From todays Wall Street Journal editorial section.
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A Gore Coup d'Etat?
The cliff-hanging Florida results won't be final until the absentee-ballot deadline of November 17, but yesterday Gore campaign head William Daley told a news conference that no amount of recounting would do. Only one outcome would be acceptable: "If the will of the people is to prevail, Al Gore should be awarded a victory in Florida and be our next President." And if the election results don't do that, the Gore campaign will try to find a judge to do it instead. In your ordinary banana republic, this would be recognized as a Gore coup d'etat.
When the day began yesterday, we set to work writing an editorial for these columns that in fact was going to express some sympathy for what appears to have happened to some confused voters in Palm Beach County, and suggesting that we really do need a better-run electoral process not only in Florida but across the land. This is still a valid point, but was overwhelmed when Bill Daley and other Gore campaign officials announced that the Democrats intended to go to the mattress to cling to political power.
Mr. Daley said the Vice President wasn't going to settle for the recount result, suggesting of course they knew it would go against them and so some pretext needed to be found fast to prevent the election from ending. "Let the legal system run its course," Mr. Daley said. "We will be working with voters from Florida in support of legal actions to demand some redress." He added, "We believe with so much at stake, steps should be taken to make sure that the people's choice becomes our President."
Shortly after this, guess what happened? The Democratic Palm Beach plaintiffs seeking "redress" suddenly withdrew their suit from federal court. Why? Because they wanted to shop around for a favorable judge. They had happened to draw federal district Judge Kenneth Ryskamp, whose nomination to the appeals court years back had been defeated in the Senate by Joe Biden. The Palm Beach plaintiffs then announced they would file in state court.
Obviously they are judge-shopping, reducing this noble enterprise on behalf of the people's choice to the level of backwater justice. Not only Judge Ryskamp, but any reasonably neutral judge would likely dismiss the case outright.
At no point has the Gore campaign suggested that voter fraud has cost them votes. Were that the case, we would be in wholehearted support of their complaint. Voter fraud is one of this country's most corrosive, unaddressed problems. Instead, Warren Christopher, a former Secretary of State, yesterday cited "serious and substantial irregularities." Their argument is that the irregularities deprived citizens of Constitutional rights, so undo the whole election.
Yes, voting irregularities do significant damage to elections in America. No serious person involved in politics would doubt that incompetent, flawed or antique voting procedures all over this country disenfranchise some voters in every national election -- for the House, the Senate and the Presidency.
None of these concerns, however, is sufficient cause for allowing competing squads of political lawyers to force the people of this country into an unprecedented political crisis, which is precisely what the Gore campaign has shown itself willing to do.
By turning over the Presidential election to the lawyers, the Democrats guarantee that the Republicans would respond in kind, seeking similar irregularities, as are commonly found in South Florida, or anywhere else people voted in the U.S. last Tuesday. The constant harping on the poor souls confused by the Palm Beach butterfly ballot makes for good TV visuals and stirring speeches about the "denial of justice." But no one should pretend this is going to fly through the courts without a substantial counteroffensive by the GOP's own lawyers.
And in any event, there is the prospect of recounts elsewhere. In Wisconsin and Iowa, where Mr. Gore's margin of victory was several thousand votes, automatic triggers may set off recounts. Moreover, the national vote isn't over. Votes are still being completed in many states, with a million absentee votes from California alone. It is not beyond imagining that when this process is done, the current result will be different, or even reversed.
Poor Florida. It is being put under a national microscope to determine the credibility of its voting system. No surprise, what we're seeing is that the results aren't always particularly edifying. There is no basis in law, however, to believe that demanding that a vote be restaged because of "irregularities" in Florida's election system, or any other state's for that matter, is going to survive in court. Were that true, there'd have been hundreds of restaged votes in this country.
Mr. Gore, Mr. Daley and all the Democratic lawyers know this. Their case about irregularities and confusion is merely a pretext for finding some friendly jurist who will overrule the voters in an excruciatingly close contest. This is a destructive course of action for the Republic and the Constitution. Also, by the way, for a Democratic Party already tainted by eight years of its own irregularities, that is to say, by a habit of trashing the rule of law in the pursuit of political advantage.
[This message has been edited by Mr. Pub (edited November 10, 2000).]
_____________________________________________
A Gore Coup d'Etat?
The cliff-hanging Florida results won't be final until the absentee-ballot deadline of November 17, but yesterday Gore campaign head William Daley told a news conference that no amount of recounting would do. Only one outcome would be acceptable: "If the will of the people is to prevail, Al Gore should be awarded a victory in Florida and be our next President." And if the election results don't do that, the Gore campaign will try to find a judge to do it instead. In your ordinary banana republic, this would be recognized as a Gore coup d'etat.
When the day began yesterday, we set to work writing an editorial for these columns that in fact was going to express some sympathy for what appears to have happened to some confused voters in Palm Beach County, and suggesting that we really do need a better-run electoral process not only in Florida but across the land. This is still a valid point, but was overwhelmed when Bill Daley and other Gore campaign officials announced that the Democrats intended to go to the mattress to cling to political power.
Mr. Daley said the Vice President wasn't going to settle for the recount result, suggesting of course they knew it would go against them and so some pretext needed to be found fast to prevent the election from ending. "Let the legal system run its course," Mr. Daley said. "We will be working with voters from Florida in support of legal actions to demand some redress." He added, "We believe with so much at stake, steps should be taken to make sure that the people's choice becomes our President."
Shortly after this, guess what happened? The Democratic Palm Beach plaintiffs seeking "redress" suddenly withdrew their suit from federal court. Why? Because they wanted to shop around for a favorable judge. They had happened to draw federal district Judge Kenneth Ryskamp, whose nomination to the appeals court years back had been defeated in the Senate by Joe Biden. The Palm Beach plaintiffs then announced they would file in state court.
Obviously they are judge-shopping, reducing this noble enterprise on behalf of the people's choice to the level of backwater justice. Not only Judge Ryskamp, but any reasonably neutral judge would likely dismiss the case outright.
At no point has the Gore campaign suggested that voter fraud has cost them votes. Were that the case, we would be in wholehearted support of their complaint. Voter fraud is one of this country's most corrosive, unaddressed problems. Instead, Warren Christopher, a former Secretary of State, yesterday cited "serious and substantial irregularities." Their argument is that the irregularities deprived citizens of Constitutional rights, so undo the whole election.
Yes, voting irregularities do significant damage to elections in America. No serious person involved in politics would doubt that incompetent, flawed or antique voting procedures all over this country disenfranchise some voters in every national election -- for the House, the Senate and the Presidency.
None of these concerns, however, is sufficient cause for allowing competing squads of political lawyers to force the people of this country into an unprecedented political crisis, which is precisely what the Gore campaign has shown itself willing to do.
By turning over the Presidential election to the lawyers, the Democrats guarantee that the Republicans would respond in kind, seeking similar irregularities, as are commonly found in South Florida, or anywhere else people voted in the U.S. last Tuesday. The constant harping on the poor souls confused by the Palm Beach butterfly ballot makes for good TV visuals and stirring speeches about the "denial of justice." But no one should pretend this is going to fly through the courts without a substantial counteroffensive by the GOP's own lawyers.
And in any event, there is the prospect of recounts elsewhere. In Wisconsin and Iowa, where Mr. Gore's margin of victory was several thousand votes, automatic triggers may set off recounts. Moreover, the national vote isn't over. Votes are still being completed in many states, with a million absentee votes from California alone. It is not beyond imagining that when this process is done, the current result will be different, or even reversed.
Poor Florida. It is being put under a national microscope to determine the credibility of its voting system. No surprise, what we're seeing is that the results aren't always particularly edifying. There is no basis in law, however, to believe that demanding that a vote be restaged because of "irregularities" in Florida's election system, or any other state's for that matter, is going to survive in court. Were that true, there'd have been hundreds of restaged votes in this country.
Mr. Gore, Mr. Daley and all the Democratic lawyers know this. Their case about irregularities and confusion is merely a pretext for finding some friendly jurist who will overrule the voters in an excruciatingly close contest. This is a destructive course of action for the Republic and the Constitution. Also, by the way, for a Democratic Party already tainted by eight years of its own irregularities, that is to say, by a habit of trashing the rule of law in the pursuit of political advantage.
[This message has been edited by Mr. Pub (edited November 10, 2000).]
