Subject: Letter to the Editor

It is more than ironic that the Florida Supreme Court ruled that since the Will of the People is paramount, the recount in a few Florida counties must go on. Previously this Court ruled that while the Will of the People was nice, the people were obviously misled and the Court knew better and so struck down statewide initiatives passed by these same voters. When you put the robes of Supreme Court Justices on party hacks, neither the Court nor the hacks become fair and impartial. With a straight face the court ruled that voters in a few counties will be "disenfranchised" unless their ballots are counted a third time under ever changing rules as to what constitutes a vote, while the majority of Florida votes are only counted twice by the same rules, and thus the Will of the People will be thwarted.

The Will of the People isn't that Al Gore or George Bush be President. Less than 25 percent of registered voters bothered to vote for either man. And even of those who voted, not only did neither get a majority of the votes, but we can't tell if voters favored Gore or Bush - the two hundred thousand votes margin of difference could evaporate in the California absentee vote count or in the millions of ballots that were rejected by machine all across the country.

But the Will of the People is this: that elections and election judges be fair and impartial, that the laws and rules be followed, and that these laws and rules not be changed over and over after the election so that a particular candidate wins. And that Will is being thwarted in Florida as you read this.

Kevin Murphy