Florida Law on Deadlines and recounts

[Michael MASINTER]

The argument Tom makes, along with Florida and US constitutional
arguments, are being presented right now in a hearing in Leon County
(Tallahassee) Circuit Court.

Michael R. Masinter                     3305 College Avenue
Nova Southeastern University            Fort Lauderdale, Fl. 33314
Shepard Broad Law Center                (954) 262-6151
masinter at nova.edu                       Chair, ACLU of Florida Legal Panel

On Mon, 13 Nov 2000, Tom Grey wrote:

> Thanks to Michael Masinter for posting the text of the statute governing
> the Florida Canvassing Commission, and the 5 pm deadline on Tuesday. That
> supplies a strong argument that there should be certification on the basis
> of returns made to the Secretary of State by that point.
>
> But the other statute, the one to which he provides a link, Section
> 102.116, governing protests, clearly contemplates manual recounts of the
> kind the four county Canvassing Boards have ordered. And it seems obvious
> that in the larger counties, a timely-requested manual recount might not be
> reasonably completed by the Tuesday deadline.
>
> Isn't the most natural reading of these two statutes that the counties
> should file returns by the Tuesday deadline on the basis of the count to
> that point, but that these must be subject to subsequent correction in
> light of a manual recount, completed by the county Canvassing Board within
> the time reasonably necessary to do the job? Otherwise the provision for a
> manual recount would be rendered ineffective in the larger counties. This
> seems an absurd result, and in any event I don't see any text that seems to
> dictate it.
>
> Hard to see the con law content in this question, I concede! But the boss
> is out of town. And the constitutional question that IS being argued this
> morning seems too easy -- I am listening to Ted Olson in the background on
> the tube, essentially arguing that allowing manual recount of punch ballot
> voting is per se unconstitutional! The Chad Guarantee Clause...
>
> -- Tom Grey     Stanford Law School    tgrey at law.stanford.edu
>
>