[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

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                        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.

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