Posted on 09/22/2003 8:16:35 AM PDT by Davis
The most notable feature of the opinion of the 3-Judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in Southwestern Voter Registration v. Shelley, the California recall case, is its length, 65 pages, around 12,000 words. All those words to establish that holding an election using a mix of vote recording systems, particularly, punch cards, offends the US Constitution's guaranty of equal protection.
The Court uses a great many of those words detailing the difficulties of using punch card ballots. Since it's clear enough that there is nothing inherently wrong with punch cards–-if they were uniformly used throughout the state, there'd be no question of constitutionality–-the legal basis for the Court's opinion must lie elsewhere. Aha! It's the Court's overwhelming concern for rights of "minorities."
No need to go into the question of which minorities or even how many minorities are needed to punch out holes in a voting card. If districts rich in "minorities" have in the past shown a greater proportion of spoiled punch card ballots than other districts, that is evidence enough for the Court. The equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment bars holding such an election.
There, I've done it, boiled down 65 pages into a couple of paragraphs. Have I left anything out?
Yes, I have left out the supreme chutzpah of the decision. The Court surely knows that a lot of people don't read very well or carefully, that there are lots of spoiled ballots in every election, that the recall election faces all voters with difficulties, that even the most sophisticated touch-screen systems will baffle some voters, and that after all, nothing human is perfect. The Constitution doesn't require perfection.
In advance, one can't tell exactly how close the votes will be, but there is certainly a great likelihood that any previously encountered statistical differences in spoiled ballots will not have any effect whatever on the outcomes of this election. The Court has thus chosen to overlook inconvenient huge facts while straining to magnify minuscule statistical inferences.
The Court has chosen to take notice of a statistical inference about "minority" voters, but it totally fails to note that the Governor whose recall is being sought is a Democrat who is very likely to lose. It pretends to lofty ideals while pursuing a base result, the celebration of its own power.
A hearing en banc of the case before an 11 judge panel of the 9th Circuit will take place today in San Francisco. Let's hope that sense and good judicial manners prevail.
As a serious student of the law (have law degree from acredited school), I used to give the benefit of the doubt to judges, that they would apply the law in an intellectually honest way. The Supreme Court of Florida disabused me of that naivete. (Some) judges are nothing more than political hacks, if called to serve as such.
From my experience with balloting, and reading the literature on that, I'm ready to wager right here and now that at least 50,000 ballots -- more than the number that the three-judge panel got their knickers in a twist over -- will make the following error: They will vote for one candidate per page or nearly every page.
All those ballots will be counted on the recall, but will be "spoiled ballots" for the replacement election. It will be such an obvious mistake that observers afterwards will say "How did they make that dumb move?" There will be calls for "better ballots" etc. There will be litigation.
H.L. Mencken once wrote, "No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the average American." I add this, "No one ever missed a bet, underestimating the reading ability of the average American voter."
I now expect that what the press will headline as "THE UNDERVOTE" will be at least 8%. That's how much smaller the counted vote for replacement will be than the vote on the recall. But that will include tens of thousands who do not vote at all on the replacement. (The right NOT TO VOTE is also constitutionally protected.) And it will include all the dummies who ignore the plain, repeated instruction to "Vote for one candidate," and vote for two or more anyway.
Mark my words on this.
Congressman Billybob
Frankly, I think we are in for a disaster with electronic ballots. They will boggle the poll workers and "someday", the system will be hacked and we'll never know it.
The reliability of the punched cards was a by-product of the attempted obfuscation...
The important part is the ballot about the recall itself. Does No mean No Davis? or No Recall? How does that particular question read? Does anyone know? I think Clinton kept stressing NO!!
Digital-only ballots will facilitate the diminution of citizen participation in government. The illusion of free election can be presented using digital ballots and a receptive media. A receptive media is easy to create. Give the reporters "exalted" status, and they will expend their own effort to preserve it. Elitist's crave control of US population. Whatever it takes.
Within each initial letter group, the names are in alphabetical order. This "feature" is intended to be more fair by eliminating the possibility that ignorant people will just vote for the first name on the list. Such behavior might cause us to have a majority of elected officials whose last names begin with the letter "A".
Different districts have different ballots due to local issues anyway, so there is little additional burden to make the ballot even more fair by eliminating the chance that anyone's name appears first on all ballots.
The ballot questions appear on the ballot for each issue to explain how to vote on that issue. For example:
Shall Gray Davis be recalled (removed) from the office of Governor?
See? That is not really so difficult.
Both of the issues you raise are covered in the sample ballot mailed out to every registered voter. Anyone who actually lives at the address used on their registration should have no trouble with these issues. Even if a person can't read English, there are often ballots in other languages.
Now, for the next question. If you vote No, it appears to be a vote for Davis. Do you get to continue and vote for someone new?? That's kinda like voting twice.
Yes. If your vote to retain Davis is unsuccessful, you still have the right to participate in selecting his successor.
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