Posted on 12/19/2004 9:07:22 PM PST by TBP
The votes in House District 12 have been counted, and recounted, and the case of one precinct, recounted again and again. But through it all, Democrat candidate Jeanne Windham has never come out ahead. After the final count, it ended up a tie, so now she's filing a lawsuit to try to steal the election away. Windham is contesting five ballots that were awarded to Constitution Party candidate Rick Jore. On all five ballots, the ovals for both Jore and Republican candidate Jack Cross were marked, but then each of the voters marked the ballots in such a way as to indicate that their preference was for Jore.
These ballots have been independently reviewed by two bi-partisan counting boards - first on election night by a Resolutions Board made up of a Republican and an Independent, and then by a Recount Board made up of two Republicans and a Democrat. Both boards unanimously verified that the voter intent could be determined and awarded the votes to the rightful candidate.
Those five ballots will likely be reviewed by a judge, and possibly by the Montana Supreme Court. Mrs. Windham deserves her day in court to review those ballots, but her actions in the meantime have been despicable.
Only minutes after the election was declared a tie, both Governor Martz and Secretary of State Bob Brown were served with restraining orders preventing the normal tie breaking provisions from taking place. Under normal circumstances, when a tie occurs in a legislative race, the secretary of state convenes the state Canvassing Board (made up of the attorney general, state auditor, and state OPI superintendent, all three are Democrats) to certify the results, and then the governor is notified so she can break the tie.
With the restraining order in place, Governor Martz will not be allowed to break the tie. The Democrats are hoping that they can stall the outcome of the race until at least January 3 when Brian Schweitzer is sworn in as governor. Never before has Montana seen this type of manipulation of the electoral system.
If Governor Martz were to break the tie today, and we're assuming that she would appoint Jore, Mrs. Windham would still be allowed to continue with the expected lawsuit over the five contested ballots. The restraining order on the governor is without a doubt just a delay tactic. It serves no other purpose.
At stake in this situation is the balance of power in the state House of Representatives. If Jore is successful, Republicans will get to elect one of their own as Speaker of the House. If the Democrats can stall long enough, the House will be split 50-50 the balance of power will shift to the Democrats.
This may be the last unresolved election in America.
Nope! WA state Gov is still going on.
What the Republicans need to learn that we can use the courts also. Sue the hell our of that CRAT.
It is chilling that a judge (appointed by whom, may I ask?) can undo legislative intent with a restraining order. The dirty tricks in Florida and New Jersey have metastasized. IMHO these are practice runs for a no-holds-barred attempt at takeover of the government by any means in 2008. Has the restraining order been appealed to a higher court? Montana election regulations should prevail.
The Montana Democrats want power at all costs - even it means denying a rightfully elected candidate's taking his seat in the House. We're not talking about a disputed winner here like in Washington State. We're talking about stealing an election so the Democrats can reorder the MT House to their liking.
Nothing new here.
What the Rats can't win at the ballot box, they try to win before the bench.
This is where they made a mistake. They should have followed the example of Florida and their "chads" and used "psychic readings" to determine the voter's intent. How dare those individuals look at the ballots and see what the voter's intent was, it should have been "devined" by "psychic readers".
I don't know how this works in Montana, but as far as I know the restraining order is meaningless in most places. The basic premise of the separation of powers in government is that each branch has a duty to carry out their roles regardless of what the other branches may decide. In this case, the governor should simply ignore the restraining order and declare a winner. If the loser wants to contest the results after the fact, then so be it -- but it is crucial for the lawsuit to be filed AFTER the winner has been declared.
This, BTW, is exactly what made the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore so preposterous. The U.S. Supreme Court had no authority to render a decision in that case under any circumstances.
Is there no recourse, then, for the Florida Supreme Court's ignoring the election law and changing the rules after the game had been played? In a federal election, no less. That's what I thought Bush v. Gore was about. I agree the MT governor should ignore the restraining order and declare a winner.
There is a very specific process for states to name their presidential electors. The Florida dispute was really between the legislature and the state Supreme Court. Presidential elections do not get held up because of incompetence on the state level . . . if the state of Florida was so fouled up that they couldn't figure out who won their electoral votes, then the Electoral College should have convened in December of 2000 anyway -- and Florida's electoral votes would not have been counted.
Case closed. With such a scenario in place, Al Gore would have been "ahead" in the 2000 election but would not have secured the clear majority of the electoral votes needed to win the election. The U.S. Constitution is very clear about how this should be resolved, with the election decided in Congress instead of in the Electoral College.
I was living out of the country at the time this unfolded, and I researched the topic extensively simply so I could answer all the questions from people I worked with who were curious about the U.S. electoral system. That's why I told everyone who was interested that there wasn't any chance in hell Al Gore was going to win that election no matter how many friends he had on the Florida Supreme Court.
Washington election is the same, with the rats trying to steal by "re"count the election in which they have never been ahead...
The USSC had no choice but to act in Florida. The Florida SC was trying to re-make and change election laws in the middle of an election. That's not what the court is there to do. The USSC stopped the Florida court from acting illegally. Yes, courts can act illegally. Somebody had to stop the insanity (democrats are insane), and that body had to be the USSC. There was no other choice except to abandon all pretense of law and order and let the Florida court act as the legislative body it is not.
This is the exact rationale that the same U.S. Supreme Court used in refusing to take the New Jersey case two years later. What they basically said was this: If the New Jersey Supreme Court decides to issue an outlandish decision that has no basis in state law, and the New Jersey legislature refuses to live up to their obligation to throw the bastards out of office, then there is no reason for the U.S. Supreme Court to get involved unless a plaintiff in a Federal lawsuit can show that he has been "harmed" under Federal election laws.
In other words, it is not the responsibility of the Federal courts to admonish a state for making a mockery of its own laws. I'd say this is federalism at its best.
Thanks for your well-reasoned points and your letter to Bob Brinker. Your points are consistent with what I've read about the 2000 election. For me, the significant point is that the Florida Supreme Court was entirely out of line. Their blatantly partisan ruling could not stand. What authority at the time could have ensured the proper outcome you describe? The FL Supreme Court was trying to engineer the victory of its chosen candidate, Al Gore. The FL legislature did not want to determine the election results, perhaps because the FL governor is the brother of George Bush. If the US Supreme Court had refused to take the case, wouldn't the FL Supreme Court decision have prevailed, with vote recounting continuing in selected areas until they found enough votes for Mr. Gore?
They could not extend the deadline for certifying the electors indefinitely (which is something that 4 of the 9 U.S. Supreme Court justices probably would have been willing to do), so if the Electoral College convened in December of 2000 and Florida hadn't yet formally certified a winner then Florida would have cast ZERO electoral votes that year. The electoral process across the nation would not have come to a grinding halt just because a bunch of morons in one state had no clue how to properly cast their ballots.
A really interesting scenario would have unfolded if the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled 5-4 in favor of Gore on the second question in that case (the issue of a statewide recount that extended beyond the date on which the electoral college convened). This is why the USSC never should have taken the case in the first place -- because the Florida legislature would have been obligated to tell the U.S. Supreme Court to stick it's ruling up its @ss.
If you read the U.S. Constitution carefully, you'll notice that the U.S. Supreme Court was never intended to be the ultimate authority on every issue like this. If Gore had "won" the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Florida case, then Congress would have been well within their rights to smack them down hard by essentially ignoring the decision.
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