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Ballots where 'voter intent' is clear must be counted, Florida high court says
By Raju Chebium
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Florida Supreme Court on Friday handed Democrat Al Gore a partial victory, ordering a lower-court to recount some 170,000 ballots that elections officials rejected for failing to register a vote for president. Florida's highest court said in the 4-3 ruling that the recounts must begin immediately, mindful of a December 12 deadline set by federal law for state legislatures to choose presidential electors.
And the standard for recounting, the court said, is the one set by the Florida Legislature -- ballots where "voter intent" is clear must be counted. Bush campaign point man James Baker said the campaign would appeal the Florida decision to the U.S. Supreme Court but had not Friday night. It did petition the Florida Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court to block any recount of votes until the U.S. Supreme Court decides whether to hear its appeal. The campaign also asked the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to revisit a decision earlier in which that court dismissed Bush attempts to block recounts. The court ruled Wednesday there was no evidence "at this time" that the manual recounts caused any irreparable harm to Bush or his supporters. The court noted that Bush was certified the winner of Florida's presidential vote and its 25 electoral votes. Separately, an attorney representing three Republicans in Brevard County, Florida, filed an emergency petition with the 11th U.S. Circuit court in Atlanta Friday night which also seeks to block any hand count of Florida presidential votes until the U.S. Supreme Court acts. Florida's highest court delivered a stinging rebuke in overruling Leon County Circuit Judge N. Sanders Sauls, who on Monday rejected Gore's bid to force Miami-Dade officials to manually recount 9,000 ballots the county rejected earlier for having no vote or having been double-punched. The Florida court ordered Sauls to supervise the manual recount of those 9,000 votes, saying the judge misapplied the law in rejecting the Gore request. Later Friday, Sauls recused himself from overseeing the Miami-Dade County recount. No reason was given. A hearing was scheduled for 8 p.m. Friday in the Leon County courthouse to determine how to proceed. It's not known what judge will preside. The assignment was next offered to Judge Nikki Clark, who earlier Friday refused to throw out 15,000 absentee ballots in Seminole County. She did not want to take the job, so it went next to Judge Terry Lewis, who on Friday rejected a plea to throw out some 10,000 absentee ballots in Martin County. He accepted the assignment and presided over an evening hearing on how to organize the counting. The Florida court also said Sauls was wrongly applied the law by: The court said Sauls was correct in: Quotes from the majority ruling"Although in all elections, the Legislature and the courts have recognized that the voter's intent is paramount, in close elections, the necessity of counting all legal votes becomes critical," the majority opinion says. "Although the time constraints are limited, we must do everything required by law to ensure that legal votes that have not been counted are included in the final election results," according to the opinion. Only then, the opinion goes on to say, "can a meaningful and final determination in this election contest be made." Under Florida law, the "focus" of a "manual reexamination" of a ballot is to determine whom the voters wanted to select on Election Day, according to the majority ruling. "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 the President of the United States," the ruling said. Disagreeing again with Sauls, the Florida high court said it is satisfied with Gore's legal team's evidence that failing to manually recount thousands of uncounted votes could affect the election's outcome. Sauls had ruled that the Gore camp's showing of "reasonable probability" that the outcome could have been different is not enough. Sauls had asked for uncounted ballots from South Florida to be trucked to the state capital of Tallahassee, but did not count them -- a move the Florida high court said placed the Gore team in a "Catch-22" position. "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 of such evidence," the majority ruling said. Justices Barbara Pariente, Harry Lee Anstead, Fred Lewis and Peggy Quince formed the majority. Chief Justice Charles Wells and Justices Major Harding and Leander Shaw dissented. Wells' dissentWells wrote in his dissent that the majority ruling violates the law and will cause an "unnecessary" constitutional crisis. "The majority's decision to return this case to the circuit court ... has no foundation in the law of Florida," he wrote. "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." He said the fact that Sauls did not find "dishonesty, gross negligence, improper influence, coercion, or fraud" in the voting process provided sufficient grounds to uphold his decision. "Historically, this Court has only been involved in elections where there have been substantial allegations of fraud and then only upon a high threshold because of the chill that a hovering judicial involvement can put on elections," he wrote. "I find that the trial judge correctly concluded that plaintiffs were not entitled to a manual recount." He added that the majority ruling creates the distinct possibility of the Electoral College convening without Florida's 25 electors. "This case has reached the point where finality must take precedence over continued judicial process," Wells wrote. Harding and Shaw's dissentJustice Harding, in a dissent joined by Shaw, wrote that Sauls was right in ultimately concluding that the Gore team did not prove its case. Though Sauls erred in two points of the law, the justices wrote that the Gore team "failed to carry their requisite burden of proof and thus are not entitled to relief." Manually recounting 170,000 uncounted votes statewide, Harding wrote, could not be completed by December 12. "Even if such a recount were possible, speed would come at the expense of accuracy," he wrote, "and it would be difficult to put any faith or credibility in a vote total achieved under such chaotic conditions." RELATED STORIES: Florida Supreme Court hears Gore challenge to election results RELATED SITES: Florida State Courts | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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