Word: halting
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Lawyers for Vice President Al Gore '69 and Texas Gov. George W. Bush argued for a second and presumably final time before the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday, sparring over the court's Saturday decision to halt the Florida Supreme Court-mandated recount of statewide "undervotes...
Even if the court were to decide that Florida's authority is absolute in this case (as it should), the court will have left Florida without much hope of counting its vote before the Tuesday deadline. The court said the count must halt because if "illegitimate" votes were counted and the result were to favor Gore, no legalism on the part of the court could stand up to that challenge. We agree with that characterization, but wonder whether it is a fair fight--how can the votes of the people of Florida compete with the power of the U.S. Supreme...
...Another thing that seemed to bother Scalia was voter responsibility, as he hinted when he voted for the stay to halt "the counting of votes that are of questionable legality." The rickety old Votomatics are just hole-punching aids; if the voter has neither sufficient passion to puncture a piece of perforated cardboard nor sufficient intentness to follow directions and clean up his chads on his way to the to-be-tabulated pile, maybe magnifying glasses are too good for him. We make a voter make his way to the polls; do we demand so little of him from that...
...Netanyahu has denounced Barak for showing "weakness" in dealing with the Palestinians, and promises instead a return to his peace-through-strength policies. Barak is hoping to remind voters why they deserted Netanyahu in droves 18 months ago - precisely because he'd brought the peace process grinding to a halt. But Israeli voters have little enthusiasm for the peace process right now, even if a majority of them may ultimately accept it as a necessary evil. Early opinion polls suggest that no matter which personalities represent the various parties, the "peace camp" is in for a drubbing in the next...
...Saturday, by a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court granted the stay George W. Bush had asked for 18 hours before, putting a halt to a rickety process of sorting and counting some 44,000 undervotes just as it was getting under way. Hearings have been scheduled for Monday morning at 11 (briefs were handed over Sunday at 4 p.m.), and as always it is anybody's guess in this unprecedented non-election what exactly the Court has on its mind. But for now, here are some clues as to what they are thinking...