My peaceful protest:


How can it be said that the U.S. is the leader of democracy in the world anymore, when the Supreme Court has ruled that the laws of Florida and the votes of all Floridians don't count, effectively choosing the next president of the nation themselves?

 If I was an elector from Florida, I would abstain from voting in the electoral college in protest of this decision. The governor of Texas, the Republican Party, and the U.S. Supreme Court have taken away the right of Floridians to have a full and accurate count of their votes as required by law. I would think that any certification of these votes and electors would be illegal.(12-16-00)

How would you like it if your state was ordered to stop counting votes? I bring suit upon these aforementioned entities for trampling on my rights as a citizen of the United States of America. (I sued for justice in the court of the LORD my God under whom this nation stands.)

A copy of my emails to my representatives in the House and Senate of the United States:


..copy: Dec 19, 2000


[Dear Honorable Representatives,]


Please at least consider objecting to the final count of electoral votes in Congress on the grounds that the certification of these votes and electors was illegal without the fulfillment of the requirement in Florida law of a hand count of ballots. I believe the U.S. Supreme Court disenfranchised Florida voters from their lawful right to have a true voice in the choice of their president. I understand that it is the Supreme Court that let this state down and there may be no remedy, but does counting votes still matter? I feel I must protest their decision myself, but I know even considering this option would put yourself and the nation in a very bad position.

Has the Republican Party bullied their way into the White House by having stalled the count in Florida until time expired? Does the U.S. Supreme Court have the right to effectively choose the president or to stop a state from counting its votes? If this is a beginning of the erosion of our rights and liberties, what is next? Isn't voting our most basic and cherished right as citizens of this country? What do our votes matter if they don't need to be counted? How can we now have confidence that they will matter in the future, or that other rights will not disappear?

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

James Patrick Holmes



January 6, 2001

My thanks to the Honorable Representative Corrine Brown, my representative in the House of Representatives.


January 10, 2001

What is more important, a peaceful transition in the presidency or the right of a state to count its votes? The ones who stopped the count are the ones who talk about states rights. Well, actions speak louder than words.


January 12, 2001

The voting system here definitely needs modernization; many problems showed up. But, I think the Supreme Court has taken a wrong turn. Was it only for convenience that the count was stopped? Wouldn't counting the votes have helped more to insure the peaceful transfer of power, now and in the future? And, how can we trust the Republican Party or the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the Constitution anymore?

Attention people of the United States of America. The US Supreme Court has usurped your right to choose the leaders of this country, and those members of the court should be impeached as well as their choice. The warmonger George W. Bush was the candidate of the rich and his policies will lead to the ruin of this nation and of your personal lives and fortunes. If impeachment fails, one logical alternative is armed revolution. But, the citizenry itself is not equipped for such a task and so the fate of this country is sealed. And, we each have to accept our own fate. I'm fairly certain that most Americans don't care about the rights of others, but only their own personal privileges. Another alternative is to leave the country, because the avarice of its people will be its undoing. Welcome to your worst nightmare, America, land of the Gestapo, at war with the world. And, if you receive the mark of the beast, your torment will be great.

Links:
Trust The People

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/31/opinion/31LEWI.html
                        The Feeling of a Coup
                        By ANTHONY LEWIS

6/11/2001  from The Daytona Beach News-Journal Online:
                        http://www.news-journalonline.com/2001/Jun/7/OPN1.htm
                        Rhetoric can't conceal state's election failures
                        News-Journal editorial
                        Thursday, June 07, 2001
                        "...This is the bottom line. Florida voters who were
                        entitled to vote, who wanted to vote, who tried to vote,
                        had their vote taken away. ...Some lost their vote
                        because a court ordered that they wouldn't be counted.
                        Others never made it to the voting booth because of
                        mistakes -- or state policies seemingly aimed at keeping
                        them out. ... An estimated 180,000 ballots were thrown
                        out uncounted. ...The report includes particularly harsh
                        language for Gov. Jeb Bush and Secretary of State
                        Katherine Harris, who clearly knew about many of these
                        problems before November and chose to do nothing. It
                        condemns the Florida Legislature, which refused to
                        address glaring inequities in the state's election law,
                        even after the national embarrassment of the November
                        election. ...It isn't essential that the abuses were
                        intentional. It is important that they were foreseeable,
                        and that state officials ignored all the warning signs
                        -- and fought tooth and nail to defend the system even
                        after its flaws were exposed. That inaction is, as the
                        commission rightly points out, "grossly derelict." ..."

6/30/2001  from AP:
                        http://www.kgw.com/kgwnews/story.html?StoryID=22078
                        Eugene Attorney Tries to Impeach High Court
                        By AP Staff
                        June 26, 2001, 08:30 AM

                        A former member of Congress launched a campaign to
                        impeach the five conservative Supreme Court justices who
                        voted to stop the presidential ballot recount in Florida
                        last year -- but admits it's a long shot.

                        Charles Porter, an 82-year-old attorney in Eugene, said
                        the Supreme Court ruling was so clearly influenced by
                        politics that under the Constitution there may be
                        grounds to impeach the justices for bias. ...
                         
                        "They did wrong, they voted politically to stop the
                        election," Porter said. ..."We say they tarnished the
                        integrity of the U.S. Supreme Court," Porter said. ...

                        More than 600 law professors around the country have
                        signed a petition decrying the Supreme Court decision,
                        and some have asked the Senate to refrain from ratifying
                        any appointments to the court while President Bush is in
                        office. …


www.nytimes.com/images/2001/07/15/politics/absentee/nat_ABSENTEE_count_index.html
                        http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/15/politics/15BALL.html
                        How Bush Took Florida: Mining the Overseas Absentee Vote
                        http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/15/national/15HOUS.html
                        House Republicans Pressed Pentagon for E-Mail Addresses
                        of Sailors
                        http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/16/opinion/16MON1.html?todaysheadlines
                        Florida's Flawed Ballots
                        http://latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-000058006jul15.story
                        Absentee Vote Did It for Bush
                        http://latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-071401jeb.story
                        Jeb Bush's Recount Role Examined
                        http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/17/politics/17VOTE.html?todaysheadlines
                        Study Says 2000 Election Missed Millions of Votes


7/19/2001  from msnbc and others:
                        http://www.msnbc.com/news/600667.asp?0dm=C11RO
                        In the tense weeks after Election Day, lawyers for each
                        candidate argued over how to count votes, as GOP
                        Attorney Fred Bartlit did over military ballots.
                        Evidence is mounting that GOP operatives used aggressive
                        pressure tactics--in court and out--to boost the Bush
                        vote and depress the Gore vote.

                        Fundamentally corrupt?
                        Evidence mounts that GOP used every trick in the book
                        By Eric Alterman
                        MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR
                        July 15 -   Following an exhaustive, six-month
                        investigation featuring 24 reporters interviewing more
                        than 300 voters in 43 countries and examining thousands
                        of pages of documents, the New York Times has discovered
                        mounds of evidence of unequal treatment of overseas
                        ballots in Florida on behalf of the Republican candidate
                        George Bush. Its report provides additional evidence to
                        demonstrate what almost all of us know but precious few
                        are willing to admit: the process that determined the
                        outcome of the 2000 election was fundamentally corrupt.
                        Republicans dominated the public relations battle, the
                        behind-the-scenes political struggle, and ultimately the
                        fateful Supreme Court decision that handed them their
                        tarnished victory. ...


8/29/2001  from The Palm Beach Post:
                        http://www.gopbi.com/partners/pbpost/epaper/editions/thursday/news_2.html
                        Harris sought state money for GOP operative
                        By S.V. Dáte, Palm Beach Post Capital Bureau
                        Thursday, August 23, 2001
                        TALLAHASSEE -- Secretary of State Katherine Harris tried
                        to have the state pay $12,000 to a Republican operative
                        who she has maintained was a volunteer working out of
                        her Capitol office during last year's presidential
                        recount. ... Critics, particularly Democrats, have said
                        it was inappropriate for Harris -- herself a former
                        co-chair of George W. Bush's campaign in Florida -- to
                        seek the advice of partisan political consultants when
                        she was supposed to be acting in the interest of all
                        Florida voters, not just Republican voters during the
                        weeks following the November presidential vote. …

11/12/2001  from The Nation:
                        http://thenation.com/thebeat/
                              One year after Florida debacle: Jesse Jackson Jr.
                              presses for fundamental election reforms
                              November 7       @ 11:52am

                        by John Nichols, The Nation, The Online Beat:
                         
                        "... U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill.
                        The outspoken congressman marked the anniversary by
                        setting up a podium in front of the Supreme Court and
                        announcing that he would ask Congress to endorse a
                        series of dramatic voting reforms.
                        "The disputes in Florida and other states showed us that
                        we need one national standard for voting and one
                        national standard for counting votes," said Jackson.
                        "But they also reminded us that there are more basic
                        reforms that are needed."
                        Among the reforms Jackson seeks is a constitutional
                        amendment to guarantee all Americans an explicit right
                        to vote.
                        "Most Americans will be shocked, appalled and outraged
                        to learn that their Constitution does not grant them the
                        right to vote. The 15th, 19th and 26th Amendments
                        prohibit 'discrimination' in voting on the basis of
                        race, sex and age -- but does not extend to (Americans)
                        the right to vote," Jackson said, recalling Supreme
                        Court Justice Antonin Scalia's admonition to Al Gore's
                        lawyers during last year's Florida dispute that no such
                        protection exists. "Even though the right to vote is the
                        supreme right in a democracy, the Supreme Court in Bush
                        v. Gore told Americans there is no explicit fundamental
                        right to suffrage in the Constitution." ... "


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