Marjorie Cohn .. Litigating the Election

[G_j]

-Good concise article to pass along..


http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112204A.shtml

Litigating the Election
By Marjorie Cohn
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Monday 22 November 2004

Without much fanfare, a number of lawyers are busy mounting court challenges to the election. Lawsuits have been filed and other actions are being taken in Ohio and Florida, the two key electoral states. Members of Congress have demanded a General Accountability Office investigation of the election. The largest Freedom of Information Act request in the nation's history has been launched, and other efforts are in the works.

Is there substance to these challenges? On Thursday, the University of California's Berkeley Quantitative Methods Research Team released a statistical study - the sole method available to monitor the accuracy of e-voting - reporting irregularities associated with electronic voting machines may have awarded 130,000-260,000 or more excess votes to Bush in Florida. The three counties where the voting anomalies were most prevalent were also the most heavily Democratic: Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade, respectively. The official tally in Florida shows Bush with 380,978 more votes than Kerry.

Recount, Lawsuits, Hearings in Ohio

Green Party candidate David Cobb and Libertarian Party candidate Michael Badnarik have sought a recount of the votes in Ohio. A demand for a recount can only be filed by a presidential candidate who was on the ballot or a certified write-in candidate. Alleged improprieties in Ohio include mis-marked and discarded ballots, problems with electronic voting machines, and the targeted disenfranchisement of African-American voters. Although a recount doesn't typically begin until after the vote has been certified (December 6), Cobb and Badnarik have asked for the recount to proceed forthwith for fear there won't be sufficient time to complete the recount in time for the December 13 date on which the Ohio presidential electors will meet.

..more..

[forgethell]

1. I suppose that you can always hope,

but you know this will end up in the USSC, the same one that was in place in 2000. Besides, I do not think, without independent verifiable evidence of fraud, that statistical analysis would be accepted by any court as valid. I mean, there are 3 kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. Maybe the analysis is absolutely correct, but if Democrats conducted the study, wouldn't the courts take that into consideration as bias?? Now if it came form Republican academics, it might have more weight, but it's still just statistics, not hard evidence.

I seem ot be a minority of one on this site, but I really think that we would be better off putting the election behind us (again), and trying to figure out why the public either does not trust us or rejects our ideas. If it's not close, they can't steal it.

[G_j]

2. I think what is important

at this point is that the situation gets as much exposure as possible. If it did end up in the Supreme Court again, that would still be great regardless of the outcome.

[G_j]

3. kick