Propriety of Stay? [was: Another Constitutional Moment?]

[Greg Sisk]

Not exactly.  The Florida Supreme Court said to count the under-votes
only *after* ordering inclusion of 168 votes from Miami-Dade County
that had been generated during the full manual recount of 20 percent
of the precincts that happened to be the most heavily Democratic
precincts in a county that went only narrowly for Gore.  These were
not "under-votes" as such but generated from the full hand recount,
which observers note tend to increase vote totals for both candidates
in proportion to their margin of victory.  Those 168 votes likely
would have been all or mostly off-set by the results of a complete
manual recount in the remaining precints, including the heavily
Republican precincts.  Indeed, the Miami-Dade canvassing board
decided not to do continue their full recount in part because they
realized if it could not be completed, it would be unfair to include
full results from an unrepresentative set of precints.  Including
those 168 votes -- which the Florida Supreme Court ordered with no
analysis or explanation -- was a very different thing than requiring
a count of the under-votes for all precints in the county.

>Greg Sisk writes:  "The recount process set up by the Florida Supreme
>Court was so unbalanced -- especially by including the partial recount
>from Miami-Dade county limited to the most heavily Democratic precincts
>(which is indeed stacking the deck, even if unintentionally) .  .  ."
>I'm puzzled by this description.  The Florida Supreme Court said, "Count
>all the undervotes in Miami-Dade County.  Of course you don't have to
>count again the ones you've already counted [the partial recount
>Professor Sisk describes], but in the end we're going to include the
>undervotes cast everywhere in Miami-Dade."  How is this stacking the
>deck?

--
Gregory Sisk
Richard M. & Anita Calkins
   Distinguished Professor
Drake University Law School
2507 University Avenue
Des Moines, Iowa  50311-4505
515-271-4184
greg.sisk at drake.edu