Exerpts from court decision in California recall |
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(09-15) 19:09 PDT (AP) -- Here are excerpts from Monday's decision by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which blocked California's Oct. 7 recall vote:
* "The origins of the present controversy date to the aftermath of the 2000 presidential election, when national attention was drawn to the eccentricities of voting by pre-scored punch cards."
* "In this case, Plaintiffs allege that the fundamental right to have votes counted in the special recall election is infringed because the pre-scored punchcard voting systems used in some California counties are intractably afflicted with technologic dyscalculia ... The effect is not trivial."
* "Using error-prone voting equipment in some counties, but not in others will result in votes being counted differently among the counties."
* "It is virtually undisputed that ... punch-card voting systems are significantly more prone to errors that result in a voter's ballot not being counted than the other voting systems used in California."
* "In Bush (v. Gore), the Supreme Court held that using different standards for counting votes in different counties across Florida violated the Equal Protection Clause."
* "The district court assumed that the Plaintiffs would suffer irreparable injury, but concluded that the Plaintiffs were not likely to prevail on the merits. It also concluded that the balance of hardships and consideration of the public interest weighed heavily in favor of allowing the special election to proceed ... We respectfully disagree and conclude that the district court erred in its legal analysis."
* "The inherent defects in the system are such that approximately 40,000 voters who travel to the polls and cast their ballot will not have their vote counted at all."
* "In sum, in assessing the public interest, the balance falls heavily in favor of postponing the election for a few months."
* "The choice between holding a hurried, constitutionally infirm election and one held a short time later that assures voters that the 'rudimentary requirements of equal treatment and fundamental fairness are satisfied' is clear."
* "These issues are better resolved prophylactically than by bitter, postelection litigation over the legitimacy of the election, particularly where the margin of voting machine error may well exceed the margin of victory." |
Insomniacs can download the sixty plus page opinion here. ;-)