Chad: Part 2
Legal eagles are already planning for another post-election fiasco like the one we saw in 2000. McCain v. Obama, a hopefully hypothetical case, was argued Monday morning on the campus of Georgetown Law School and those in attendance left worried that a repeat of eight years ago will be seen again in a mere 14 days.
There were a few changes this time around. Colorado took the place of Florida in this mock version, and a weather storm acted as this year’s version of the “butterfly ballot.” The case turned on the fact that some election officials in the county of Denver allowed their polling places to stay open later to accommodate those that had to take alternate routes due to bad weather.
Naturally, the two sides disagreed over whether those late votes should count, but once out of character, both attorneys agreed that it could happen again. Walter Dellinger, lawyer in this case for the respondent Barack Obama, outlined a plausible scenario that could lead to an electoral vote tie of 269 each.
Glen Nager, the lawyer acting for John McCain, admitted more needs to be done to respond to those kinds of scenarios and proposed the idea of an expert court that handles only election law cases.
