In a message dated 2/19/2003 1:05:15 AM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>Fred, I didn't know a lot of this - thanks for sending it. I didn't >know that former felons weren't allowed to vote in some states (seems >very undemocratic), nor about the 80 per cent match in the search for >suspected former felons. I also didn't know the woman in charge of >the election in Florida was co-chair of Bush's campaign team. Seem a >clear conflict of interest regardless of any other suspicions. What >was the reasoning of the Supreme Court when they upheld the results? >(if you have time to explain) > >Sarah > >At 11:42 PM -0500 02/18/2003, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >>No, no, no ... Bush was not elected ... not by popular vote, not by >>electoral college, and it's got nothing to do with chads, hanging, >>pregnant, or otherwise. Sarah, here are two links to help explain. http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-949.ZPC.html http://www.iknowwhatyoudidlastelection.com/bush-supreme-court.htm The first is the actual Supreme Court decision. I can't claim to understand it all in their native tongue. The second explains it for the layman. It's admittedly partisan, but that doesn't mean that it isn't true. The point you make about the US being a representative democracy, not a direct one, is correct. And the validity of the electoral college has been debated since its inception. But here's the problem: Gore won the popular vote not only in the US overall (by several hundred thousand votes -- three times Kennedy's margin over Nixon), but in Florida, too, which, if properly recognized, would have given him the electoral vote as well, and the presidency. The Supreme Court mishegas is all about chads and vote counts, etc., but, as I tried to illustrate earlier, that was all smoke and mirrors anyway. The actual theft of the election was planned and instigated a year before the election, in the state in which Bush's brother was governor, and in which the Secretary of State was his state campaign manager ... they weren't gonna leave anything to chance. And, in my view, the world is much the worse for it. -Fred
