A small, relatively unimportant event occurred Tuesday night [Dec. 12]. The election of 2000 was settled. Surely most Americans and much of the world breathed a huge sigh of relief but as a nation we are in danger of ignoring three very serious matters resulting from the events of the past five weeks. Any of the three is more important than who serves as President for the next four years... All three require the utmost attention of everyone.

First is the clutter created between federal and state law by the forced intervention of the U.S. Supreme Court into a purely political affair. Associated with this point is the terrible precedent of court involvement in political contests.

Second is the crooked, disparate, abomination, of election systems in the United States.

Third is the nefarious and subtle effort beginning to emerge to abolish the Electoral College system.

First, let's discuss the U.S. Supreme Court and its intervention into state's turf. This was not a garden-variety federal versus state's rights intervention. The action required was of the highest order and extremely serious. It was apparent to all that the country's highest court wanted nothing to do with the election dispute but the reluctance was not because the nine justices were chicken... It was because each of them understood the seriousness of setting such a precedent.

Take notice of one element of the court's action. TV pundits were befuddled by the seemly "reverse" nature of the intervention. The most liberal of the justices were holding back, even to the point where two on the "expansionist" side even refused to acknowledge that a federal question existed although the proof was being televised nationally. (The hand recounts violated 'equal protection' rights, i.e., one vote was being evaluated higher than another). Usually on the opposite side of such intervention, the most conservative justices, Rehnquist, Thomas, and Scalia jumped in feet first. This role reversal should be a red flag to everyone. Something was terribly wrong.

Examine the question a little closer. Why would justices Ginsberg and Stevens, who love to fully exercise social engineering concepts (abortion, gay rights, school busing, etc.), find no federal question while seven others saw clear violations of due process and equal protection? Why would Thomas, Scalia, and Rehnquist, who love to stay completely out of state's affairs, suddenly take a case and make quick rulings on a question many characterized as borderline?

To answer the two questions above it is necessary to understand what was been taking place in the election process and, to understand the process, it is useful to use an illustration. When Bill Clinton took office he made several false starts in getting an acceptable nominee for Attorney General. One of the names which never made it to the Senate for confirmation was Lani Guinier a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Much to the chagrin of Hillary Clinton, critics quickly hooted her name down because of Guinier's previously published works. In some of those writings Guinier had proposed that, to correct her perceived wrongs in America, we should start counting votes of certain minorities at a higher value than other votes. Guinier had proposed the idea to offset the original constitutional practice of counting slaves for census purposes as three-fifths of a person. She said we should now count black votes at one and one-half value per vote and that the remedy should continue for many years until all previous wrongs had been corrected.

Public outcry forced Clinton to give up on Guinier's nomination but the U.S. Department of Justice did not give up on her concept. Janet Reno was selected as Attorney General and Reno's DOJ Civil Rights Division was stacked with people who agreed with the Guinier concept. Since then the Department of Justice has been present at selected election sites and also since then there have been counts, re-counts, re-re-counts, etc., making sure that those selected polling places reflected the highest possible minority vote counts. The other voting sites had to be content with the machine counts which have now been shown to have reject rates from 3% to 5%. Notice that Florida was voting under a "consent decree" signed by the state, the Department of Justice, and by a Clinton appointed Federal District Judge. The consent decree provided the legal authority for DOJ personnel to be present and to intervene at specific polling places around the state. Other states had been forced into similar decrees.

The consent decrees were the result of targeted lawsuits filed by the USDOJ against selected states. The lawsuits were generalized, ambiguous, and confusing, leaving state officials bewildered as to what relief was requested. In most cases the complaints simply stated that the state's voting process discriminated against minorities. State officials believed that their process was even-handed and fair. With nothing to hide, state officials eagerly accepted suggestions that lawsuits could be settled with a consent decree permitting DOJ observers at specified polling places. The Decrees were reduced to writing, signed by DOJ and the state, approved by selected federal judges, and entered onto the books as federal law. From then forward, operating policy of the polling place was, in effect, turned over to the USDOJ. Election officials were well aware that federal law trumps state law, so as questions arose during elections, DOJ "observers" called the shots. If a DOJ observer said to re-count, the canvassing boards re-counted. This process resulted in resolutions in favor of minorities for all close elections, i.e., sheriff, county comissioner, school board, etc. In Florida, no one ever expected this convoluted process to be used for a state-wide (Presidential) race.

It is this concept which produced the debacle seen in Florida. The canvassing boards of Miami-Dade and Broward were accustomed to hand recounting because of past DOJ "oversight," so that when the feds on the ground suggested manual recounts the boards got on with it even though state law did not require hand recounts in the circumstances of election 2000. However, the justice department officials overlooked something... Florida has a strong "sunshine" law which allows public witness of official acts and allows cameras in all court rooms. Also, the re-re-counting was normally used for county sheriff races, school boards, etc. In this case the vote was a state-wide tie and suddenly the TV cameras came on. Palm Beach County got caught up in the mess because of the butterfly ballot. Notice that Palm Beach County didn't know "how to recount" so they recounted their ballots "honestly," but Broward was an old hand at manual recounting and Gore picked up huge numbers as nearly 25% of the under-votes [no machine registered vote] were turned into "real" votes. In Palm Beach County, only 6% of under-votes were converted into "real" votes. Another important note: Canvassing boards in the pre-targeted counties knew exactly which precincts within the county were most heavily minority voters and board members could be more liberal or more conservative with "voter intent" during the recount. This inconsistency caused tempers to flare as observers noticed the changing standards within the county during the recounts.

The practice described is a variation of the Chicago System of the late Bill Daly, father of Gore's campaign manager of the same name. In the old Chicago System, ballots with names from cemeteries and prisons were added during the recount stage. When voting machines came into use, adding ballots became more difficult so the manual "recount" method was gradually modified and refined. During the 1950's Republicans realized that the Democrat's system was successful so they adopted the Chicago System but were unsuccessful in Southern Illinois during the Kennedy-Nixon race of 1960. Today, both parties use the system wherever they can get away with it, but for the last two federal elections the Democrat's system has been administered by a federal government agency; the U.S. Department of Justice. In the 1996 nation-wide election, the state of California had nearly 1,000,000 new votes as compared to 1992, about half of them gained through DOJ supervised recounts. A post election analysis revealed that more than one million voters in that election were non-citizens.

It is important to understand that the lower echelon individuals who carry out the government scheme do not realize that they are being played like a violin. Workers are recruited based on political ideology and honestly believe that they are participating in a high-minded effort to help the poor and unfortunate. Most don't have a clue that the DOJ, Jackson-Mfume-Guinier-Kennedy, ideology is orchestrating the symphony in concert with the lower courts. Even the election and canvassing boards are duped because they can't see the total picture. The boards probably realize that the process is a little unfair but they understand that they are obeying federal law (consent decree).

Listen carefully to TV and newspaper political commentators who often talk about cheating but will never describe it because exposing the details would bring on the wrath of the NAACP and liberal Democrats who would hit the airways with vehement denials and accusations of racism.

The process as exposed in Florida creates weird, almost unexplainable situations as was apparent over the past five weeks: The NAACP, Jackson's Rainbow Coalition, and the Democrats demonstrating in the streets yelling racism because ballots were not recounted by hand. ("Count every vote... Count every vote.") They fully understood the potential loss of "votes" as did the U.S. Department of Justice, the Florida Supreme Court, the federal district courts, and the U.S. Supreme Court. So did the Republican campaign... and that is why their first act was to file suit in federal court... Hoping to either frighten the Democrats with exposure or to get the issue before the U.S.S.C. For the first time, the Republicans were willing to risk blowing up the whole scheme rather than stand by while Democrats prevailed. The Florida Supreme Court eventually was caught right in the middle. When their first opportunity came, they ruled 7-0 to continue the charade; not because they believed the practice was legally correct but because their liberal ideology dictated it was the "right thing to do." The second time around, three of them chickened out fearing that national exposure might result in a successful challenge to "the system."

Most of the U.S. Supremes wanted the outlandish practice stopped. Two of the justices, Ginsberg and Stevens, have such a strong ideology to the left that they could not join the others. Ginsberg-Stevens honestly believe that stopping hand recounts would be discriminatory against minorities. Contrary to TV propaganda, the court ruled 7-2 (5-4 was the vote on remedy) that Florida was in violation of the U.S. Constitution; equal protection, guaranteed under Amendment XIV, Section 1. They could not agree on remedy: Souter and Breyer wanted to vacate and remand the case to the Florida supremes with general instructions to fix the unequal problem. However, five of them (Rehnquist, Thomas, Scalia, O'Connor, and Kennedy) had had enough and crafted an order making it nearly impossible for the Florida supremes to get another crack at it. Remanding the case would have made it a Florida only matter: Reversing the Florida court and defining the remedy before remand now makes it the law of the land. They intervened for two reasons: To stop the cheating and to stop the runaway Florida court. Those same five justices now have high hopes that Congress will fix the 'precedent' problem so that future courts will not be able to meddle in elections.

Over the next few days many members of Congress vowed to fix the election systems with federal money to upgrade voting devices. The ubiquitous pronouncements sounded great but watch closely. When the matter is debated in Congress keep an eye on the opposition. There will be a full line of liberal Democrats, pressed by Mfume (NAACP), Jackson, et al, to kill the deal. The black caucus will object but all of the opposition may not be clearly visible. If congress enacts a matching funds deal those "special" counties all across the country may never upgrade . . . They will use cost as an excuse. Why? Because they love those manual recounts. To them recounts are as American as apple pie.

How much would it cost to computerize all of the voting devices and systems in the country? Probably $50 to $100 billion to do it right because to make automated systems fully effective there needs to be registration with state-wide recognition. With such systems we could weed out felons, non-citizens, etc. If congress paid the full amount it would be the best non-defense purchase the nation ever made.

Will it happen? Only if and when each member of the House, and each Senator, has analyzed every precinct and determined if it will help them get re-elected. If it does not help -- or is at least neutral -- it will never happen... Unless the public demands it.

[P.S. During the first weeks following the election 2000, it became abundantly clear that one of the most significant voter problems was the lack of training of both voters and poll workers. This would be a legitimate area for congress to mandate a minimum amount of money per voter to be spent prior to each election for exposure and training of all voters and precinct workers. The training must include registration, ballots, devices, and the process.]