It is with some hesitation that I respond to Ann Adams letter questioning the 2000 election results (Letters, Aug. 14). My hesitation is rooted in the manner in which Ann laid out all of her cards for the community to see. Ann clearly is a disgruntled citizen suffering daily from the after effects of the 2000 election and has a bad case of paranoia with those folks in our government that do not possess the same ideology as Ann. Ann has a clear case of democrat dementia.

I will take this opportunity to respond to Ann in an attempt to educate her on the correct workings of the three branches of the American government. In a nutshell, the legislature is supposed to write the laws, the judicial branch judges those laws as constitutional (or not) and the executive branch carries out the laws. Prior to the 2000 election, the Florida legislature had written a law with a deadline to count the vote. The executive branch was in the process of carrying out that law, when a liberal state supreme court ruled that the timeline to count the vote was insufficient. Had the Florida Supreme Court stopped there, they would have only been slightly over the line. However, being a fairly liberal court, the Florida Supreme Court chose to practice judicial activism by “legislating from the bench” to come up with their own legislation that determined a new date to count the vote. The Florida Supreme Court was clearly working outside the constitutional limits set on the judicial branch. I am glad that the Federal Supreme Court stepped in to stop the insanity. James Madison, a founding father of this country, felt that judicial activism was an impeachable offense. Madison felt that judicial activism would lead to “a government which is merely an exponent of the individual political opinions of judges.”

Ann’s democrat dementia obviously effected her omission of the fact that Vice President Gore made sure that the absentee votes of service members (who tend to vote conservative) were not considered while only contesting a recount in those Florida counties that were heavily democrat. Without a doubt, a statewide recount or a recount with service members included would have rendered different results than Vice President Gore was looking for. So much for Ann’s cry that every vote be counted.

With respect to Ann’s claim that “none of us can know what they (the election results) were,” since the 2000 election, members on both side of the aisle have conducted numerous recounts of the Florida counties that Vice President Gore contested and as far as I know, all have still given the election to President Bush. I might add that those recounts included those voters without enough conviction in their vote to push the chad all the way through.

I hope it doesn’t take until 2004 before Ann can find some relief from her democrat dementia.

Ken Ellison

Oak Harbor