Democrats Hire Army of Lawyers for Elections

Neil Blender writes in that the Democrats are hiring tens of thousands of lawyers to contest election results. This is nothing new, except for the apparent magnitude of it, and it gives the idea of tort reform a whole new meaning. The Republican party is relying on state parties to hire the lawyers, if necessary.

Comments

a bit late

[syrinx]

If they had gotten all the lawyers earlier, they might have been able to keep Nader off even *more* ballots!

Re:Big shocker here, huh?

[EnronHaliburton2004]

without substanciating this charge with a single piece of evidence

How often do people substantiate their charges in a 20-second radio snippit?

Especially when it can be substantiated so easily:
I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.

Perhaps misleading?

[lskziq]

The article tells us the democrats "plan to mobilize tens of thousands of lawyers on Election Day." However, the post suggests that their behavior is largely unmatched by the republicans (perhaps I am misinterpreting the poster).

I'm not sure of the implications, but the final paragraph tells us the Bush campaign has $6 million in their legal fund while the Kerry has $4.6 (as of the end of august). I suppose it's unclear whether that's a result of expenditures Kerry has already made or if it indicates the Bush campaign's willingness to engage in similar tactics.

Regardless, I think I agree with the spirit of the poster. This is depressing. Is it better for there to be fierce litigation, proving the affair to be the horse and pony show it is, or for one of these rather lackluster candidates to win a definitive victory?

Do you know your candidates? At least go to http://www.vote-smart.org/ and learn their names.

Re:Please stop with the crap.

[Guuge]

Sigh... how soon we forget.

When an election is very close (and the 2000 election was *extremely* close) you can always ask what would have happened if, say, voters weren't improperly purged from the rolls. There are a million ways in which things didn't turn out as maybe they should have.

So please don't ignore the obvious problems of the 2000 election. Pretending that Bush was the obvious winner shows both ignorace and disrespect for democratic values.

Great.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's tens of thousands of lawyers who are now too preoccupied to mess up other things.

Re:I wonder why....

[krymsin01]

Perhaps the reason that the Dems are getting lawyer'd up is that they feel (as do a lot of Americans) that the Republicans stole the last election? I fail to see how that paints liberals in a bad light.

Re:Big shocker here, huh?

[Elwood P Dowd]

Maybe because it implies that they are somehow going to rig their machines?

They have rigged their machines, and that is also accepted fact. They have rigged them to remove the possibility of a legitimate audit.

That is certainly different from rigging it for a particular candidate, but the fact that they are willing to do this lesser form of fraud makes it seem completely plausible that they could do a greater form of fraud.

While it is certainly not proven that Diebold machines will be used to give an advantage to GW, it is also not irrational to suspect them. Their machines are begging for election fraud, in favor of either candidate.

Republican Party may Schism check this out!

[isotope23]

Republican Bob Barr (of all people) just wrote this article here is the last couple of paragraphs :

Bush's problem is that true conservatives remember their history. They recall that in recent years when the nation enjoyed the fruits of actual conservative fiscal and security policies, a Democrat occupied the White House and Congress was controlled by a Republican majority that actually fought for a substantive conservative agenda.

History's a troublesome thing for presidents. Even though most voters don't take much of a historical perspective into the voting booth with them, true conservatives do. Hmmm. Who's the Libertarian candidate again?

If someone like bob barr endorses Badnarik, this could get REALLY interesting.

Re:I wonder why....

[tsm_sf]

Let's see...

- Republican president
- Republican-controlled House
- Republican-controlled Senate AND
- 5-to-4 Repuglican control of the Supreme Court

And here's How A Bill Becomes A Law

Did we learn NOTHING from Schoolhouse Rock?

Still less than the Republicans.

[dtfinch]

To quote the bottom of the article:
Kerry had about $4.6 million in his legal fund at the end of August, and Bush had about $6 million, commission reports show

Re:Please stop with the "election stolen" crap.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll save you the agony of waiting 20 years. You're wrong about the myth of Black voters being turned away.

In June 2001, following a six-month investigation that included subpoenas of Florida state officials from Governor Jeb Bush on down, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights issued a report that found no evidence of voter intimidation, no evidence of voter harassment, and no evidence of intentional or systematic disenfranchisement of black voters.

Headed by a fiercely partisan Democrat, Mary Frances Berry, the Commission was very critical of Florida election officials (many of whom were Democrats). For example, "Potential voters confronted inexperienced poll workers, antiquated machinery, inaccessible polling locations, and other barriers to being able to exercise their right to vote." But the report found no basis for the contention that officials conspired to disenfranchise voters. "Moreover," it said, "even if it was foreseeable that certain actions by officials led to voter disenfranchisement, this alone does not mean that intentional discrimination occurred," let alone racial discrimination.

The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division conducted a separate investigation of these charges and also came up empty. In a May 2002 letter to Democratic Senator Pat Leahy of Vermont, who at the time headed the Judiciary Committee, Assistant Attorney General Ralph Boyd wrote, "The Civil Rights Division found no credible evidence in our investigations that Floridians were intentionally denied their right to vote during the November 2000 election."

Peter Kirsanow, a Republican member of the Civil Rights Commission, told us in an interview that "the press has tried to spin what happened in Florida into something sinister. But there's a disconnect between what was actually found [in these various investigations] and how it's been portrayed."

7 of 9 US Supreme Court justices found there to be constitutional problems with the recount procedures ordered by the Supreme Court in Florida. 5 of 9 didn't think that yet another constitutionally adequate recount could be completed in the time available under Florida law. The US Supreme Court acting to uphold the law ment that the Florida Legislature didn't need to directly appoint the Electors to the Electoral College, which they were preparing to do just in case (and completely within their right) due to the illegitimate actions of the Florida Supreme Court. The "head judge" as you refer to the Chieft Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, was only one voice of 9.

Bush more corrupt than Nixon? That is some kind of joke, right?

You are likely to be quite mistaken about history's evaluation of Iraq vs Vietnam. When the US left Vietnam, there was a ceasefire treaty in place and the North Vietnamese were supposed to withdraw. The US abandoned South Vietnam when the Senate blocked President Ford from assisting South Vietnam defend itself against North Vietnam naked aggression in the form of a conventional invasion. Iraq, on the other hand, may get the assistance it needs to transition to a reasonably free democracy if the United States stands by it. That is more likely if President Bush is reelected. John Kerry, on the other hand, was all for abandoning the South Vietnamese, and has at times indicated he would bail from Iraq. In fact, John Kerry's casual acceptance of thousands of people being executed by the North is quite chilling to read. It is appalling to realize how wrong he was in the numbers. Sadly he seems to not have learned little, if anything, in the years since.

You are right about history being the ultimate judge. It is likely that history will be kinder to President Bush than to President Clinton.

Not rocket science

[jbarr]

From the article:

So they have decided this year to fight legal skirmishes across the country, hoping to change state election rules that make it more difficult for voters to cast ballots. In New Mexico, for instance, the Democrats argued against a rule that would have required new voters to show IDs at the polls, which they said would disproportionately affect minority voters. The state Supreme Court ruled last week in favor of the Democrats.

This is a great example of the contradiction and hypocracy where people want each vote to be counted, verified, and validated, but they are unwilling to put into place a mechanism that properly validates the voter. There are plenty of ways to legally identify yourself, and if you don't take the time to obtain and provide the proper identification, you deserve the consequenses for your lack of responsibility. This is not rocket science.

Much of the Democratic litigation centers on how various states are interpreting a new provision in the federal voting law that gives voters who believe they are registered -- but whose names don't appear on voter rolls -- the right to cast so-called provisional ballots.

WTF. You have had four years since the last election to register. You have had four years of multiple state and local elections and primaries to go and verify that you are properly registered. If you decide not to be involved in the process, then don't expect the process to involve you.

The real problem is gradual the removal of personal responsibility from the process through poltically correct and partisan legislation that is killing a process that should not be rocket science.