David Boies: Courting Justice

Yesterday, I heard the lawyer, David Boies on CSPAN speaking about his new book, Courting Justice, and his case Bush v. Gore.

He's also well-known for United States v. Microsoft, CBS v. Gen. William Westmoreland and New York Yankees v. Major League Baseball.

He didn't have anything optimistic to say about the reforms in Florida's election process. In fact, it was very pessimistic and worrisome to hear his concerns. Florida has replaced card punch voting machines which had some, albeit unreliable, paper trail with computerized machines without any paper trail -- despite the fact that states like Utah have the same machines which were retrofitted to have a paper receipt. Florida chose not to do that.

He is also concerned about the potential for mobs of people who are allegedly simply "observing the voting process" to be standing in line, posing as voters, only to slow the voting down to a snail's pace, causing legitimate voters to give up and not return to vote later in the day. If this happens, and a voter can not get to the voting booth to vote, a voter may still request a provisional ballot, but there is some question as to whether and when these will be counted.