Election 2004: Vote Early and OftenNovember 22, 2000
Wednesday, October 27, 2004, 10:17 PM
NYT Headline: "Florida Court Backs Hand Recounts and Orders Vote Deadline of Monday".
The ruling was unanimous. The court said that the secretary of state could not certify official results of the election until Sunday evening, and if the office was not open Sunday, the certification would have to take place Monday morning.
The scope of the secretary of state's discretion to ignore late county election returns in general was severely constrained in the ruling.
The opinion had some pretty quotable quotes in it (unlike the oral arguments). For example:
"Courts must not lose sight of the fundamental purpose of election laws: The laws are intended to facilitate and safeguard the right of each voter to express his or her will in the context of our representative democracy. Technical statutory requirements must not be exalted over the substance of this right."
No standards were set on which chads to count. Good thing, too, since all three counties doing recounts were using different standards which changed as the recounts progressed. Once again, I wistfully contemplate uniform national standards...
How were these legal challenges funded? By emergency fundraising, of course, by both parties. Gore raised $3 million within 24 hours of the polls closing on November 7; the Bush campaign started a few days later and had raised $4.6 million by the time the Florida court ruling came down.
Nowadays, everyone knows you have to get started much earlier than that.
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