Word: righting
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2000
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...could be a compelling case, particularly if plaintiffs can prove that the ballot actually violates state law. The argument that a Democratic official prepared the ballot should be irrelevant: the right to a legal ballot belongs to the voters, not a political party. The biggest problem with the suit is that there is no easy remedy. Recounts are routine. Ordering a new election, even in a single county, is a more radical step that no court has ever taken in a presidential election. A new election would mean deciding who could vote--all voters, or just those who turned...
...most important actor right now in the Florida legal drama is the Florida Supreme Court. It is the final arbiter of Florida election law. And it has the power to impose almost any kind of remedy it wants, from ordering recounts and revotes to interpreting individual ballots that are in dispute. This could be good news for the Gore campaign. Six of seven Florida Supreme Court justices are Democrats; the other is an independent. Leander J. Shaw Jr., the senior member of the court, is a former public defender; and several others were trial lawyers, a traditionally liberal sector...
...likely. The high court doesn't usually accept cases in which state courts are interpreting state law. And that should be especially true of the current court, which has been aggressive about extending state authority in the federal system. But, in the end, both sides will have the right to at least present their case to the Supreme Court. And that fact should ensure that, no matter how acrimonious things become in Florida, the ultimate result is one that both sides--and, more crucially, the American people--accept as legitimate. "What's most important is the most obvious," says Boies...
...moment, at least, civics is cool. This election has brought home how much we treasure the right to cast a ballot we can decipher and a machine that will count it. People racing to make airport connections stop for a gulp of CNN on the latest court ruling letting the hand count proceed. Look, Gore just got 53 votes in Broward! (Note to TV execs: Please reinstate the running hand-count tally.) Hey, no certification this Saturday! Bush will have to cancel the champagne and the Four Seasons ballroom. Celebrating Saturday night would be premature exuberance...
...grandiloquence the Rev. Jesse Jackson maintains that "I've never seen such a wholesale machinery of disenfranchisement at work" as what occurred in Florida on this Election Day. It was, he says, "a 10 on a scale of 10" in the degree of voting-rights abuses, worse than Selma, Ala. Though that is an exaggeration, since no one was murdered for the right to vote in Florida during last week's balloting, as they were in Selma, Jackson has a point. In Florida, black college students came to the polls with their registration cards but were turned away because their...