Totaled Recall

California's recall may be postponed so everybody can use a new voting machine. But it sez here that "voting officials … were handed a new problem to consider: whether combining the lengthy recall ballot with the primary in March would produce a behemoth too large for the newer voting machines to handle.

"'It's more than a wrinkle,' said Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder Conny McCormack. 'No one even asked the largest county in the state if we had the capacity to run it in March. The answer is no.'"

Want more? A postponement might mean "reopening the ballot to allow candidates to remove their names or new candidates to join the race. State law generally requires that the ballot be set within 59 days of the election."

Sez Mickey Kaus: "One--only one--of the problems of government-by-judiciary is that judges think they know all the relevant facts just from reading the briefs of the parties in the case. But they don't. …"

Comments

[Andrew Lynch]

SCOTUS experts, please help a confused Californian out. If the 3-judge-panel's decision gets appealed to the Supremes, is it their job to consider the ramifications, as outlined in Mr. Freund's post, or simply to look at the letter of the law, and the apparent abuse of their Florida ruling?

In other words, do they have the authority to say, "Overturned because of the chaos that will ensue?" Or do they have to ignore the chaos because it's simply a byproduct of the damage their original ruling inspires?

Conscientous Californians want to know. 🙁

[thoreau]

I have no clue whether they can consider the chaos or only the principles.

But as a practical matter, if the voting machines in some counties can't handle the even larger ballots associated with a March recall, doesn't that pose an even bigger equal protection problem?

Another point: Many municipalities will be holding local elections in California this November. Nobody suggested that we delay those elections while we wait for the new voting machines. Why? Because the simple fact is that we can't put representative government on hold while we wait to perfect the machines. All we can do is try and get the better machines as fast as possible and make do in the meantime. It sucks, but there's no other option.

[bennett]

Partisan politics is beautiful, heh? At least we will always have plenty to talk about as long as these clowns keep putting the show on for us. Even the judiciary is not immune.

If the original suit was filed in 2001, why was this not important enough to deal with before the 2002 election? The only reason I can see is that the outcome was pretty much a given back then, just like it is now. It just so happens that the dems don't like the outcome this time. What these people will do just to keep jobs that don't even pay that much is amazing.

[Anonymous]

Will this obviously partisan decision by the 9th Circuit panel put an end to the claims that only Republicans play political hardball?

Probably not.

[Gene Berkman]

The Ninth Circuit has delayed the California recall because of problems with punch-card voting machines. They want to delay the recall until all counties have touch screen voting machines.
The same Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed to hear a lawsuit by the Desert Area Libertarians (east Riverside County,CA) which challenges the touch screen voting machines because of security issues, and because with no paper trail, recounts are impossible to verify.
Perhaps the Ninth Circuit will declare that all voting methods fail to meet Constitutional standards.
I was getting bored with politics anyway.

[Ken Hagler]

I'm not too inclined to believe the opinion of a bureaucrat who is ignorant enough to claim that Los Angeles is the largest county in the state. It's actually the 12th largest. Perhaps she is unaware of the difference between population and land area.

[Don]

"I'm not too inclined to believe the opinion of a bureaucrat who is ignorant enough to claim that Los Angeles is the largest county in the state. It's actually the 12th largest. Perhaps she is unaware of the difference between population and land area."

Given the context of her remark, I figured she was refering to population.

[amr]

The best way to keep "40,000" people from being disenfranchised is to disenfranchise everyone?

In Minnesota, we had to change the ballot quick when Paul Wellstone died 10 days before the election. So, our SOS had paper ballot supplements. I X'ed a box in front of Norm Coleman's name. With only two things to vote on, this should be easy to do. Heck, to make counting easier, put them on two separate sheets, on small yes/no recall slip. One huge replacement ballot, which won't be that easy to count, but won't be that hard, either. Too bad they couldn't just put the names in alphbetic order. That would be easier for everyone.

Finally, I thought that Bush v. Gore concluded that selective recounts were unconstitutional, not that punch-ballot machines were. There was no time for an complete recount. Therefore, Bush stayed ahead and won.

Amr

[Xrlq]

Andrew:

Unlike Bush v. Gore, this case arises entirely under federal law. That means 100% of the Ninth Circuit's ruling can and would be reviewed on the merits, assuming the SC hears the case at all. My guess is that the Ninth Circuit will clean up its own mess en banc, thereby obviating the need for the Supremes to cancel their vacation plans.

Also note that Monday's ridiculous equal protection ruling does not compel the even more ridiculous remedy. On review, either the Ninth Circuit itself or the SC could uphold the equal protection ruling, while ordering a more benign remedy (e.g., hold the election on schedule, but step up efforts to educate the public about hanging chads).

Thoreau:

Most if not all municipal elections would be unaffected by this ruling. The ruling is about equal protection, not "disenfranchisement" per se (though opposition to Monday's ruling might well be described as "antidisenfranchisementarianism"). Thus, it will not affect municipalities that use punch cards citywide/countywide, only those few (if any) that use punch cards in some precincts and alternative technologies in others.

[cj]

For a moment, I thought I'd clicked into Scrappleface by mistake.

[Lefty]

Please notice, bennett, that the federal case is Bush v Gore. That means Bush initiated the Florida election lawsuit.

[Don]

Lefty,

It was the Gore team that first took the Florida election to the courts. The Bush team responded at the federal level. Bennett is correct.

[joe]

Yes, Lefty. Bush's actions in the recount fight only proved that he was a hyprocrite on federalism. Republicans have been pretty consistent in their opposition to voting rights.

[Anonymous]

Right, and Democrats are doing everything they can to "get out the vote" among conservatives.

[bennett]

Thanks, Don.

I am sorry, but a blanket statement regarding the repulican parties opposition to voting rights is irrelevent in this case, and adds nothing to the argument. It does not matter what party the people who filed the lawsuit belong to. The outcome is still wrong. To cancel an election because 40,000 hypothetical voters can't mark a ballot as directed completely negates the voting rights of a couple million actual voters.

[arjay]

I finally figured it out it's only a democracy if the Democrats are in control.

I've been a republican (stress small r) for a long time but seeing what the Republicans have wrought I'm veering towards constitutional monarchy.

[R C Dean]

One of the major, major problems with the 9th Circuit decision is that it is the only time in history, as far as I know, that a court has had the arrogance to cancel an election.

This, my friends, is very, very dangerous banana-republic stuff. Elections have gone forward without court interference when the ballots did not even contain the name of the true nominee (Missouri Senate election in 2000, numerous others where candidates had died), which strikes me as a much worse flaw in the election machinery than the current carping about punchcards.

As for the difference between "cancelling" and "delaying" - in politics, there isn't one. The court is already hearing challenges to the machines that will replace the punchcards, and the potential problems in postponing the election until March are already coming out. A delay in March will be just as easily manufactured as this one.

[bennett]

I was struggling with the same distinction between delay and cancel myself, and I have to agree with R C. The recall vote date was set based on California law, and unless the 9th is saying that law is unconstitutional, it should go forward on that date. Once again, just like in Florida, someone is trying to change the rules in the middle of the game. This is what the laws are for people, to keep this kind of electioneering from happening. If people don't like the rules, they should have their elected officials change them, but not in the middle of the election cycle. This leaves too much room for the partisans (of both parties) to subvert the democratic process.

[Fred App]

So Little Mick is all exorcised now about "government by judiciary"? Odd how that didn't seem such a bad thing a couple of years ago.

[Anonymous]

Isn't this how it works in Iran?

[bennett]

Fred, I'll take the bait. That wasn't a good thing a couple of years ago, either. In my recolection of how it went down, it was the Gore team that took the election to the courts in an effort to change the already established rules in the middle of the election. Much to their dismay, it didn't work, and they still lost the election.

[Kevin Carson]

R.C. Dean,

Yep, the Democrats have hijacked the democratic process, and turned to the courts to prevent an election they felt likely to lose. Ironic, ain't it? It's kind of like the Federalists threatening secession during the War of 1812: just goes to show that the political class are all whores who'll use any tactic that works, regardless of consistency with their stated principles.

[Kevin Carson]

P.S. Maybe Gray Davis should change his name to Jeb.

[Citizen]

And the incredible thing is that the election IS ALREADY UNDERWAY! People have sent in their absentee ballots already. You couldn't just close all polls at noon on election day to say, "Well, we're still not ready."

And in the last election fiasco, it's must understanding that the SC told the Gore camp to screw off and defered to the state consititution. Which is what ought to happen here.