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September 16, 2003

Flaws in the Reasoning of the 9th Circuit Court.

Here’s why the 9th Circuit Court delayed the recall election, according to Erwin Chemerinsky, co-counsel in a lawsuit against the use of punch cards, who supports their decision:

The court found that the punch-card voting system in place in six counties would cause some ballots to not be counted ballots that would have been tallied if the voting were done using machines like the ones in place everywhere else in California.

Former LA Mayor Richard Riordan nails all the reasons the 9th Circuit Court was wrong to do so.

• The California Constitution requires the state to hold a recall election within 60 to 80 days after the signatures petitioning for a recall have been certified …The 9th Circuit, however, has chosen instead to rewrite the rules in the middle of the contest in a way, most observers agree, that will benefit the Democrats.
• ...In reaching its result, the 9th Circuit ignored well-settled law. The U.S. Supreme Court has long recognized the need to give individual localities the flexibility to adopt voting systems that are best tailored to their unique circumstances, even though some counties will inevitably be better than other counties at counting. ... It is truly shocking that the 9th Circuit could simply ignore what the Supreme Court had already said on this issue, in order to upset an election process that is already divisive.
• ...More important, the 9th Circuit ignored the undisputed evidence that the new systems that would be implemented in March 2004 were untested at best and would probably produce additional voting problems. What will be unveiled in March is not the latest generation of touch-screen voting, but an InkaVote system that has never been used anywhere in the country.

There’s much more. Read the whole thing.