I know I am not smoking dope when I read that the Florida Supreme Court rejected the Gore prayer for the 3300 votes already reviewed in Palm Beach to be recounted. Those were the votes that the Gore team argued should be looked at again for Dimples.

It would seem prima facie that that is the standard for the rest of the state to use this weekend. Not sure I completely agree with it, but it is a FALSEHOOD that the supreme court gave no direction. Sure they did not spell it out, but it is OBVIOUS that rejecting the Palm Beach part of the complaint effectively elimanates dimpled chads.

Read the entire decision at www.findlaw.com. Please do me that favor-do yourself that favor. Then maybe we can have a REAL discussion about the facts.

-- SydBarrett (dark@side.moon), December 09, 2000

Answers

Election 2000 - The Florida Deadlock

http://news.findlaw.com/legalnews/us/election/election2000.html

*********************************************************************

Read The Florida Supreme Court Order To Begin Undervote Recount [PDF File]

http://news.findlaw.com/cnn/docs/election2000/fscgoreharrisop1208.pdf< /a>

-- (FindL@w.hotlinks), December 09, 2000.

You can have a PDF file converted to text by e-mailing the relevant URL, in this case

http://news.findlaw.com/cnn/docs/election2000/fscgoreharrisop1208.pdf

to

pdf2txt@adobe.com

Within a few minutes, the bots at Adobe will e-mail you in text form what was in PDF form at the URL.

-- (pdf@to.text), December 09, 2000.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46062-2000Dec8.html

Court Majority Cites State Law

By Roberto Suro

Washington Post Staff Writer

Saturday, December 9, 2000; Page A15

TALLAHASSEE, Dec. 8 – Facing bitter dissent from their fellow justices in a case without precedent, a bare majority of the Florida Supreme Court today ruled that the only way to resolve the 2000 presidential election is to open up ballot boxes all across the state to ensure that all legal votes are counted.

The 4 to 3 majority declared, in effect, that the month-long effort to determine who won the Florida vote had failed. So the justices overturned a circuit court's rejection of a lawsuit brought by Vice President Gore contesting official results that show Texas Gov. George W. Bush the winner of the state's 25 electoral votes. The justices ruled that only extraordinary judicial action can remedy a string of missteps that started with tabulating machines that failed to record thousands of punch-card ballots on election night.

Citing a mandate in Florida law that no vote shall be ignored "if there is a clear indication of the intent of the voter," the court majority found, "The clear message from this legislative policy is that every citizen's vote be counted whenever possible, whether in an election for a local commissioner or an election for President of the United States."

Under the Florida Supreme Court opinion, the circuit court here was ordered to take any measures necessary to get a massive hand recount started immediately so that it can be completed by Dec. 12, when Florida's delegation to the electoral college is due to be officially designated.

Shortly after the opinion was announced, attorneys for Bush announced they would seek an emergency order to halt any recounting as they appeal the constitutionality of the Florida court's action to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Today's decision revealed a Florida high court deeply split over how far the U.S. Constitution and federal law permit the state judiciary to go in intervening in the presidential elections. In dissenting opinions, the three justices who voted against the majority argued that a further recount is impossible as a practical matter, will lead to chaos and faces certain reversal by the U.S. Supreme Court.

"Importantly to me, I have a deep and abiding concern that the prolonging of judicial process in this counting contest propels this country and this state into an unprecedented and unnecessary constitutional crisis," said Chief Justice Charles T. Wells. "I have to conclude that there is a real and present likelihood that this constitutional crisis will do substantial damage to our country, our state, and to this Court as an institution."

Grimly forecasting that the recounts will never be done in time, and that a mishmash of partial results will even further cloud the presidential vote, Justice Major B. Harding said in his dissent, "The uncertainty of the outcome of this election will be greater under the remedy afforded by the majority than the uncertainty that now exists." Justice Leander J. Shaw Jr. joined in Harding's dissent.

Six of the Florida justices were appointed by Democratic governors and the seventh received a joint appointment by a Democrat and a Republican.

The four justices in the majority – Harry Lee Anstead, Barbara J. Pariente, R. Fred Lewis and Peggy A. Quince – concluded that the Florida statutes require the courts to find a final resolution to the legal process begun by Gore when he filed suit under a provision of Florida law that allows a losing candidate to contest election results.

"Although courts are, and should be, reluctant to interject themselves in essentially political controversies, the Legislature has directed in section 102.168 that an election contest shall be resolved in a judicial forum," the majority said, referring to the Florida election statutes.

The state Supreme Court found that Circuit Court Judge N. Sanders Sauls had made several serious errors of legal judgment in deciding after a two-day trial last weekend to reject Gore's pleas for a recount of disputed ballots. The Supreme Court majority found fault with Sauls' basic approach to defining the issues in the case and the manner in which he set the legal threshold for determining whether Gore had met the necessary burdens of proof.

Perhaps most importantly, the Supreme Court found that Sauls erred when he refused to examine disputed ballots submitted to him by the Gore team as the most important evidence in their case. On each of these points, Sauls' decision echoed the key arguments made by the Bush attorneys both at the trial and during Gore's appeal.

"Only by examining the contested ballots, which are evidence in the election contest, can a meaningful and final determination in this election contest be made," the majority opinion said.

During the circuit court trial, Gore's attorneys presented testimony to show that punch-card balloting systems sometimes fail to register a legitimate vote. That happens, they argued, because a voter fails to fully perforate a ballot, and electronic tabulating machines see nothing when the chad – the piece of paper that is supposed to be dislodged – is hanging or merely indented.

Relying on the results of three county recounts, which found substantial numbers of recognizable votes when canvassing boards examined ballots by hand, and a large body of law that calls for the counting of ballots even when voters do not mark them properly, Gore sought a manual recount of 13,000 disputed ballots from two counties.

The key batch of ballots that Gore wanted examined and that are to be recounted under the Florida Supreme Court decision came from Miami- Dade County, Florida's most populous jurisdiction. Members of the country canvassing board there started, modified and then stopped their recount under sometimes chaotic circumstances.

Some 10,750 punch-card ballots, which did not register a vote when they were put through electronic tabulating machines, were identified and partially recounted. Some 9,000 of the "undervotes" remained unexamined when the count was halted.

The state Supreme Court ruled today that Gore should get the net gain of 168 votes that resulted from the partial count and that the other 9,000, which were transported here last week, now should be examined.

The election contest law states that to challenge the results a losing candidate must show "the rejection of a number of legal votes sufficient to change or place in doubt the result of the election." The Florida high court ruled that Sauls had misinterpreted this provision and that the "undisputed showing of the existence of some 9,000 'undervotes' in an election contest decided by a margin measured in the hundreds" was enough to meet the test. Moreover, the court chastised Sauls for refusing to look at the Miami-Dade ballots to see if Gore's claims were correct.

"The trial court has presented the plaintiffs with the ultimate Catch- 22, acceptance of the only evidence that will resolve the issue but a refusal to examine such evidence," the majority opinion said.

The court denied Gore's request for a reexamination of 3,300 ballots from Palm Beach County because they had already been looked at by the canvassing board during a hand recount that found no evident signs of voter intent on them. However, Gore was granted a net gain of 215 votes from ballots examined by the Palm Beach board after the deadline for recounts had passed and that were not counted in the statewide tally.

On the most contentious issue raised during the recount – what standards to apply in deciding whether a dimpled ballot should be counted as a vote – the Florida Supreme Court offered no specific instructions to public officials around the state who will now begin looking at undercounted ballots.

The decision only applies the broad standard in Florida law that "[n] o vote shall be declared invalid or void if there is a clear indication of the intent of the voter as determined by the canvassing board."

In his dissent, Chief Justice Wells highlighted this as a major weakness in the majority opinion.

"A continuing problem with these manual recounts is their reliability," Wells wrote. "It only stands to reason that many times a reading of a ballot by a human will be subjective, and the intent gleaned from that ballot is only in the mind of the beholder."

He added: "This subjective counting is only compounded where no standards exist or, as in this statewide contest, where there are no statewide standards for determining voter intent by the various canvassing boards, individual judges, or multiple unknown counters who will eventually count these ballots. I must regrettably conclude that the majority ignores the magnitude of its decision."

© 2000 The Washington Post Company

-- (Washington@Post.article), December 09, 2000.

In his dissent, Chief Justice Wells highlighted this as a major weakness in the majority opinion.

"A continuing problem with these manual recounts is their reliability," Wells wrote. "It only stands to reason that many times a reading of a ballot by a human will be subjective, and the intent gleaned from that ballot is only in the mind of the beholder."

He added: "This subjective counting is only compounded where no standards exist or, as in this statewide contest, where there are no statewide standards for determining voter intent by the various canvassing boards, individual judges, or multiple unknown counters who will eventually count these ballots. I must regrettably conclude that the majority ignores the magnitude of its decision."

-- Dr. Pibb (dr.pibb@zdnetonebox.com), December 09, 2000.