Jewish World Review Sept. 18, 2003 / 21 Elul, 5763

Raoul Lowery Contreras

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Consumer Reports


We bee eSTUPIDos


http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | We bee estupidos, so estupido we can't vote with machines we have used for 30-years!!

So rules two Anglo guys and a Mexican appointed by Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton to lifetime judgeships on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in the case brought by the NAACP (the Plantation African Americans Department of the Democratic Party), the Southwest Voter Education and Registration Project of Texas (The Campesino/Peasant Victim department of the Democratic Party), and the American Civil Liberties Union/ACLU (the legal department of the Democratic Party) to delay the Recall vote of Governor Gray Davis..

"The press of time does not diminish the constitutional concern," are words quoted by the Judges Harry Pregerson, Richard Paez and Sidney Thomas from the Bush v. Gore Supreme Court Decision of December 12, 2000.

So, they think, let's move the election to March, 2004, when new voting machines are installed because "40,000" poor minority souls might not have their votes counted in San Diego, Los Angeles, Sacramento and two small counties in the October 7th election to recall the governor and to replace him.

"A desire for speed is not a general excuse for ignoring equal protection guarantees," they also quote from the Bush v. Gore decision.

However, these three men screwed up. They didn't quote the real meat of that decision, a decision on recounting votes after they were cast. This decision stops an election before the majority of 5-million or so votes are even cast. The secretary of State reports that as of the date of their decision, perhaps 300,000 people had already voted by absentee ballots. How did they screw up? The words they quoted are "dicta," not the decision of counting votes already cast-DICTA, DICTA, DICTA-is not precedent. It is just opinions by justices or ideas or theories, not legal precedent.

"When a court orders a statewide remedy, there must be at least some assurance that the rudimentary requirements of equal treatment and fundamental fairness are satisfied," the court said in the majority Bush/Gore decision. Here, these three didn't do that with their decision. What?

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Studies by CalTech and MIT, the two best science universities in the country have proven conclusively that in Presidential elections nationwide, the punch card systems involved in these counties and this case have an error rate of 2.5% in counting them. However, the push button, ATM, style machines California will use after March 1, 2004, have an error rate of 2.3%.

But, in San Diego County, one of the six the 9th Circuit judges were so upset about, only .three/tenths of one percent of last year's votes in the Gray Davis re-election were classified as errors-what they call over votes, that is, people who voted for two people for one office, etc. In Los Angeles, the error rate was half the national average. So, what's the big deal? The big deal is that the three judges are Democrats and they want Democrat Governor Davis to stay in office. They deliberately violated the Bush v. Gore decision and then tried to quote it as rational.

By the way, in Governor and senate races, the punch card machines are more efficient and count better than the ATM-style touch-screen machine results studied by the two universities; to wit: The ATM-type machines had an error rate of 5.5% and the punch cards machines only 5.3%.

There is no perfect election count, nor has there ever been.

"…the general coherence of the legislative (California constitution) may not be altered by judicial interpretation so as to wholly change the statutorily provided the apportionment of responsibility among these various bodies," wrote Justices Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas in Bush/Gore. That meaning is clear, judges simply can't tamper with constitutional requirements.

In this case the state Constitution requires that a recall election be called within 80 days after sufficient signatures have been validated. That made Tuesday, October 7th the last day to hold this recall election. Period. These three judges don't believe the United States Supreme Court.

"…in a Presidential election the clearly expressed intent of the legislature (Constitution) must prevail," were the words of Rehnquist in Bush/Gore. The California Recall provision of the Constitution is clear and the judges of the 9th Circuit have violated that dicta. So, since when does one dicta overrule another in the same decision?

California election law and experience is clearly heads and shoulders above Florida, nonetheless The U.S, Supreme court used this language to explain how Florida protected its voters, over-all, and implied that only an idiot couldn't vote properly after being babysat by poll workers; to wit:

"Florida statutory law cannot reasonably be thought to require the counting of improperly marked ballots. Each Florida precinct before election day provides instructions on how properly to cast a vote, each polling place on election day contains a working model of the voting machine it uses, and each voting booth contains a sample ballot. In precincts using punch-card ballots, voters are instructed to punch out the ballot clearly."

It must be said, then, that with superior experience in conducting elections with punch-card machines that are more efficient than touch-screen machines, California's special recall election must be conducted as per the state Constitution, not just at the whim of three justices of the 9th Circuit. If they prevail, California has been hijacked by judicial subversion worse than any Communist conspiracy ever imagined. They shall not prevail, however.

Either the full 9th Circuit will overturn the three subversives, or the Supreme Court will, someone will. Why? For all the reasons already stated, capped off with these words from a dissenter in the Bush/Gore case, Justice David Souter.

"It is true that the Equal Protection Clause does not forbid the use of a variety of voting mechanisms within a jurisdiction, even though different mechanisms will have different levels of effectiveness in recording voters' intentions; local variety can be justified by concerns about cost, the potential value of innovation, and so on."

And so on…in Kah-lee-fohr-nee-ah.

Besides, while the NAACP, the SWVP and the ACLU think Blacks and Mexican Americans are too stupid to use simple little voting machines we have been using for decades, we know better don't we?

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JWR contributor Raoul Lowery Contreras is a columnist, radio talk-show host, and author, most recent, of Jalapenos, Mexican Americans and Other Hot Stuff: A Peoples' Cultural Identity", available at www.iuniverse.com under the author's name. Comment by clicking here.

08/28/03: Should the Golden State elect a governor who is a member of an anti-American movement?
05/13/03: Vilification by a motley few
04/29/03: A mob of hyperactive right-wing extremists with an army to play with
04/22/03: This minority is moving off the public dole and emerging as a power to be reckoned with
04/08/03: Two Americans and an Aztec warrior
03/28/03: I'm a 'smirking Nazi'
03/24/03: Excelling at friction
03/17/03: Bush-the-warmonger
03/07/03: War is the only option left to the civilized world
02/18/03: Protestors, twits and The New World Order
02/12/03: Hey, Gary Hart: Living on knees is wrong
02/05/03: Advise and consent by smear
01/14/03: "Stabbed in the Back by Friends"
01/07/03: Minorities will be the first to die in Bush's "oil wars"?

© 2003, Raoul Lowery Contreras