election questions - state court authority to second-guess the recount?

[Greg Sisk]

I too have seen the Palm Beach ballot that is causing the
controversy.  While hardly a model of clarity, and while in
retrospect a better arrangement of the names on the ballot could be
readily devised, it also is true that the placement of the arrows
leading to the hole to be punched can be discerned without much
difficulty.  Moreover, no one has suggested that the ballot design
was intended to cause confusion or that anyone acted with malice --
making this a very different case than one involving fraud.  In any
event, what in the world could be done about the problem now?  How
could we ever ascertain in a fair and legitimate manner which ballots
were mistakenly cast for Buchanan rather than for Gore?  Do we simply
trust any voter who asserts they made a mistake?  What would prevent
a Gore voter from claiming he or she made a mistake and thus
achieving a double vote for Gore?  Even if we find the person
credible, several of these folks have said they're not really sure
whether they made a mistake or not, but they're just worried about it
after the fact.  How could be begin to determine which of the
Buchanan votes are correct and which are not?  In sum, while I find
the claims of confusion less than compelling, even if they are
persuasive, there is no fair process by which to rectify it after the
fact, especially when the present loser of the election is the one
presumably to benefit.  (I suspect if the election had been this
close the other way around, we'd be hearing similar claims of
problems from the Republican side.)

>I agree with Eugene that finality is important.  I assume that if the
>recount goes Bush, then the Florida Secretary of State calls the election
>and people might hope that's it.
>
>BUT, what if some Floridians go into STATE court to dispute the 3000+ votes
>of those who thought they were voting Gore but ended up punching the card
>for Buchanan.  What does judicial comity tell us about the authority of
>state judiciary to take up this question?  Is this a matter purely for the
>state courts to resolve (even if it means that the result of the election
>is kept open for weeks/months)?  Would federal courts have the authority to
>intervene and preempt the state courts from disrupting this outcome?  Under
>what authority would federal courts act?
>
>Howard Gillman
>USC Political Science