties to the current state administration.
that ruled the pledge of allegiance unconstitutional. keep that in mind.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Members of the public, on the other hand, are accountable to nobody but themselves. So they can and should have a secret ballot with nobody checking up on them. If that neutralizes vote swapping, that's a good thing. People should vote for what they actually want, not what someone else traded them for.
Perhaps I missed it, but I didn't see a link to the actual opinion. It resides here (pdf).
This is essentially voter fraud. Not because it changes the number of the votes -it doesn't- but because it changes the placement of the votes. A regional election, which is what "the election" really is, no longer accurately represents the wishes of that region. That perverts the entire electoral process, and undermines the entire concept of representative democracy.
Free speech? Perhaps, but free speech does not shield you from the law, it only states that such speech cannot be banned. This is the real issue behind shouting "Fire!" in a theater: it is your right, but if you incite a panic, the fact that you had the right to say it won't shield you from the consequences of your actions. This should have been treated the same way; political speech is fine, but it shouldn't save people from the consequences of defrauding the electoral process.
The 9th Circuit did not "okay the vote swapping site." They did not rule that California was wrong in shutting the site down, and they did not rule that such sites are legal under the US Constitution.
All they did in this ruling was hold that the district court abused its discretion when it dismissed the lawsuit under Railroad Commission v. Pullman, a fairly obscure case allowing federal courts to abstain from hearing a case when issues of state law would moot the federal issues. They held, in essence, that abstaining from hearing a case under Pullman is generally inappropriate when the case involves First Amendment issues, because the federal courts have a strong interest in protecting First Amendment rights.
They said nothing at all about the merits of the case; they only said that because the case is brought under the First Amendment, it should be allowed to go forward in federal court.
Hence the quote (right there on the front page, you don't even have to read the article!), "We're pleased that the court's ruling permits us to challenge the legality of the secretary of state's partisan attempt to silence political speech on the Internet during the 2000 election." (Emphasis added)
So calm down, this case is far from decided yet. And regardless of whatever the Supreme Court's record in overturning the 9th Circuit may be (that's another rant entirely, but suffice it to say that the statistics are somewhat misleading in this case), I'd be very surprised if the Court even heard an appeal from this decision, let alone overturned it. Not only is it a fairly minor procedural issue, unlikely to attract the attention of a Court that decides less than 100 cases a year, but the decision is entirely in accord with all the relevant Supreme Court precedent.