The stay he supported on the Florida recount was rampant federal interference in a state matter:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_v._Gore#Stay_of_the_Flori...
Indirectly, he gave us eight years of incompetence and Iraq, a horrible farce of a war.
I think our energies are better served changing the widespread voter disenfranchisement which does in fact distort the ability of our electoral system, as enacted in law, from representing the will of the people.
But voter suppression by Republicans in the South is well-known and widespread, because the GOP wins more elections when the turnout, particularly black turnout, decreases. Florida has a long history of voter suppression, which has been documented on numerous occasions: http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/05/florida-ho...
So, in the Supreme Court vote, we have a majority conservative court that includes Scalia, a Reagan/Bush era appointee, who happens to favor the side of the coin that puts another Bush in the White House.
Scalia admitted that a recount was potentially prejudicial to Bush, and decided it was best to quash it. His action takes place in a sequence of many actions designed to bolster the GOP. Coincidentally, Scalia helped roll back the Voting Rights Act, once a milestone for Civil Rights.
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jun/25/local/la-me-ln-scali...
Every single one of his positions may be impeccably argued, but it's a striking coincidence that he toed a clear ideological line on abortion, gun control, affirmative action and gay marriage, among many other issues.
I do not believe his stance on Bush v. Gore was neutral. He had a horse in the race; his horse won; and America was the worse for it. Good riddance.
The party that tips the scales for its establishment candidate with the superdelegate system can't complain about voter suppression. Clinton ended up with the same number of NH delegates even though Sanders won handily in that primary.
> The Commission's hearings spotlighted and this report highlights the harsh reality that despite the closeness of the election, it was widespread voter disenfranchisement and not the dead-heat contest that was the extraordinary feature of the Florida election.
> under the strictest standard, where only a cleanly punched ballot with a fully removed chad was counted, Gore won by three votes.[38] Under all other standards, Bush won, with Bush's margin increasing as looser standards were used. ... because of the possibility of mistakes, it is difficult to conclude that Gore was surely the winner under the strict standard ...
While in another analysis "Bush won under stricter standards and Gore won under looser standards"
And there are also the "spoiled ballots" where "people had punched and written in a candidate’s name", eg, for people who would "check Gore and write Gore". These were rejected, even though the voter's intent was clear. "The Washington Post found that Gore’s name was punched on 46,000 of the over-vote ballots it, while Bush’s name was marked on only 17,000"
But with all the attention on hanging chad, we didn't hear about that last issue. (I didn't until I read it just now!)
Well there's the problem. What do you do when you have ballots that are objectively unclear, like the infamous butterfly ballot? You can't invalidate the election and have a new one--apart from the logistical problems, the turnout is going to differ significantly based on the media attention and the knowledge that the cancelled ballots were so close.
The best option you have is to mandate judicial review of ballots well before the election. But even that doesn't save you in the situation Florida actually found itself in.
I saw a reproduction of this ballot in the newspaper at the time and I remember wondering what the problem was supposed to be. It seemed perfectly clear, but journalists were jumping on the bandwagon of calling it confusing.
Scalia's suggestion was that if a vote couldn't be read by a machine, it wasn't a legitimate vote regardless of any extenuating details. That may have been influenced by the fact that Florida law only mentioned recounts that were performed by running the ballots through the machines a second time.
Florida law at the time only mentioned recounts in the context an automatic recount that involved putting the ballots back through the same machines a second time.
Gore's legal team asked for hand recounts, and suggested the "clear intent of the voter" standard. Scalia asked whether the standard should be "can be read by a machine," given that Florida statutes only mentioned recounts that involved machines.
If you still disagree, how would you answer my earlier question: I walk into a polling place, announce my name, clearly yell who I want to vote for, and leave. My intent is clear, should my vote count?
What if I were to mail in a ballot, that wasn't postmarked? My intent was clear, but Gore requested that such ballots not be counted. What does the postmark have to do with intent? Or is intent a necessary, but not sufficient, element?
For the record, the last time I filled out a paper ballot (Calinornia, late '90s), they handed me a special marker and told me to use it, or my vote would not count (they also told me not to mark two spots for the same office, or my vote would not count).
However, "is readable by a machine" is not a well-defined standard, and is IMO way too strict; it's more than likely that a panel of human readers would all agree on which name is written on a ballot, without it being readable by a machine.
But it's also not as rigorous as it should be. Two machines may disagree on how readable a particular ballot is, even if both machines are operating within specified tolerances.
Also, singling out Scalia when four other justices voted with him is biased. It is also an incredible stretch to cast responsibility for an incompetence in handling an unanticipated war on any individual (especially in the judiciary!).
Yes, they all share some responsibility, but the amount is so miniscule given future actions and how many people were fooled and lied to so as to be almost completely disconnected.
A judge doesn't decide: a judge weighs evidence and then states which interpretation of the law they believe is correct.
If we had a judicial system arbitrated over by people who could simply say "I want this outcome" and make it so, then the country would and should crumble.
A county or municipality could, for example, decide not to participate in a particular vote, which could have discriminatory effect, but without being overtly discriminatory.