George W. Bush should have won Bush v. Gore

Thank you very much for your extremely thoughtful response! I am actually very glad that somebody who did not vote for Bush took this debate, as it will be much easier to focus strictly on the Supreme Court's decision. Point 1: I apologize, that wasn't clear. I did not mean for that to be an official argument. I added it in as a statistic for a certain shock value, but I agree, it has no bearing on what the Supreme Court should have done. Point 2: This was still part of my introduction. I am sorry, this is completely not your fault. I was very unclear as to where my arguments started. That was a statistic that I threw in to analyze what could have happened if the counties had all counted consistently with the methods they had laid out, and it was never meant to be an argument. I apologize for my disgusting lack of clarity. Point 3: First of all, thank you for pointing out my grammatical error. I actually do appreciate it, because I will make sure to not make the same mistake again. You say that Justice Stevens "acknowledges that the federal court can step in on state election laws." You then provided a quote. If you look carefully at the last sentence of the quote that you provided, you will notice that Stevens says rather bluntly that we should not be interfering with this. He then explains very thoroughly in the next paragraph why it should not have gone to the Supreme Court. He writes, "The federal questions that ultimately emerged in this case are not substantial...the Florida Legislatureï¿½€™s own decision to employ a unitary code for all elections indicates that it intended the Florida Supreme Court to play the same role in Presidential elections that it has historically played in resolving electoral disputes. The Florida Supreme Courtï¿½€™s exercise of appellate jurisdiction therefore was wholly consistent with, and indeed contemplated by, the grant of authority in Article II." In the next paragraph, he writes, "Neither ï¿½ï¿½5 nor Article II grants federal judges any special authority to substitute their views for those of the state judiciary on matters of state law." I could go on finding quotes of his that explain why the Supreme Court was overstepping their bounds in taking the case, but I think that more quotes would be overkill. "Souter made clear that the he felt the Court should never have granted certiorari, but this debate is about Bush v. Gore, not the previous vote by the justices to grant cert. so his comments on this point are merely dicta." The resolution of this debate is "George W. Bush should have won Bush v. Gore." Since the court case needs to happen in order for someone to win it, it is completely within the scope of my argument to say that it never should have happened in the first place. Point 4: "Con is completely off base to claim that anyone who knows anything about the Equal Protection Clause knows it has no bearing on the case." This is true, but I meant it as a tongue in cheek comment. It's unfortunately one of those things that does not translate into text very well. I apologize for the confusion. That said, I do strongly believe that the Equal Protection clause does not have any bearing on this case. For your convenience and the convenience of the voters, the Equal Protection clause states that "no state shall...deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Voting standards; however, are specifically county standards. So, if I were to go to Portland, I would be under a different set of laws since I would be in a different city and a different county. So does that mean that municipal and county laws are all violations of the Equal Protection clause? Of course not. So how are voting laws any different? And even if there was a violation of Equal Protection, then how could stopping a recount and using the results of the original count be any remedy at all? If there was a violation, then wouldn't a better remedy be to recount it with equal standards? They may have had to push the deadline back in order to complete the recount, but I can't see how any self-respecting judge could truly believe that a violation of the equal protection clause is better than having to move a deadline. I personally believe that there was no violation of Equal Protection, but if there was, then why would the majority instate a remedy that doesn't help, if they were truly acting consistently with the law? Last point: Conservatives are less willing in general to take a case that interferes with state rights. That is the first dubious point. As made clear in the last argument, even if their claim that it violated Equal Protection was valid, stopping a recount does nothing to fix that. Also, since the majority said that the violation was only true for the facts of Bush v. Gore, it seems as though they are trying to keep it from being used as precedent. With all of these things that don't seem typical of the Supreme Court, it makes it very hard to believe that all of the justices were truly abiding by the rule of law. I am looking forward to your response!