This the result of the lawsuit brought by the ACLU. Have you ever noticed, my friends, that it’s only dictators and the ACLU that fear elections? People like Castro and Lenin and et. al., the ACLU and all these are the ones that are trying to best to cancel elections. You never hear of people like me or other conservatives or Republicans trying to stop the expression of will of the American people. Only the left is afraid of what voters might do at the ballot box. So they’re always doing whatever they can to stop it, to question it, to recast it. As I say, this was predictable. This is a direct aftermath of what happened in Florida in 2000 – and more on that here in just a second.
AP: “The 9th U.S. Circuit withheld ordering the immediate implementation of its decision, allowing a week for appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court. Ted Costa, head of the Sacramento-based Peoples’ Advocate, one of the groups that put the recall on the ballot, said an appeal is certain. ‘Give us 24 hours. We’ll get something off to the U.S. Supreme Court,’ he said. In what was the last of about a dozen legal challenges to the attempt to unseat Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, the three-judge panel said it was not acceptable that six counties would be using punch-card ballots, the type that sparked the ‘hanging chads’ litigation in Florida. The judges agreed with the American Civil Liberties Union that the voting machines were prone to error and that Davis’ fate could be decided later. By that time, the counties have promised to replace their punch-card machines under a court order in separate litigation.”
Of course, you have to ask, “Well, if the machines are prone to error, then what does this mean for the 2000 election when these machines were used? Why doesn’t somebody go in and sue the results of that election on the same basis?” Think this court would throw out the election? Ha-ha. Now, let me take you back in detail to what was discussed on this program. The legal division here at the Limbaugh Institute warned that the equal protection argument presented by the Bush campaign in 2000 might create legal precedent that the left would use to involve federal courts in deciding state elections or election procedures.
The equal protection argument had to do with not so much the counting of the votes, but – well, did it. It had to do – it was a really convoluted thing, and they almost were given no choice by the way the Gore campaign went. But here’s what our legal advisor wrote to National Review Online. That was posted December 14th of 2000: “One can only imagine the kinds of federal lawsuits that will now be brought by disgruntled voters, who candidates have lost elections, seeking to assert their new-found 14th amendment right. So what has the Supreme Court wrought? For example, does a federal cause of action exist if different ballots are used throughout a state…?”
It’s sad to say, but the Bush administration almost brought this – well, “the Bush campaign” it was at the time – almost brought this stuff on itself because it used the equal protection argument, the Fourteenth Amendment, in its first response to legal action initiated by the Algore campaign, and we argued about it then. I distinctly remember in late 2000 after this happened, I warned everybody on this program that this is going to lead to potentially bad things. There were a number of ways that the Bush campaign could have gone about this without using the equal protection argument, the equal-protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
But they thought that would be the best way to get what they wanted, and they thought it would be the most direct route to a result that they wanted. As such, there are now questions, there were questions that were thrown open as a result of that tactic, and among those questions (from National Review): “[D]oes a federal cause of action exist if different ballots are used throughout a state; if different methods of voting are used in different counties; or if different methods of voting are used in different localities within a county?”
That, my friends, is exactly what’s happening here. Because some counties are going to use the punch card ballots and some counties aren’t, that’s why the Ninth Circus has gone in, because a precedent has been established in Florida. So the Ninth Circus has said, “Yeah, if some of these are going to be used…” See, the equal protection argument – if I may summarize this – some counties in California are using a different voting technique/method than the six other counties, and so somebody, “Well, that’s not fair. That’s not fair! If one is using one and one is using another, and one is more prone to error, why, that’s not fair. So each voter must have the same ballot and the same machine.”
You remember these arguments that we had back then? I mean, it’s silly. We got into a discussion of, “Well, then, should there be federal control over every election? Should every ballot place have the same ballot? Should every state have the same ballot? Should every precinct have the same ballot as every other precinct?” You know, this does not exist. It’s up to local election officials to determine this. But now the feds are involved because of what happened in the Florida aftermath. Had the Florida aftermath not happened, none of this that’s going on now likely would have succeeded. There wouldn’t have been any precedent for it, and it would have been – and this would have been considered out of left field. You know, to come…
I mean, the whole idea of a punch card ballot being deficient starts where? Starts in Florida. Starts in Florida 2000 because of some concocted scheme. And make no mistake about this,
That just caused a cascade, and then of course you know what happened. Well, in contesting all this and using the equal protection argument, we’ve now gotten to the point where everybody ought to be using the same method, the same system of voting. If different methods of voting are used in different counties or if different methods of voting are used in different localities within a county, does a federal cause of action exist, if older voting machines are used in poor areas, and newer machines are used in affluent areas? Oh, and let me tell you something else. Here’s what’s being reported on CNN.
It’s being reported on CNN that these punch card machines, the punch card ballots, for some reason, it is minorities who have the toughest time with them. Now, I don’t know where this research came from. I don’t know who sponsored it. I have not seen the results, all I know is, everybody says so. Apparently – may we be blunt here? – you blacks and Latinos are too stupid to use a punch card ballot. That’s what they’re saying. That’s part of the rationale used to get these things thrown out. It’s not so much that they’re not as reliable; it’s that people are too stupid to figure it out. And it wasn’t only the punch card ballot that this technique was used.
It was when the polling places are reduced in number, oh, yes, for the recall election. The first reaction came from a bunch of civil rights groups. “Well, now, wait a minute. I mean if you’re going to close half the ballots, some of our voters may not be able to find the polling place. That’s not fair!” As I said at the time, they never find the polling place on their own anyway. They’re always bussed there. They don’t even know where they’re going when they’re picked up; they’re given instructions on the way. Now all of a sudden it’s another liberal insult to minorities. They’re too stupid to figure out how to get to a polling place. Now they’re too stupid to figure out how to use a punch card ballot. That’s something.
It’s all over the place out in California, in terms of one of the reasons that the opponents took this whole thing to court in the first place. So you’ve got federal cause of action. “Does it exist if older voting machines are used in poor areas and newer machines are used in affluent areas? Where once federal courts were loathe to get involved in elections – and that was based on lack of standing and/or the separation of powers/political question doctrine – federal judicial intervention in state and federal elections is now going become commonplace.” This was wherein on National Review Online September 14th of 2000. “Litigants will attempt to use the courts to overturn the results of elections because that’s what happened in Florida.”
Now, in this Ninth Circuit decision, the court delayed the action in advance of voting. But the Pandora’s box was open, and I warned you that this was a possibility. Liberal judges would use the Supreme Court decision to intervene in cases like this without limitation. And they’re not even waiting for the results now to stop elections. They’re not waiting for the results to overturn them. They are not waiting for that. They are seeking to prevent elections. Make no mistake. That’s what this is all about. This lawsuit, based on this silly notion that some people are using different systems to vote different places – the same system that elected Gray Davis has now been determined unfair for this election.
So, we’re going to just delay the election. We’ll postpone it maybe till March, when it won’t be as big a deal. But let’s never forget one thing, folks, talking about Florida in 2000 and the whole involvement of the U.S. Supreme Court. Contrary to what the Democrats to this day are in a seething fit of rage over, the U.S. Supreme Court did not pick a president. The U.S. Supreme Court did not count the votes. The U.S. Supreme Court did not move in at the last moment and say, “We’d rather have Bush in the White House.” The U.S. Supreme Court did one thing: It saw a Florida Supreme Court ignoring its orders, a Florida Supreme Court was a rogue court that was reversing election results and rewriting election law from its bench.
It was told once to stop it, and the Florida Supreme Court kept going. It kept ordering new recounts. It kept changing the rules for recounts when the courts don’t make those rules, the state legislature of Florida does. And the state legislature of Florida was being ignored, and the new laws were being written by the Florida Supreme Court obviously for one reason: to find some cockamamie way to count those votes so that Gore ended up the winner. The U.S. Supreme Court stepped in and said, “Stop what you’re doing” for a second time, and the U.S. Supreme Court finally agreed.
They didn’t pick a president; they didn’t assign a victory to somebody; they didn’t say to themselves, “Oops, looks like Gore is going to win. Let’s stop this.” They simply stopped a state supreme court, a rogue supreme court from behaving illegally. That’s all the U.S. Supreme Court did in the final analysis. Leading up to that, the Bush administration objected, filed a legal objection to what Gore did. Gore was first to go to court. They used the equal protection argument, which led us to what’s happening now, in California, and we predicted it on this program in December of 2000.
