This sounds like very good news for those of us who are convinced that a return to honest elections is essential to preserve democracy in America. Precedent is important in deciding cases. Could a lawyer analyze how important this will be in setting precedent and under what general circumstances it will be of benefit? Wow, that is asking for a lot of free advice from a lawyer. Perhaps someone very knowledgeable about law could just speculate for us.

by Christie (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 143 comments) on Friday, Aug 25, 2006 at 6:24:08 PM

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cases that end up getting published. Although trial court cases can influence others through reports of success, etc. This case could well end up on appeal, so the precedent you are speaking of could well come into play. Since it is on a fasttrack with #1 priority as an election contest case (by law) the appeal results could come much faster than the slow rate one would usually expect. There are novel issues of the extent of the House of Representatives to change the rules after the election and shut down the certification and recount processes as well as provisional vote counting, simply by execution of a fiat to swear someone in prematurely. Premature swearing in = premature termination of elections = termination of democracy. It's that simple, and the Representative Bilbray argues that we are all, and the San Diego Superior Court Judge Yuri Hofman is, powerless to do anything about their exercise of power. However, this is a classic "changing of the rules after the election" which is what one side complained about after the election in 2000 (rather successfully). In effect, the defendants want the Court to give the blessing of the judiciary to an Equal Protection Violation whereby CA's 50th Congressional District Voters do NOT get recount rights because of the swearing in within 7 days of the election, while other voters outside the 50th DO get recount rights. Problem is, the "partial recount" or treating voters differently as to recount rights is supposed to be why Gore lost in 2000 (he asked for a partial recount). The argument of the defendants goes way too far, since it of course means the Registrar of Voters was powerless to certify the election too, the exclusive power being with the House (under their argument). This means the defendants believe the election was invalid, and never certified, once you apply their principles of "exclusivity" broadly, as we must in order to give meaning to the word EXCLUSIVE power.

by Mark E. Smith (21 articles, 30 quicklinks, 100 diaries, 1325 comments) on Friday, Aug 25, 2006 at 8:27:23 PM

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The above comment was written by attorney Paul Lehto, however he was using my computer so it looks like I posted it. I'm not a lawyer and I don't know a darned thing about precedent, so I not only didn't write it, I COULDN'T have written it. I was, however, in court today, and the arguments given by the opposing attorneys were frightening. If I understood them correctly, they're maintaining that Congress has the right to nullify all elections and decide for themselves who they want to become Congressmembers. Say, for example, that somebody the party controlling Congress happens to like, is running against somebody that they don't like. Imagine that the candidate they favor is lagging badly in the polls, say with only a 20% approval rating to their opponent's 80% approval rating. Then suppose that something similar to that Republican primary election occurs, where the voting machines flipped the votes so that the frontrunners appeared to be losing badly. In that case the election official stopped the machine tally, ordered a handcount, and it proved that the two frontrunners had actually won, despite the voting machine error saying that they had lost. But now, if such a thing happens again, Congress can simply take the candidate they favor, swear them in, and, according to the opposing attorneys in this case, thereby prevent a recount, deprive any state court of jurisdiction, and ensure that nobody would ever know who really won the election. THAT is frightening. Fortunately, from what I heard in court, I believe that Paul Lehto made it crystal clear to the judge that this sort of power play violates the rights of voters. Now all we can do is hope that the court has jurisdiction and that the judge agrees that it is the voters who should decide who represents them, not Congress.

by Mark E. Smith (21 articles, 30 quicklinks, 100 diaries, 1325 comments) on Friday, Aug 25, 2006 at 11:31:36 PM

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It might be useful to remember the state of play in 2000 when Scalia et al hijacked the ball and declared a winner. Had things gone for Gore at any stage of the recount, there was open talk of the Republican gerrymandered Florida State Legislature simply certifying the Republican Electoral college as the Florida Delegation. That this would have created a new round of worms is a given, but the dictatorship would have been declared even if Gore had won in any other scenereo as well, it just would have been variably more obvious. There were (mostly disparaged) hints of that even before the election. Soon we will arrive at the pointy end of the problem, the cloaks of honesty and even competency are in such shreds not even the best propaganda can stitch them togeather (though not for lack of trying). Some folk will have to be winning the vote even while polling at 40%, or else the entire house of cards falls, and legitimacy will also fall in shreads as the ephemera it always was. I don't expect quiet acceptance of electoral defeat. When those gloves fall off, the fight will be in the open, but that also means that the fight will be very much nastier than what we have seen sofar.

by Freedem (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 19 comments [5 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Saturday, Aug 26, 2006 at 9:11:21 AM

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