congressional_record: CREC-2000-12-15-pt1-PgE2195
Data license: Public Domain (U.S. Government data) · Data source: Federal Register API & Regulations.gov API
This data as json
| granule_id | date | congress | session | volume | issue | title | chamber | granule_class | sub_granule_class | page_start | page_end | speakers | bills | citation | full_text |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CREC-2000-12-15-pt1-PgE2195 | 2000-12-15 | 106 | 2 | U.S. SUPREME COURT PREVENTED JUDICIAL INTERVENTION IN THE ELECTION | HOUSE | EXTENSIONS | ALLOTHER | E2195 | E2195 | [{"name": "John Edward Porter", "role": "speaking"}] | 146 Cong. Rec. E2195 | Congressional Record, Volume 146 Issue 155 (Friday, December 15, 2000) [Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 155 (Friday, December 15, 2000)] [Extensions of Remarks] [Page E2195] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] U.S. SUPREME COURT PREVENTED JUDICIAL INTERVENTION IN THE ELECTION ______ HON. JOHN EDWARD PORTER of illinois in the house of representatives Friday, December 15, 2000 Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court was consistent with common sense and the need to bring finality to a process which, in my judgment, should never have started. By that, I mean the judicial involvement in the election decision. Before the onset of technology, in the distant past when paper ballots were used in elections, the standards for a valid vote were clear and universally observed. To vote, you placed an ``X'' in the box by the candidate's name. If you used a check mark or other mark or placed your ``X'' outside of the box, your vote for that office was invalid and, in the absence of fraud, was not counted. Voting machines were meant to speed the process of voting and counting the votes cast. But they also have standards. If you do not punch the card in the manner specified, indicating your intended vote, the machine will not count it. If you can't understand the instructions or make a mistake as you vote, you can ask for help or a new ballot. The machine is impartial. It counts all properly cast votes. It does not count those not properly cast, nor should it. Unless there is a challenge to the workings of the machine in counting the vote, or other irregularity or fraud alleged, the count of the voting machine should be the certified or final count in the election. The judicial challenges in Florida by the Gore campaign were based principally upon the cards that the machine did not count. The Gore contention was not that the machines did not count correctly, but that votes not properly cast by the voter should be counted by hand--somehow by having county election officials divine the voters' intentions. It is fascinating that the standards to do this were never established in two decisions by the Florida Supreme Court. Telling county election officials simply to use their best judgment was clearly unconstitutional, as the U.S. Supreme Court just ruled, since it violates the equal protection clause. It is also plainly an open invitation to manipulation of the results and fraud. Fortunately, this episode will result in introducing new technologies for voting designed to foreclose any attempt to go outside the machine result in future elections. Once again, perhaps, technology will save us from ourselves. But let's leave this difficult process with several clear understandings. First, votes have to meet some minimum standard and voters have to take the responsibility for their own actions. More than two hundred years ago our new country placed its future on the judgment of individual people, not dictators or kings. But with rights come responsibilities. One is to meet minimum standard of preparation and execution to cast a valid vote. Second, we should have learned that the judiciary, in the absence of alleged fraud, should not intervene in the political process. For most of our history this has been an unstated part of the separation of powers. The first decision of the Florida Supreme Court should have upheld the Secretary of State's certification. Unfortunately, their desire to intervene in the absence of alleged fraud necessitated not one but two trips to the U.S. Supreme Court. It is instructive that the court in Washington did not itself intervene but prevented the Florida court from doing so. Finally, it is a testament to the founders of this great Republic that all of us are sufficiently imbued with the rule of law that we sat patiently through this long process and believed that it would be resolved as fairly as is humanly possible within that rule. We did not take to the streets, take the law into our own hands, or threaten to overthrow our system. It is not perfect, and we are not perfect, but we know it is the best system that humankind has ever devised. ____________________ |