-Caveat Lector-
U.S. Supreme Court Takes Custody Of Contested Ballots From
Florida
By ANNE MARIE CHAKER and JESS BRAVIN
Staff Reporters
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
TALLAHASSEE, Fla.--The U.S. Supreme Court has ordered that more
than 12,000 Florida ballots contested by Al Gore be sent to
Washington along with other legal papers in the case of Bush vs.
Gore.
At 5 p.m. Saturday, hours after a bitterly divided high court
commanded a halt to the vote recounts ordered the day before by
the Florida Supreme Court, officials in Tallahassee prepared to
send the ballots to Washington, said John Stott, chief deputy
clerk for the Leon County courts.
The ballots include some 9,000 "undervotes" -- ballots that
failed to register a presidential choice on machine readers --
from Miami-Dade County, plus about 3,300 challenged ballots from
Palm Beach County, Mr. Stott said. The Florida high court had
ordered a count of the Miami-Dade undervotes, but not of the Palm
Beach ballots, which the state justices ruled already had been
properly hand-examined by that county's canvassing board.
Leon County Elections Supervisor Ion Sancho, who had assisted
court staff in counting the Miami-Dade undervotes, said that
4,000 of the ballots had been examined before the U.S. Supreme
Court order, and that between 3% and 6% of them were discovered
to have actually indicated a choice for president. Mr. Sancho
said that due to a Leon County Circuit Court order, he could not
reveal how many of those votes went to Texas Gov. George W.
Bush or Vice President Al Gore.
Mr. Stott said the ballots had been transferred from the Leon
County court offices to the Florida Supreme Court clerk's
custody, for shipping to Washington. Mr. Stott said he did not
know when the ballots would begin their journey.
Bush lawyer Phil Beck said that "it's routine for [the Supreme
Court] to get all the exhibits and it so happens that in this
case the ballots from these cases are exhibits." For that reason,
"the justices may not even know that they've got the ballots
coming."
Gore lawyer Laurence Tribe, however, saw the request for the
ballots as hardly typical. He said he had heard a Florida
Supreme Court clerk joking with a counterpart at the U.S.
Supreme Court about the possibility of taking the ballots off of
Florida's weary hands. But he was surprised to learn that such
an order actually had been issued.
Mr. Tribe, a professor at Harvard Law School, said that while he
"wouldn't ordinarily speculate" about the future of the ballots
should the U.S. high court reverse the Florida court, "the
opinion of Justice [Antonin] Scalia invites it."
Five justices, including Justice Scalia, ordered the counts
stopped, at least until the high court hears arguments on Monday.
In a separate opinion only he signed, Justice Scalia said that
counting the votes threatens "irreparable harm to [Mr. Bush],
and the country, by casting a cloud upon what he claims to be the
legitimacy of his election."
Given that, Mr. Tribe said, "you wouldn't have to call it too
elaborate a conspiracy theory if the court were to conclude that
no legitimate purpose can be served by counting them" -- ever.
That would prevent any future embarrassment to a possible Bush
presidency should a later count show that Mr. Gore got more
votes.
"It does seem to be the view of five members of the court that
there's something illegitimate about counting them," Mr. Tribe
said, and those justices may wish to head off "the specter of
having them counted after the inauguration by some doctoral
candidate from Michigan State armed with a Freedom of Information
request."
Write to Anne Marie Chaker at [EMAIL PROTECTED] and Jess
Bravin at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
=================================================================
Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF:
*Michael Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
=================================================================
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A>
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
<A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html">Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
<A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
