Well, that's not entirely true either.  The judicial system is
   generally pragmatic, in the sense that they do not address
   issues not brought before the court.  For instance, if someone
   commits a crime, a prosecutor must bring up charges.  Yes,
   this concept seems rather obvious and trivial, but what it
   means is that it is very easy for the body of laws which
   affect any particular situation (e.g. Presidential election)
   to become contradictory and for the accepted practice to
   deviate significantly from what the law strictly allows.  It's
   not necessarily a bad thing that the system works this way,
   but it's definitely a side effect, and most people don't want
   to fix what ain't broke.  Clearly, the Florida situation
   demonstrates that something is likely broken.

   Ern

   -----Original Message-----
   From: James A. Donald [[1]mailto:jamesd@echeque.com]
   Sent: Sunday, November 19, 2000 11:24 AM
   To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
   Subject: The cause of uncertainty in the election outcome.

   Because the vote is so close, the outcome depends entirely on a
   multitude
   of judgment calls about which votes count, and which are counted, and
   how
   they shall be counted.

   The normal procedure in England and the democracies descended from
   England,
   or imposed by English troops, is that the major parties reach agreement
   before and during the vote count, on how the votes shall be counted.
   In
   the US however, you have a multitude of laws, laws which contradicted
   each
   other, and contradicted actual practice.  For example a lot of
   perfectly
   good absentee ballots that were presented by the military in accord
   with
   the usual military practice were rejected this time because they did
   not
   comply with the letter of the law, even though they complied with
   custom
   and practice.

   The cause of the uncertainty is judicial imperialism.

   It is often said that Americans are litigious,but the cause of this
   destructive litigation is judicial willingness to unpredictably
   overturn
   existing practice.

References

   1. mailto:jamesd@echeque.com