Florida Law on Deadlines and recounts

[John Noble]

At 11:32 AM -0500 11/13/00, Michael MASINTER wrote:
>For those interested, here is the Florida statute upon which the Florida
>secretary of state relied for her insistence upon the 5:00 Tuesday
>deadline for certification of the vote from each county.  The statute
>governing recounts is too long to post; here is a link:
>http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_S
>tring=&URL=Ch0102/SEC166.HTM&Title=->2000->Ch0102->Section%20166

Sec. 102.166(4)(b) of the statute governing re-counts provides: "Such
request [for a manual re-count] must be filed with the [County] canvassing
board prior to the time the canvassing board certifies the results for the
office being protested or within 72 hours after midnight of the date the
election was held, whichever occurs later."

If you can request a recount AFTER the County certification might be filed
but by midnight last Friday, or as late as 5 minutes before it must be
filed at 5 pm on Tuesday, it would seem to imply that it is for the purpose
of requiring that the County certification be amended, and suggests that
the 5 pm Tuesday deadline for filing the then-current count is pro forma,
and may be amended at least as late as Saturday when it must be
supplemented with the final count of the absentee ballots. Is there another
way to read it?

John Noble