The Miami Herald reported a suit was filed by Mayor Carlos Alvarez:
Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez filed suit in Circuit Court Friday seeking to block his March 15 recall election, alleging numerous petitions gathered to seek his ouster should be tossed out because of various technical flaws.
The suit asks the court to declare that not enough valid petitions were filed to warrant a recall election. It asks the judge to order the mayor's name be stricken from March 15 ballot.
One of the allegations: "Among other things, the latest suit alleges 104,280 petitions are invalid because of a failure to print, type or stamp notaries' names below their signatures." Give me a break, talk about grasping for straws. Is this about the notary or about the voter's wishes? I think requiring notarized petitions in the first place is an outrage. Where is that conspicuously absent ACLU when you need them? Are they off helping skin heads instead of us regular folks whose right to petition our government is made an impossibility.
13 comments:
You are dead-on correct about the ACLU that is why I stopped giving them money. The ACLU takes cases that give them the most publicity, not for the greater good. They were better at one time. What happened?
Let's look at it from the other perspective. If a public official is being recalled, do you want the signatures to be subject to the same abuses that you so loudly complain about when talking absentee ballots?
Since the absentee ballot "problem" you complain about results in an outcome you are politically opposed to and verification of recall petition signatures for the mayor may not, it seems you are on the side of whatever fits your political view at the time.
To state that lack of verification when it comes to absentee ballots subverts the will of the voters, but verification represses the will of the voters when it comes to Alvarez' recall reveals your penchant for hypocrisy as long as it results in the outcome that comports to your political viewpoint.
How sophomoric!
The ACLU can't count past 1 like in 1st amendment, the rest of the Bill of Rights might as well been flushed down a toilet.
David you are so wrong. Go back and read my blog:
http://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com/2011/01/recall-petition-gathers-are-being.html
I am all for signature verification of absentee AND petitions. The signatures are NOT verified on Absentees well enough. Harvey Ruvin hired a signature expert to look at the signatures of questionable petitions. Elections does not do that. What they are complaining about on the petitions are notaries not printing their name - which has nothing to do with the voter. The lawsuits are not questioning signatures, if they were I would say the lawsuits have merit.
On both -- absentees and petitions I want signatures verified to the utmost degree so that we would not have so much fraud. I think Ruvin did a better job then elections does. And David next time -- lose the attitude, I don't have patience... you know where your comment is going to go...
As of now I am quitting the ACLU
G.o.D.
Look at every statement and memorandum Harvey Ruvin put out on this issue. Do you notice the term "On their face" is in every statement.
Ruvin is trying to cover his butt. His office did an extremely cursory job at verification at best. Kind of like a quick glance at each to make sure no lines were blank, or Donald Duck's name wasn't scrawled on there.
The clerk would rather the courts throw out petitions than he throw them out. he has to stand for election too.
Let's just say, I don't think the handwriting expert was very busy.
m
Carlos Alvarez is another policitian who is addicted to the easy money and easy fame. Time to go Carlos. You gave raises to your friends while asking everyone else "to do more with less." You gave over $3.5 BILLION to the Marlins.
Recall Alvarez
The legal basis for the suit is frivolous. Alvarez and the local Republican Party are grasping at straws. More importantly, given the gravity of the situation, I am certain that another 100,000 signatures will be secured in the unlikely event that the challenge is sustained.
The Alvarez reign of error and waste is finished. Another bizarre chapter in tawdry Dade County politics.
The Alvarez situation is similar to that of Mubarak's in Egypt. 100,000 protesters on the steps of County Hall? Unlikely. As Americans, we have strong and rational legal provisions which allow the democratic process to peacefully remove errant autocrats and despots like Alvarez.
Queen Natacha is next.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/02/04/2051676/miami-dade-mayor-alvarez-files.html#ixzz1D6mJT2YQ
Just some information for you G.O.D because apparently you didn't read carefully. The handwriting expert hired by the clerk ONLY reviewed petions that were rejected by his staff of reviewers that had no prior experience in this area. Any petition accepted by his reviewing staff was never seen by the expert. So all his handwriting expert could do is accept petitions not reject them -- a proccess skewed to allow mistakes on those accepted but not allow them on those rejected.
I am an advocate of allowing the public to review signatures in the voter database. I was able to do that at one time with the Florida Hometown Democracy petition.
Now the Republicans changed the law you can't view signatures on the database...so how can you check? You can't. I would be very surprised if the expert was not spot checking as well.
I think everyone maybe missing the point Genius. It’s not about the signature verification, matching and the like. The question is if the petitions were gathered following the rules and regulations as required by law. If not, we are screwed.
Hmmm. That comment smells mighty suspicious, like it is written by a lawyer, who else say:
rules and regulations as required by law
That is lawyer speak.
I agree with GoD -- there's the question of proportionality at work here.
I haven't reviewed the lawsuit, but judging from the defensive, anticipatory spin from Bruce Rogow ("some will say the violations are mere technicalities"), I have the feeling what is being complained about here will turn out to be pretty minor.
Kicking this can down the road won't solve much, but will cost the recall supporters precious time and money.
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