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Journalism of Courage
It is, perhaps, the greatest irony of the 21st century. In an ICE age characterised by computers it is a case of man8217;s victory over machine. Imagine, the fate of the most powerful institution in the world 8212; the American presidency 8212; rests on the fact whether pregnant and dimpled chads 8212; the little perforated squares of paper that are supposed to fall off when the ballot is punched 8212; will be manually counted or not. The computers had rejected them. Sounds ridiculous, doesn8217;t it? But nevertheless it is true. And how do Americans resolve it? No, not by going to an independent election commission like in our system, but by proving that theirs is a system of judicial sovereignty8217;. Thanks to judicial intervention by the highest court, it now seems that the chads will be counted. And they will hopefully resolve the greatest deadlock in the American presidential elections created by an uncertain verdict.
In a unanimous judgement, the Florida Supreme Court overturned the lower court ruling that had earlier kept manually recounted ballots from three counties out of the final overall tally on the ground that they were not submitted by the statutory deadline of November 14. In other words, the highest court ruled that recounts from key Democratic counties must be included in the state8217;s tally. The apex court which accepted the Democratic argument that the 8220;rights of voters outweigh requirements for strict compliance of the law8221; also gave wide latitude to the local electoral authorities in accepting ballots 8212; containing pregnant chads 8212; otherwise rejected by voting machines. This latest twist is surely a shot in the arm for Vice President Al Gore, who although ahead in popular votes has been trailing Republican candidate Governor Bush by a mere 930 votes in Florida. No doubt, the Republicans have furiously condemned the decision as quot;unfair and unacceptable.quot; One only hopes that at the last moment they do notcome up with another trick up their sleeves, thereby, proving that the American system is indeed a lawyers8217; paradise.8217;
