I know what you are thinking.  You are thinking, "after all this, surely The Diva is ready to send that towel flying.  Au contraire, mon amies.  I am not a bit surprised by either decision.  I, unlike the pundits, knew that the U.S. Supremes would split along ideological lines.  I also knew that Judge "I'm Too Untrustworthy for the Second Judicial District" Saul was not going to rule for Gore.  A man who cannot pronounce "electoral" (electorial?) is not going to appreciate having someone like David Boies standing up every day in his courtroom, making him look like the ridiculous rube that he is.  I have known since the get-go that the Florida deck is more stacked than Dolly Parton.  Nothing that happens surprises me anymore.  I've tried to provide you, faithful readers, with the resources to prove this to yourselves.

So, where is the silver lining in all this madness?  I've got your silver lining right here:

The US Supreme Court, in its decision to vacate the Florida Supreme Court decision reconciling the conflicting Florida election laws, did two things it cannot undo:

1.  It established the primacy of state statutory requirements over state constitutional rights.  The law is more important than the vote.  Therefore:
2.  The U.S. Supreme Court has given the Judges in the Seminole and Martin County cases all the justification they need to go forward with the disallowing of absentee ballots secured by tampering with the requisite requests by GOP operatives.  The law is the issue, not the franchise.

To whit:

Article II (of the United States Constitution) gives state legislatures the power to decide how electors must be chosen. Section 5 of Title III, a law adopted in 1887, says the issue of how electors must be chosen must be decided under relevant laws passed before Election Day.

This has been the Bush campaign's drumbeat since the beginning of the election aftermath.  And now, their spin comes back to bite the hand that spun it:

101.62 Request for absentee ballots.
104.047 Absentee ballots and voting; violations
GOP operatives = people being paid for altering absentee ballot requests.  GOP operatives = people other than the elector, a member of the elector's immediate family, or the elector's legal guardian, possessing and altering absentee ballot requests.  Not to mention, of course, the access to sensitive computer voting databases, and the un-equal access argument.

And you know what?  These laws were on the books BEFORE the election.  These laws deal with election fraud, with felonies.  This is not a matter of "error," like the voter error in Palm Beach County, this is a question of criminal activity.  Law and order.  No exchanges, no refunds, no exceptions.

The ActivismHQ

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