Barr Sues Over McCain's, Obama's Presence on Texas Ballot

corbettw writes "Bob Barr, the Libertarian Party's nominee for president, has filed a lawsuit in Texas demanding Senators John McCain and Barack Obama be removed from the ballot after they missed the official filing deadline."

Comments

Hahaha!

[DogDude]

Oh, I used to love being a Libertarian when it was legal to do so in my state! Those guys are great.

But seriously, since when have politicians, especially Republicans bothered to follow laws? I mean, really. Simple election laws are nothing compared to what's happened during this past administration.

It's a publicity stunt.

[Mc_Anthony]

The ONLY reason Barr is attempting this is to keep his name in the press. Dennis "UFO" Kucinich often uses this technique via his impeachment circus. Welcome to US politics.

Is that the only way?

[DavidD_CA]

So am I to believe that the only way this guy can possibly win Texas is if he manages to erase the #1 and #2 candidates from the ballot?

Even if he's right, I don't think I'd vote for him because of this action. If he can't win on his own merit, and has to sue the system because of an unimportant deadline issue, then why does he deserve my vote?

What's he gonna do if elected president? Sue the National Weather Service the next time we have a hurricane disaster? Sue Iraq for unfair oil prices? Sue North Korea if they launch a missile at us? Sue E.T. for blowing up our planet?

Re:Spell check?

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot Barak Osama.

Not necessarily

[Anonymous Coward]

The law is made for the people, by the people. Sort of, anyway.

Federal elections are about choosing between Democrats or Republicans. So long as these two can get ready in time, it's all that matters. Let's keep in mind that we have a legal system here that is based on common law. US law is about reality, not books and schools.

The bottom line is that Libertarians are just not part of the democratic process in the United States. He should just shut up and choose to be Democrat or Republican. Otherwise, it's just not real...

Re:I hope they're removed,

[alecwood]

That might be lost on our American bretheren. I don't think that particular brand of water based sexual lubricant is sold in the USA

LMAO

Re:They'll meet half way, Remove Obama, Leave McCa

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been told by some of the most educated people I met there that half of texas is baptist, half of texas is methodist and the last quarter doesn't actually matter.

Apparently some of the most educated people you know don't know how to do fractions.

Re:I hope they're removed,

[alecwood]

Lots of products made by American companies are sold under different brand names in different markets. I'm surprised they didn't change it for the US market As for my being a pompous douche - everyone has a hobby, that's mine, leave me to it.

Re:I hope they're removed,

[alecwood]

Why thank you kind person, that's the nicest thing anyone's said to me on slashdot for ages

thanks for revisionist bullshit

[unity100]

but if you werent so biased a reader of history, you'd know that what you call as 'emancipation' has been propagated as an idea in the north, took foothold in the north, and THAT was the reason for pressure in the country to emancipate. and that was the reason many people willfully went on to gave their lives away to that end in the war, as well as many conscripted.

OF COURSE lincoln was going to abolish slavery with emancipation act AFTER the war dammit !? get a load of that.

please take your revisionist racist shit, and shove it in some place suitable of yours, away from us.

before you get any goddamn ideas - im a turkish citizen living in turkey, and i know this much about your history, whereas you are brainwashed to stupor with that revisionist shit in your own country. i'd wager that you also believe holocaust didnt exist too.

the country was not founded on libertarianism

[circletimessquare]

the founding fathers would laugh their asses off at that supposition

the founding fathers had some notion of the common good and contributing to it

meanwhile libertarianism guts the concept of the common good and declares selfishness supreme, to the ruin of all

were libertarianism the driving philosophy during the usa's drive for independence, it would have lost the revolution and have remained a british colony. there would be no common cause, only selfish isolated individuals looking after their own. libertarians have a fantasy that everyone would recognize the threat and band together in unison to defend everyone. libertarians have a funny way of thinking that by promoting selfishness as the supreme ideal, that somehow anyone anywhere would somehow sacrifice anything for a greater cause for any reason. utterly moronic

Re:Analysis faulty

[turkeyfish]

While it is true that the constitution does not specifically require members of the electoral college to vote for any particular candidate, the composition of the slate of college electors is in general highly regulated under state law and most states have laws that require them to vote in a manner that reflects the certified election results. There are penalties for failing to do this and there are provisions to annul the vote of anyone who does so in violation of state law.

It should also be pointed out that even if Barr were the only one on the ballot, Texans have not yet actually voted for president, only in presidential primaries, which have no constitutional status or effect. Remember the electoral college slate doesn't get to go to the electoral college UNLESS they actually win the vote, which may be hard to do if they are not on the ballot and no write-in votes are allowed.

However, in keeping with the tradition of the Bush presidency, which largely reflects Texas thinking, it seems hard to imagine that Texas wold actually uphold the law even if in the unlikely event that the Texas Supreme Court currently stacked with right-wing justices were to actually rule that way.

For republicans the law is like the inconvenient truth about global warming and its man made cause, something that can always be ignored for political purposes.

Recount more complicated than that

[zstlaw]

Your right on the official recount Bush won. Even the recount that Kerry requested and was denied had Bush winning.

However any statewide recount would have had Gore winning. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_election_recount

But what I find most interesting in the results was that the "certified" recount that was performed had Bush winning by more than any other recount that could have been performed. Especially when combined with other factors,

1) Bush's brother's influence in the state
2) Pre-election removal of blacks (mostly-democrat) from voting records (96,000 names, 1% of total electorate. Very simular to practice Bush had done in Texas a few years before.)
3) Roadblocks were placed in heavily democratic areas of the state making it hard for democrats to get to polling stations to vote
4) when race was too close to call there was the Volusia error where Gore was given -16022 votes by a diebold machine.
5) manual recount in Miami-Dade County was halted when republicans flown in from other states rioted (pretending to be locals angered by the recount).

If anything I am shocked that after that election fiasco that heads did not roll. This is corruption only short of banana republics. Whether you are Democrat or Republican this type of fraud has no place in a free nation. It makes me disgusted that anyone of ANY political affiliation could do some of these things and still think of them selves as an American.

Re:I hope they're removed,

[tbannist]

I understand the argument and I also understand that the Supreme Court ordered the counting stopped. They then used the reason that there wasn't enough time to finish the counting that they had ordered stopped as an excuse to hand the election to Bush.

Pathetic.