so was bush v. gore

 

Not exactly. The Supreme Court found that using different methods to recount the ballots violated the equal protection clause. They could have ordered a recount using a single standard, but instead they stopped the recounts altogether.

 

who was trying to classify supreme court judges? the fact that there were a lot of people who thought a supreme court decision was a bad idea means absolutely nothing. opinions are opinions. that's what the analogy was intended to convey.

incidentally, dwight. d. eisenhower, who appointed earl warren, called him one of his administration's big mistakes. not that it means anything or that i agree with him. i just think it's interesting.

 

From this point onward I would be arguing the Dershowitz point of view and you would be arguing the Antonin Scalia point of view. This is an issue of constitutional interpretation pertaining to the power of the Court and states rights.

I'm not a lawyer so all I have here is my opinion, which is that the Court should not have stopped a recount of ballots in an election that would have been decided by the final vote count. The Court, not the votes, decided the election, and that is simply wrong.

 

could have, would have, should have... it doesn't matter. your original argument was that the supreme court was unconstitutional in their ruling. yet they ruled based on the equal protection clause of the 14th ammendment. saying that "could have" ordered a recount doesn't mean their ruling was unconstitutional, illegal, etc.

their decision in halting the recount was because they saw no way possible for the complete and total recount to be done constitutionally, which would include seting up a constitutionally equal system, starting over from scratch, and counting ALL the ballots cast - not just some of them as they had done. all of this by december 12, 2000. the florida supreme court offered no recounting procedure that would follow constitutional standards. the ruling by the florida state supreme court to initiate a hand-recount was given on december 8th. whether four days would have been enough was never part of my argument, and it's nothing more than conjecture at this point. because they thought that there was no possible way to complete the recount by dec 12, how does that make their ruling illegal? certainly there's nothing about THAT in the constitution.

 

it is your opinion that it is wrong, but this case is a perfect example of why we have the supreme court and the other two branches of the government. there are other provisions that could have forced the election to be decided by the legislative branch as well. would that have been any less "wrong" by your standards? our laws, constitution, and federal government are setup in a way to provide for these kinds of circumstances. in this case, you happen to disagree with the outcome. that's too bad. if they had ruled the other way and gore had one, i might be pretty unhappy. personal opinions do not make supreme court decisions illegal or unconstitutional

 

The part about that situation that frustrates me is that the court decided that the ballots were being counted in such a way as to violate the 14th amendment, and in the same decision they abridged the right of every person to have their voted counted. Its contradictory. I can't possibly think that they Scalia, Thomas, Rehnquist, et al, didn't notice the contradiction.

 

i don't think they abridged anyone's right to have their vote counted. the "recount" that was certified by the florida supreme court allowed partial counts to be counted as complete recounts.they were ruling that if they can't provide an accurate recount of EVERY vote, then you can't continue with your "recount". this is only fair. perhaps it is true that they needed a recount. but with the excerpts i posted earlier, the recount procedure florida had implemented was clearly marred with flaws. like you said, in an issue of accuracy in elections, why would you not want the most accurate results possible? because they found it highly unlikely that a total recount could be accomplished in four days time, they decided to say that no recount is better than a partial recount. which i happen to agree with

 

The right to vote and the right to have your vote counted are inextricable. They are one and the same. Preventing a count abridges that right, and in this case, may have altered the results of the Presidential election and thus the course of history. Just because you liked the outcome doesn't make it okay.

You would feel differently if you lived in Miami and voted for Gore.

 

it was the recount that was stopped. the inital votes had already been counted. there is not enough evidence to prove that anyone was denied their right to have their vote counted, and they did not ignore an entire county in the election results. whether or not the initial count was 100% accurate, we will never know. it can be said with certainty, however, that florida's alleged recount was filled with problems, and there's no way it could have been accurate. testimony during the bush v. gore illustrates this plainly. florida's recount, DID in fact consist of partial recounts of at least one county. certifying these results as valid would mean that rights were abridged. thus the results of the recount were already scewed. if you insist that the initial vote count constituted an abridgment of rights, you must admit that the recount would be just as bad, if not worse. i don't see how anyone would want that. at least in the initial count, they made an effort to count everyone's vote, and not leave some counties partially counted.

just because you didn't like the outcome doesn't make it wrong. if i lived in miami and voted for gore, yeah, i'd probably feel a little burned. but i would still respect the institution, authority and judgementes of the us supreme court, and would never go so far as to say that their ruling was illegal or unconstitutional. supreme court justices are much more well versed in the US constitution than you or i (an assumption, but i think it's an educated one). i therefore trust in their ability to interpret the constitution fairly and aside from their own personal beliefs. as i said before, you don't have to agree with it, but if you don't trust a ruling on one case, you can't trust the ruling on any case.