Seminole County is Gore's Hope

G

Gary H

New member
It seems that reopening the count is a long shot, but what about the Republican workers that looked-up and filled in voter ID#'s on thousands of Seminole County absentee ballot applications? This may be against Florida law, but of course, Gore wants the vote to reflect the will of the people. Seriously, do any of you have insight into this legal battle? I would think that a judge would be hesitant to throw out ballots after trying to devine the intent of the voter.

http://www.foxnews.com/election_night/112600/recount_seminole_contest.sml

"GOP 'Nervous' Over
Lawsuit in Seminole County
Sunday, November 26, 2000


SANFORD, Fla. — In a move that could shift 4,700 votes away from George W. Bush, Democrats asked a Seminole County court on Sunday to throw out absentee ballots which they say Republicans illegally tampered with in order for them to be accepted.
Bush received 10,006 absentee votes in Seminole, compared to 5,209 for Al Gore.

Democratic attorney Harry Jacobs filed the lawsuit on Nov.17, saying that all absentee ballots in the county should be thrown out if the disputed absentee votes can't be identified and dismissed. A hearing on his suit is scheduled for Wednesday.

State law allows only voters, members of their immediate family or their legal guardians to request absentee ballots. It does not specifically address the handling of absentee requests.

Florida GOP Vice Chairman Jim Stelling, who has been following the lawsuit, said: "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous."

The suit follows efforts by parties to get absentee ballots into the hands of voters. The GOP mailed tens of thousands of absentee requests to registered Republicans, telling them to sign the form and return it to their local supervisor of elections.

Seminole County elections chief Sandra Goard, a Republican, rejected requests because voters omitted their identification numbers. According to the lawsuit, she then accepted some 4,700 applications after allowing two GOP workers to add the ID numbers.

Goard said the GOP asked whether a staff member could add the IDs and she agreed. Two Republican staffers spent days at the county elections office with a laptop computer, matching ballot requests to names and writing the identification numbers on the requests.

"The Republican Party asked if they could resolve that situation," Goard said. "They had an individual who had a database. We provided a chair — that's all."

What happened in Seminole County appears to be illegal, said Joseph Little, professor of law at the Levin College of Law at the University of Florida. However, he said dismissing 15,000 absentee ballots for a "technical violation" would be overkill.

"I don't think there is any wrongdoing on the part of the people voting," he said.

"Where we have misconduct, wrongdoing sufficient to influence the outcome of an election, then the Florida courts have decided that this is even more important than the individual ballot submitted by an absentee voter," Jacobs said.

— The Associated Press contributed to this report"



[Edited by Gary H on 11-28-2000 at 10:14 PM]
 
If I heard correctly the Gore election thieves are not going to pursue this issue or the legality of the Palm Beach County ballot. They decided to narrow their challenges to the Miami-Dade no hand count decision, Palm Beach Co. hand count standard of not counting non-votes, and Nassau Co. using original count instead of using recount figures because they didn't recount all the ballots.
 
Because of the two universities and the state capital Leon county is full of out of state flaming liberals. They elected a dem who'd never held a job to the legislature over a family man who'd worked all his life. What do you expect from the judges?
 
Gary-
Slow down and reread...the sky is not falling.

There are no ballots in question, it's applications for absentee ballots that the Pubbies helped fill out. These do not require that the voter have no help in filling them out, only that the voter sign the request. In the Democrat case, they preprinted the necessary information on the application.

In both cases, the absentee received his ballot and filed it personally by mail. There's no crisis here....at least no more than Jesse Jackson's claim that voters were "turned away" and "threatened off by police presence". It's an old liberal trick...I call it, "sound byte confusion"....don't fall for it, any more than you would fall for a troll attack here. They have no case, as nothing's been done wrong.
Rich
 
Thanks Rich:
Mis-statement regarding ballots corrected in original post.

Will let this thread die.

[Edited by Gary H on 11-28-2000 at 10:25 PM]
 
Gary-
My apology for the heavy handedness of the reply. It wasn't meant that way and I, for one, appreciate your vigilance. Seminole remains a weak point....we can never get complacent with this crowd.

Your basic point is well taken. My correction is merely an adjustment, not a suggestion that we ignore. Carry on, please.
Rich
 
Just heard this on Fox:

The judge is a Democrat, AND, she has been recently refused a promotion by Jeb Bush...

She is young, which means she doesn't have the respect for precedent that a more experienced judge would have.

I hope Rich is right and she has no real case... The lawyers interviewed seemed to think this is a real issue.

The trial is set for next week.

Ken
 
Rich is Right

I wasn't able to find any real information on the case, so I thought that I would post in the hopes that someone could shed some light.

It does not matter who is right. There is no way to throw out the 5,000 ballots, because they are a part of the 15,000 absentee ballots. The remedy, should the county lose, might be a fine, or jail time. Tossing votes flys in the face of the Florida Supreme Court's view that the voter should be given the benefit of the doubt.

So, Rich's view seems to be a reasonable one. Hopefully, the Supreme Court of The United States will put this insanity to bed.

This election is over. Gore is much like a ghost. Many think that a ghost is a being that doesn't realize that it is dead. BOOooooo.... Maybe Gore should watch The Sixth Sense.
 
Yes, it's the applications that are in question not the votes themselves. The media aren't exactly underscoring the distinction (I shouldn't be surprised), and to be honest I didn't notice the difference myself until it was pointed it out to me. Where the Dems are concerned, lies have a way of taking off as if they were truths, and the media connive in this. Maybe Democrat judges do, too.

Anyway, FWIW, I figure Prince Albert needs to lose some more court cases, hopefully including this one, before he'll commence to wind down. If his lawyers are beaten, he'll be beaten.
 
I posted a reply to this same issue on TownHall.com's board; I'm pasting it here as well.
-----------------------------------------------------------

From a legal perspective:
My understanding about the Seminole County case is that while the activities involved were questionable, it is highly unlikely that throwing out all the votes is the allowable legal remedy.

Although the local Dem who brought the suit is certainly asking for all the votes to be discarded, the buzz from about 90% of the legal commentary I've seen is that such relief is frankly laughable. At most, the involved parties would be fined and verbally lashed in the ruling.

Legal commentators note that the "offense" involved only the absentee applications (instead of the ballots), there is no evidence whatsoever of outright fraud, the questionable activities did not affect the absentee vote tally at all, and the "intent of the voter" theme mandated by the FLSC and trumpeted by Gore precludes tossing out the votes.

The Seminole story is being pushed hard by the media but is seen as small potatoes by most qualified legal commentators.

From a political perspective:
There has been much handwringing among Repubs about the Seminole case judge. They note that she is a liberal black who was turned down by Jeb Bush for a job in the appellate courts. They say this is a great opportunity for her to "stick it to the man".

Look at it this way though: with this background, if she effectively overturns a certified presidential election of the governor's brother, she will be in a world of political hurt. She will be blackballed and pilloried in Fla to an amazing extent. She knows she can forget any hope of further advancement or acceptance among her peers.

When you combine the legal and political pressures that work against throwing out the Seminole absentee votes, it seems highly unlikely that she'll buck all that to "make a statement". Never underestimate a democrat's political self-interest. Many "noble causes" get abandoned in light of it.

---

"You can lead a democrat to knowledge but you can't make them think."
 
The Honorable Circuit Court Judge Nikki Clark has a few cards left to play. I can't call it a fact, but I heard on MSNBC that she (the judge) is bringing in a handwriting expert to try and identify the 4700 or so applications that were modified and have the ballots disqualified individually. Sounds like more subjective/selective vote counting to me.

She's ticked at anything Bush and she aint gonna quit...

There also seem to be other application lawsuits being filed around the state. Martin County's canvassing board allowed the Repubs to do the same thing and it, too, is being challenged in court...

"Negative waves Moriarty. Always with the negative waves!" - Oddball - Kelly's Heroes
 
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