Reply #110: COME ON!!!

[BlackRhino]

The cherished conservative notion - now conventional wisdom - that Florida election law forced Katherine Harris to declare a winner in Florida within a specific number of days of the election. This seems, at first glance, to be a "fact." You hear it repeated over and over again, so why should you doubt it? After all, it says right there in black and white: "Declare the winner eight days after the election!" It's an open and shut case, right?

Of course not. Nothing is ever really that simple. Truth is, there was NOTHING in Florida election law that prevented that so-called "deadline" from being extended. Over the years, there have been numerous instances where states with similar laws extended this so-called "deadline," for a variety of reasons. Where Florida election law is entirely unambiguous, however, is that it allows for hand recounts.

So therein lies the conflict. How to judge the resolution? Look at it this way: Thanks to the multiple filters of corporate information control, journalistic sloth, a level of public apathy that the elites have spent decades cultivating, and the ever-dwindling American attention span, Katherine Harris (with a little help from the most ideologically doctrinaire Supreme Court in nearly a century) was able to use the excuse of having to stick to an arbitrary, meaningless "deadline" to break Florida's election laws by cutting short an ongoing recount process, subvert the heretofore sacrosanct foundational pillars of American democracy, and plant the crown of ultimate power upon the head of an incompetent and unworthy puppet for The Powers That Be.

Conclusion? They think cleaving to an arbitrary, meaningless technicality of a deadline is more important than making sure the candidate who actually received the most votes wins the election. That's really all you need to know about the "conservative" position on the Florida Election 2000 fiasco.