is getting too funny. Mr. Gore could not win his own state or congressional district. If DA JUDGE rules that the 5 PM expiration date Tuesday of the recounts can be extended under Florida law, Mr. Bush can then demand a statewide hand recount to assure fairness that he will win. State Law in effect states that the recount can be requested within 72 hours of the election or before the vote is certified by the Secretary of State WHICHEVER IS LATER. ALGORE got himself sucked into this trap slick as a whistle and is he now going to complain that counting all of the ballots is not fair? He probably will but that will go over about as well as the whopper that the idiot voters could not understand the butterfly ballots when the problem was that the votes were altered to show double votes after they were cast so that they would be voided. Then watch the Gore camp bitch and moan about this and claim that it is not fair that some stupid democrat someplace will not be counted etc. etc. etc. If Mr. Bush had requested a statewide hand count last week, the Democrats would have attacked it on some flimsy premise but now they have set themselves up to have no reasonable basis to oppose it at this time but they will oppose it anyhow. This was a brilliant stroke by the Republicians. It would appear that they are likely to have adequate notice to decide before the Secretary of State Certified the election depending on the projection on the absentee ballots. The Republicians will then have a court order providing time to make the hand count statewide while if they had tried to do this last week, the Democrats would have said that this was illegal as the recount had to be done within 10 days under Florida law. The Republicians have this option in addition to a majority of absentee ballots which are historically Republician in Florida. Look at the map of the results by county. All of the productive areas of the country had republician majorities. The democrat majorities were concentrated in the big old cities with large numbers of low income welfare receiving people and minorities. The Democrats have one consolation. Senator Lieberman will continue to represent Cn. in the US Senate. Additional support for this conclusion can be found in message 41358 on 11/13 at 15:08 at http://www.usagold.com/business/cpm/cpmforum/ by one of the few investigative reporters remaining in the major news media outlets.

-- Thomas Paine (Tom@Patriots.rep), November 14, 2000

Answers

Sorry Charlie, the surprise is on you!

Electoral College may not need Florida electors to choose president

November 10, 2000 Web posted at: 7:07 p.m. EST (0007 GMT)

By Raju Chebium CNN.com Correspondent

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- On December 18, electors from all 50 states are scheduled to pick the president. An 1887 law fixes this as the date for electors to cast their ballots, constitutional law scholars said Friday.

Because Florida's votes are still being counted and given the possibility of legal challenges blocking ballot certification, it is remotely possible that Florida may not appoint its share of 25 electors by December 18, the scholars said.

That means only 513 members of the 538-strong Electoral College would be available to pick either Democrat Al Gore or Republican George W. Bush to be the next president.

Can the remaining electors still pick the president with Florida shut out of the process?

Yes, according to Neal Katyal, a constitutional law professor at Georgetown Universitys law school. He said the 12th Amendment to the U.S. only requires a majority of the electors to vote and nothing in the Constitution says all electors must vote.

Such a scenario could help Gore, he said.

If all 538 members voted, the winner would need 270 votes to be named the next president. But if only 513 electors were present, the requisite majority would be reduced to 257, said Michael Glennon, a constitutional scholar at the University of California-Davis who has written a book on the Electoral College.

Gore is closer to 257 than Bush. In fact, until Friday evening, Gore had 260 electoral votes, compared to Bushs 246.

After New Mexico was ruled too close to call, Gore lost five electoral votes from that state, bringing his total to 255, while Bushs tally remained unchanged.

The likelihood of Florida electors being shut out

Joel Gora, an election-law specialist at the Brooklyn College of Law, said it is highly unlikely that Florida will fail to certify its ballot and appoint electors by December 18.

Soon after the votes are recounted November 17, I think the state would go ahead and certify unless there is a court order otherwise. And I think thats extremely unlikely as a practical matter, but it is possible.

He said allegations over a confusing ballot in Palm Beach County likely would not be sufficient for a Florida judge to put the statewide certification process on hold.

Gora also said the U.S. Supreme Court has not had a case requiring the justices to definitively interpret the 12th Amendments Electoral College provisions.

The prior constitutional crisis

The only time there was a potential constitutional crisis over the Electoral College issue was in 1876, Glennon said.

GOP candidate Rutherford Hayes won 185 electoral votes though Democrat Sam Tilden, who had 184 electoral votes, had won the popular election by a razor-thin margin of less than 1 percent, Glennon said.

Democrats in Congress overruled one of Hayes electors votes and in retaliation Republicans overruled 19 of Tildens electoral votes, Glennon said.

Faced with a constitutional crisis, politicians reached a compromise they appointed a special commission composed of five Democrats, five Republicans and five Supreme Court justices, he said.

After Hayes promised to withdraw Northern troops from the South, the commission awarded all 20 electoral votes to Hayes, making him the president, Glennon said.

To prevent future Electoral College disputes, Congress passed the Electoral Count Act in 1877. The law left the task of choosing electors to the states, but Congress reserved the power to reject any electors vote if a simple majority of members in the U.S. House and Senate agreed that the vote must not be counted, Glennon said.

Yet another scenario

Fast-forwarding to 2000, there is yet another scenario under which Florida electors could cast their votes even if the state fails to certify the ballot by December 18, according to Bruce Fein, a constitutional scholar and lawyer in McLean, Virginia.

Electors for Gore or Bush could still cast their ballots and leave it up to Congress to challenge individual votes if they choose to on January 6, when the electoral votes will be unsealed and tallied, Fein said.

Fein rejected the interpretation of the 12th Amendment and the 1877 law that says choosing electors is a state function. Because Congress has the ultimate authority to accept or reject an electors vote, the issue of whether an elector has been appointed is a matter of federal constitutional law, Fein said.

What's most likely to happen (is) both the Gore and the Bush electors would go and cast the ballot whether or not there was an official certification by Florida, he said. Why would a state want to disenfranchise itself?

-- keep stalling (we're.smarter@than.you.are!), November 14, 2000.

If Bush wants to start digging into all the counties in Florida, Gore can delay those counts until Dec. 18. The Constitution says that the electors must vote on that date, but only a majority is needed. If Florida is too caught up in legal proceedings (thanks to Bush), then Florida gets left out, and Gore wins!!

-- (bwahahaaaa!!@you.suckers!), November 14, 2000.

I don't see why the Democrats would object to a statewide hand-count. There weren't as many discrepancies in the other counties, so it would stand to reason that hand-counts wouldn't change the results nearly as much as they would in the counties where there were discrepancies. More hand-counts? Bring 'em on!!

-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), November 14, 2000.

Thomas,

Why do you portray a Republican request for a statewide hand recount as some surprise or result of some trap? The Republicans have had the same rights and opportunities as the Democrats to request recounts all along.

Republicans did not request recounts last week only because they chose not to do so. Why is that some "trap"?

-- No Spam Please (nos_pam_please@hotmail.com), November 15, 2000.

As it turns out, the Democrats considered a proposal for statewide handcounts for just the reasons I mentioned. In response, James Baker called the idea "crazy."

-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), November 15, 2000.