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Monday, September 15th, 2003The California recall has been blocked by a federal appeals court according to MSNBC.
Federal appeals court rules historic vote cannot proceed as scheduled because some votes would be cast using outmoded punch-card ballot machines.
Gallagher is SOL.
UPDATE: Looks like the decision is not final, but is merely a postponement, possibly until the regularly scheduled primary on March 2, 2004.
The punch card system wasn’t outmoded last year when California voted this turd into office. What’s changed?
You know, Im an agnostic and not religous at all but, AMEN!
The pain, the pain. Let’s just get it over with already… or call the whole thing off.
As much as this recall has become a complete joke, how on Earth can courts continue to alter law like this? The Ninth Circuit is not the only one - just the most flagrant.
I’ve always believed, apparently incorrectly, that the duty of the judicial branch is to interpret law. Exactly when did they get the OK to re-write law too?
But you can’t cancel the circus….awwww….
It seems somewhat ironic to me that the 9th Circuit is citing “Equal Protection”, which you might remember from such legal arguments as “The Florida Recount”.
There are a number of ways that one could examine this.
The first would be that SCOTUS soured the definition of equal protection in the Florida case by opening it up to all sorts of bizarre interpretations.
A second way to look at this will emerge over the next couple of days as those who endlessly criticized the actions in Florida, and even today question Bush’s legitimacy, start to support the 9th Circuit’s ruling… and vice versa.
I think this ruling is good. The Florida recount debate is now dead.
Good call, Kieffer. Partisans, get ready to show your assess…
…uh, I mean, “asses”…
Good news. Californians should be made to live with their mistakes, good call on letting Davis stay. With any luck he will continue to destroy Californiaâs economy with his asinine economic policies. Their losses will be a great example to the rest of the U.S. Here is what happens when the state decides to subsidize, socialize, regulate and over tax the citizenry. This is justice (they are getting exactly what they deserve). Not that Arnold would have done any differently.
I think this ruling is good. The Florida recount debate is now dead.
And you would be wrong. Because Gore partisans have never denied that there were equal protection problems in Florida. That is a lie told about them by the Bush partisans.
What the Gore partisans said was the the equal protection problems that SCOTUS ignored : unequal voting technologies - completely swamped out the significance of the problems that SCOTUS dwelt on non-specific rules for hand couting marginal ballots.
Unequal voting technologies had a far larger effect on the outcome than non-specific counting rules. But SCOTUS latched on to the rules issue and ignored the technology issue.
But in any case, it would be a lie to say the the Gore partisans disagreed that there were equal protection problems in Florida. The real corrupt part of the SCOTUS verdict was that their remedy was to not count the ballots at all. Which, of course, maximized the equal protection harm that they claimed they were trying to remedy.
It was the 5-4 decision not to count all of the ballots in Florida that was corrupt. Not the 7-2 decision that required a uniform standard for the counting.
A non-corrupt SCOTUS would have found equal protection 7-2 and then set a standard and re-started the hand count. There is no question that if they did that, the count would have been completed in time for the delegates to vote in the senate (nearly 2 weeks later).
I’d sure rather sure punchcards to vote than the evil Diebold machines.