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Speak Out
Republicans may rue what's been denied
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision to halt manual recounts in Florida is a sad development for democracy in America. The Court halted the recounts on the grounds that inconsistent counting standards would violate the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution. In doing so, they plucked the proverbial speck out of the eye of the Florida Supreme Court while ignoring the beam in their own. The most blatant violation of equal protection in this election was the denial of voters' rights--recognized by Florida law--to have their legally cast votes counted by hand when imperfect or faulty vote tabulation systems failed to do so. This means that the rights of voters to cast their votes depend on the performance of the machinery they use. Equal protection is denied. For all we know, some of these undervotes may have had fully punched chad--we will not know in time because the court refused to look at the ballots.
Would the recount that was authorized by the Florida Supreme Court have been perfectly uniform and consistent? No, of course not. There is no perfect count, and no perfect recount. But the recount they authorized would have been a just remedy and would have been infinitely preferable to the course of action demanded by the U.S. Supreme Court: bury the ballots and get on with the show. No candidate in any future election that is closely contested can be sure of getting an accurate hand count, because almost any standard can and will be challenged as violating equal protection. The Republicans may yet live to see the day they regret what they have wrought.
Robert Clark-Phelps
Lanewood Drive
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Campbell, California
