“Why in the world would either the Legislature or the secretary of state or anybody object to local elections officials trying to ensure that their system operates as intended and that they get it right?” asked FL Supreme Court Justice Harry Lee Anstead as he crawled out of his cave to officiate at a hearing yesterday in Tallahassee.
The nearly-unheard of voice of reason momentarily reared its lonely head on Wednesday, if perhaps just temporarily, from the Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole down which American elections have almost entirely disappeared.
Anstead was questioning attorneys representing Sarasota’s still-unresigned, democracy-hating Election Supervisor Kathy Dent and FL’s Sec. of State Kurt Browning. The pair are attempting to nullify the democratic (small “d”) citizens’ ballot initiative successfully voted in by a majority of Sarasota voters in 2006. The initiative called for improvements in the county’s election system — including paper ballots with post-election audits — in hopes of offering more accuracy and integrity.
Needless to say, Dent and Browning are against that idea.
The following snippet of yesterday’s extraordinary exchange — including the attorney’s remarkable response to Anstead’s question — comes from a Sarasota Herald Tribune report today.
Silly Harry. Clearly he needs to get out more…
At Wednesday’s hearing, justices questioned why, if the Legislature wanted uniform elections rules across the state, counties are permitted to use voting machines from different manufacturers.
By far the most intense exchange came between Justice Harry Anstead and the lawyer representing Browning, Pete Antonacci.
Anstead questioned the reasoning behind the state not wanting local governments to adopt stricter election checks and balances.
“Why in the world would either the Legislature or the secretary of state or anybody object to local elections officials trying to ensure that their system operates as intended and that they get it right?” Anstead said.
Antonacci said the county’s amendment “interferes with the counting, recounting and certification of votes.”
Anstead wanted to know how.
“It will happen, as night follows day, that there will be inconsistent results and those inconsistent results will be known” before certification, Antonacci said.
“Well that seems to me to follow the policy of see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil,” Anstead said.
“That there are problems there that we don’t want to know.”
Antonacci responded, “When you’re going to have dueling numbers, it’s going to throw a monkey wrench into every outcome.”
“It will happen, as night follows day, that there will be inconsistent results and those inconsistent results will be known” before certification,
here we have the lawyer admitting the machines do not report the correct numbers
But nobody questioned him more closely. “What do you MEAN there will be inconsistencies? Are you saying that the machines don’t count the votes correctly? If you are, then you are ADMITTING that you are in violation of the law. I’ll just have you arrested RIGHT NOW.”
Ah Yes!! Dueling numbers and dueling monkey wrenches. I wonder whether, instead of having monkeys throw wrenches,they could also be used to count votes in Florida.
I am sure they would be more accurate than machines and probably cost a lot less.
Well, I guess they would not be hackable and would not understand who was supposed to win.
“When logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead”
It looks like at least one Justice has a sense of justice. Actually, the Florida Supreme Court has a very good reputation on election cases, but until it rules, there is no way to know whether it will rule in a manner which will allow the public to be kept in the dark about whether or not the votes are counted accurately.
Of course, we have a fundamental right to make sure that our votes are counted accurately. After all, what good is voting if the votes are not counted accurately and the will of the voters is ignored? But, how can we know that our votes are counted accurately if they are counted in secret?
Right now, we no longer get to elect our leaders or throw bad ones out of office. Our votes are “counted” in secret on computers, and these official secret vote “counts” have been proven wrong repeatedly. Dent’s attorney just admitted the lack of consistent “counts” is a reason to keep the people in the dark. People might be upset if they knew that the loser was put in office. Some dictator may take over, start a big war, trash the economy, and allow a few mergers to create an oil industry cartel that would be able to extract monopolistic profits from the citizens at least until the resulting inflation causes a recession or depression.
However, not only is secret vote counting dangerous, it’s unconstitutional, and when it was put in place, it is impossible to imagine that no one bothered to look at the constitutionality of it. For more information, see Project Vote Count’s Election News at http://www.projectvotecount.com...ctionNews.aspx
Before anyone gets excited about the potential of a just ruling in favor of election integrity, the Florida Supreme Court does have a bad reputation of allowing the Florida Bar to attack those of us who expose judicial corruption. In case you haven’t noticed, the same people who have undermined the integrity of our elections have also undermined the rule of law. For example, recall the Bush v. Gore decision where the U.S. Supreme Court for the first time said don’t count the votes!
In my case, the clerk of the Florida Supreme Court issued an order disbarring me which conveniently prevented me from filing the appellate brief in John Russell’s election contest which had been improperly dismissed along with the contests by Clint Curtis and Frank Gonzalez. Curiously, the election contest filed by Christine Jennings in Florida state court was not dismissed. For more information on this, see http://www.opednews.com/article...e_action_o.htm
Not a single justice’s name or signature was on the order disbarring me although Article V § 3(a) of the Florida Constitution requires the concurrence of at least four justices to issue any decision which is shown by their names on the order. See, http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Stat...tatutes#A05S03
Of course, there were many other problems with the order disbarring me. For more info on that see the Florida Bar v. Adams web site at http://www.msnusers.com/Florida..._whatsnew.msnw
Rule of Law has the background of my story at: http://www.rule-of-law.info/adams-smith.htm
Tulane Link has info on my story at: http://www.tulanelink.com/tulan.../adams_box.htm
I’ll get the documents showing this gross injustice up on http://www.ProjectVoteCount.com soon.
It looks like at least one Justice has a sense of justice. Actually, the Florida Supreme Court has a very good reputation, but until it rules, there is no way to know whether it will rule in a manner which will allow the public to be kept in the dark about whether or not the votes are counted accurately.
Of course, we have a fundamental right to make sure that our votes are counted accurately. After all, what good is voting if the votes are not counted accurately and the will of the voters is ignored? But, how can we know that our votes are counted accurately if they are counted in secret?
Good points, Mr. Adams, as usual! No one knows better than you just how loaded with turkey dung is the FLORIDA COURT SYSTEM when it comes to so much downright DEVIOUS election hooey…well, you and several hundred thousand of heartbroken, disenfranchised voters.
And GOD LOVE YA’, Brad, for this follow-up~! This is one of the MOST OVERLOOKED and KKaarraAAZZY never-ending stories to come out of FL in 2006.
Imagine: taxpayer money being used to overturn the will of the…TAXPAYERS! If this doesn’t show what kind of a demon-seed we have in DENT (and Browning) then you’ll LOVE this lil’ clip I put together from the SARASOTA RECOUNT:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DLJvtnP9-0
“Kurt Browning Has Two Theories…”
(…This video features a CNN interview with Kurt Browning from Sarasota’s DOUBLE RECOUNT in 2006, discussing his “theories” for the whopping 14.9% undervote in Sarasota–both theories? Voters are dumb and have fat fingers. Astonishingly, he even MOCKS voter complaints, showing that his disdain for the voters is PALPABLE. My partner LEONARD SCHMIEGE just happened to be standing there right next to him filming when these comments were made.)
I don’t believe they EVER aired ANY of this interview on CNN. Without a doubt, this is one of my favorite videos we posted from Florida that no one ever saw…speaks volumes.
Thanks again Brad, and kind BRADBLOGGERS, swing some donations to SARASOTA ALLIANCE FOR FAIR ELECTIONS if you can muster any more giving…you wouldn’t BELIEVE what this scrappy, wonderful group of citizens has been through these last two years…!
The only thing that bothers me guys is conflating accuracy with transparency, without tranparency, their is no accuracy IMO
Kinda like the conflation of voter fraud with election fraud, no?
I read Mark Adams’ post above after writing my above and that’s why I believe transparency has to come before accuracy.
Right on Mark!!!
Then I watched Jeannies video
That makes perfect sense to me, if you didn’t vote for Crist or any Republican up-ticket, the Jennings Buchanan race wasn’t presented to you.
Abso-fukin-lutly
#7 Kinda’ reminds you of the idjuts in Palm Beach in 2000. All the probs. in every state Hillary won. Blame the victim…it’s the Republican way of life. Wish they all had to sit and watch Dexter from beginning to end. For those who didn’t watch…Dexter splits his personality off so he is a likeable cop part of the time…Chainsaws criminals who slipped through the cracks of our justice system the other. The character is so likeable you hate to see him get caught. Believe the setting was Fl. too.
Hillary will be looking for work soon … perhaps an opening there … ?
jeanie that video is great…hard evidence that dent knew she had a problem weeks before the election
Ahh, maybe that’s why there is such a concerted effort now in Ohio to get rid of Kucinich next November?
He wanted to “fix” the “fixed” elections by introducing the bill for hand counted paper ballots in the Federal elections…eh Mark?
Man, did you get the license plate number of that judges car that ran you over?, holy shit!!!
Hey,
Are you guys sayin that the supreme delegates on the supreme court did not count the votes accurately and therefore crown preznit blush over the lowly weatherman Gore?
Say it ain’t so lefty …