Rape of the Constitution
Why Al Gore Must Not Concede
by Christian Mitchell
Monday, Nov. 13, 2000 (AmpolNS) -- My grandmother used to have an expression. I don't know if she made it up or if she heard a famous TV character say it, but it goes like this:
"If two people say you're sick, lie down."
Translation:
"If 23,000 Floridians say the ballot was misleading, then the ballot was misleading."
I call your attention to the following passages from the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution:
Amendment XIV, Section 1. No State shall make or enforce any law
which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; or shall any State deprive any person of life,
liberty, or property , without due process of law; nor deny to any
person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Amendment XV, Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States
to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by
any State on account of race, color, or previous condition or
servitude.
I know what you're thinking. Lots of fancy-pants language and legal mumbo jumbo, right? What does all that mean? It means that the Constitution requires that the votes of all Americans be counted. And that means that by filing an injunction in Federal court to prevent a hand count of votes in Palm Beach County, George W. Bush is attempting to subvert the United States Constitution.
How exactly does the 15th Amendment apply here, you ask?
The white, conservative southern part of Florida was given a readable, easily understandable ballot so they were given full opportunity to cast their votes (which votes, by the way, can reasonably be assumed to be cast overwhelmingly for George W. Bush). Palm Beach County residents, on the other hand, who are primarily Jewish and African-American and who could reasonably be expected to vote overwhelmingly for Al Gore -- and in fact indicated in exit polls that they did -- were given a ballot that was hopelessly confusing and in violation of Florida law, and were therefore denied equal access to their right to vote.
Got it?
Now, with all that in mind, let's recap what we know so far about this car wreck of an election in Florida.
We have an illegal butterfly ballot used in Palm Beach County in which the punch hole for Al Gore did not line up with his name but lined up instead with Pat Buchanan's name. This ballot was so confusing -- and bear in mind that complaints about the ballot and other voting irregularities began pouring in starting at 7am -- that election supervisor Theresa LePore sent the following memo to election workers at 4pm, when the horse had pretty well left the barn:
"Attention all poll workers. Please remind all voters coming in that they are to vote only for one (1) presidential candidate and that they are to punch the hole next to the arrow next to the number next to the candidate they wish to vote for. Thank you!"
That clear it up for ya'? I don't know about you, but I'm more confused after reading that than before. This must be the same chick who wrote my VCR operator's manual.
In addition, the instructions on this ballot told people to punch the hole to the right of the candidate they wished to vote for. Only problem is, Pat Buchanan's hole was to the left of his name, but directly to the right of Al Gore's, so people punched that hole as per the instructions, resulting in over 3,000 votes in Palm Beach County alone being counted for Pat Buchanan.
Yeah... like a bunch of old Jewish ladies are gonna vote for the Nazi sympathizer.
And the violations don't stop there.
We also have ballot boxes turning up in the damnedest places: one in an election worker's car ("I about had a cotton-pickin' stroke," said 79-year-old poll worker Gene Tracy. "I hollered for my wife and I said, "The dadburn ballots are still in the car.' "), another in a school (that one is now being held in the evidence room of the Palm Beach County police station), and on Friday, the Washington Post reported, "county workers found a ballot bag in their vault without a seal, another with a broken seal and a third on the shelf with ballots spilling out."
And yesterday, at about 4:00 pm, another ballot box mysteriously appeared in a church that had been used as a voting station.
That means that none of these ballots have been counted. By the way, the Reverend of that church says that about 1,400 people voted there on election day, and ALL of them were African American, so it's safe to assume these would be another 1,400 votes for Al Gore.
We have widespread complaints of multiple violations of Florida election law and the Voting Rights Act, including African Americans being turned away from voting stations because election workers claimed their names were not on the list, even though many of these people saw their names clearly printed there.
We have reports of a massive police presence detaining African Americans to prevent them from voting, including one 67-year-old man whose harrassment by police was witnessed by the producer of the Tom Joyner morning show.
We have voting stations that were closed early on election day in clear violation of election law.
We have people who accidentally punched the wrong hole on their ballot who immediately realized their mistake and asked for a new ballot but were denied their request, in spite of the Florida law that says they are entitled to a second ballot if they make a mistake.
We have complaints of people being told they had only five minutes to cast their vote or they would be forced to leave the polling station without voting.
Florida law states that a new vote must be ordered if reasonable doubt exists that the votes of citizens were counted. Gee, is anybody else besides me having reasonable doubt?
But beyond the Florida law, there is a much more precious document in danger: the U.S. Constitution. You just read the relevant passages, you know what they say.
George W. Bush took an oath as the Governor of Texas to uphold the Constitution. But since he clearly has no intention of doing so, and in fact seems intent on violating that oath, that duty falls to Al Gore.
Al Gore stood up before the eyes of the world and swore an oath as Vice President to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Well, the Constitution is under blatant and violent assault by Bush's forces in Florida. Not only does Al Gore have a right to pursue a new vote in Florida because of overwhelming evidence that he would have easily carried the state if not for Republican shenanigans, he is bound by his Vice Presidential oath to do so. He is bound by his duty to protect the rights of the citizens there whose votes were thrown away. He is bound indeed by his duty to all Americans, because this is not merely a state issue. The entire election hinges on the outcome of the vote in Florida. Ignoring the voting violations there, allowing the disqualification of 23,000 votes to stand, would nullify the votes of over 48,000,000 Americans who chose Al Gore as our next President.
And if that's not a good enough argument for you, how about this: Come on, America, don't you want your freekin' vote to count?
The single most precious right we have as Americans is our right to vote. Are we prepared to surrender that right for the sake of a quick resolution, for the sake of avoiding a little conflict? Benjamin Franklin said, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." If we're willing to allow George W. Bush to assume the Presidency based on an illegal vote, then this is not the America I know. This is not the America I love. This is not the America the Founders gave us.
The pundits and the GOP attack dogs are trying to scare us with erroneous claims that prolonging the recounts in Florida sets us on the brink of a Constitutional crisis.
Don't believe them, folks. THERE IS NO CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS.
These circumstances are well provided for in the Constitution. We have a president. Bill Clinton, remember him? Big guy, white hair, brought us eight years of peace and prosperity? President Clinton has everything under control. Nobody's going to sneak in and steal the White House silverware. Nobody's going to steal the missiles out of their silos. Nobody's going to TP the Capitol Building. We have a provision in case the situation is not resolved by Inauguration Day. (Of course, the Republicans won't like it, because the provision is that the sitting Vice President assumes the Presidency until a clear winner can be determined, and lemme see, who's the Veep again? Oh yeah, Al Gore.)
The point is, we have backup after backup after backup to maintain the integrity of the Republic until we can resolve this thing. Relax. The Founders were pretty smart dudes.
The only Constitutional crisis -- and this is what you should be truly terrified of -- is that the Bush boys, or as Maureen Dowd called them, the Corleones of Texas, are attempting to subvert the Constitution in an effort to steal a national election.
And we have tons of backups for this, too -- they're called laws.
Al Gore has the law on his side and at his disposal, but he needs one other very important thing: us.
He needs the support of the American people, whose rights he is looking out for. Without our support, the Bush monkey business in Florida will go unchallenged. If we allow this to happen, if Al Gore is not encouraged to fight these gross voting violations with every avenue the law provides, we will have a man sitting as the President of the United States who was not elected by the people, and the rightful President, Al Gore, will be banished to Tennessee like the Man in the Iron Mask.
Some people are suggesting that Al Gore will be perceived as a sore loser if he contests the election results. Well, I got news for you: You can't be a sore loser if you won. Al Gore won this election. He knows it, the American people know it, and what's most important, the Bush people know it. And that's why they don't want the hand count to go forward -- it would confirm that Al Gore won the election, and the Bush boys don't want to let that happen. That ain't expediency, folks, and it sure is hell isn't "for the good of the country," as George W. Bush would have us believe. It is treason.
Yeah, I said it. Treason.
The maneuverings of the Bush camp amount to nothing less than an attempt to overturn a national election. And it should be pointed out that this is the GOP's second coup d'etats attempt in two years. They tried to overturn a national election by impeaching President Clinton for receiving oral sex from a consenting adult. They had drawn up impeachment papers long before Monica Lewinsky came on the scene, so to speak. They set out to oust a sitting president for their own political purposes, and then manufactured a crime to insert on the dotted line.
And now, since that didn't work, they are attempting to steal an election from Al Gore.
If the Bush people are so confident that they won, then let the hand count go forward. But they can't do that. You know why? Yeah, you know. No hand count: President Bush. Hand count: President Gore.
The brief the Bush people filed in Federal court seeks an injunction to stop the hand count on the grounds that a hand count is less reliable than a machine count. If this is true, then why did Governor Bush sign Tex. Elec. Code § 212.005 in 1997, which says, "A manual recount shall be conducted in preference to an electronic recount." Hmmm?
And whatever you do, don't let the press tell you how we should handle this. The press told you George W. Bush is a compassionate conservative. The press told you Al Gore is a liar. The press told you that Bush won the debates. The press spent days of air time scrutinizing the size of Al Gore's "package."
Look past all the spin coming furiously out of the Bush camp.
Look past the fact that they've been saying since this whole mess began that they did not want a long, drawn-out legal battle that would be harmful to the country, and yet themselves filed a request for a Federal injunction to block the hand count.
The Bush camp is also threatening a recount in Iowa, Wisconsin and Oregon, which belies their claim that they want an expeditious resolution. See that for what it is: blackmail. They're more than willing to drag this thing out for weeks, months, or as long as it takes, just so long as it puts them in the White House.
Forget the argument that a legal battle would damage the country. We are a nation of laws. How in the name of everything holy can following the laws be damaging to the country? Where is the GOP's beloved Rule of Law now that it is a barrier to keep them from the presidency instead of a weapon to impeach a President for getting a blowjob?
But forget all that. That's all political maneuvering, media spin, tit for tat.
Look past it all, and consider only what President Lyndon Johnson said in his address to Congress asking them to enact the Voter Rights Act: "We cannot, we must not refuse to protect the right of every American to vote in every election that we may desire to participate in." He went on to say, "I recognize that from outside this chamber is the outraged conscience of a nation, the grave concern of many nations and the harsh judgment of history on our acts."
Well, how about it, folks? It's decision time. This is where democracy gets tough. But this is where it really counts. Will we keep faith with the promise we made that day, or will we violate it in favor of the easy way out? Will we fulfill the pledges the Founding Fathers made on our behalf, or will we abandon the path when the way turns a little rocky? Will we give voice to the outraged conscience of a nation that birthed Suffrage for Women, an end to slavery and the Civil Rights Act? And if we remain silent, how will history judge us for our acts?
Will we fight for our rights and demand that all the votes cast for Al Gore are given to Al Gore, or will we let the Republicans bully us into letting George W. Bush, a pretender to the throne, ascend to the Presidency of the United States based on a stolen election?
Consider the question gravely, because if we choose not to fight, then government of the people, by the people, for the people may truly perish from the earth.