Summary of legal situation in Fla so far.
Suits challenge legality of
Palm Beach ballot
By John Kennedy and Maya Bell
Tallahassee Bureau
Published in The Orlando Sentinel on November 10, 2000
"It`s really so messy that I think it`s going to have to
be a very, very strong showing to get the court to do
anything to disturb the election."
-- Joe Little
University of Florida law professor
TALLAHASSEE -- Democratic challenges to Palm
Beach County election returns appeared strong enough
Thursday to further delay the outcome of the presidential
race.
Legal experts throughout Florida said Thursday that the
design of the county`s ballot appears to have violated
state law, meaning that the courts likely will hear the
merits of the five lawsuits filed against the elections
office.
"You have a ballot which arguably did not comply with
the law," said Terence Anderson, an elections law
expert at the University of Miami. "But whatever you do,
you`re going to have half the American voters feeling
they were robbed. You have a true constitutional
dilemma."
Four lawsuits in Palm Beach County on Thursday were
piled on top of an existing case disputing the design of
the county`s ballot. Critics say the ballot was so
confusing that thousands of voters intending to cast
ballots for Democrat Al Gore mistakenly voted for
Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan.
Those 3,407 votes are suspicious, plaintiffs say, because
they come from predominantly Democratic condo
communities that heavily favored Gore. If those votes
had gone to Gore, they argue, he would have won
Florida`s 25 electoral votes and the presidency.
Another 19,120 ballots were invalidated by the county
because people voted for more than one presidential
candidate -- lending credence, Democratic leaders say,
to claims that many were confused by the ballot layout.
A 1998 Florida Supreme Court ruling involving a
Volusia County sheriff`s election is the guiding legal case
for the current presidential ballot struggle, which will be
settled in state, not federal, courts.
But experts agree the plaintiffs could be blazing new
ground.
"There simply is no precedent in Florida -- or that I am
aware of, any national precedent," Anderson said.
Of the lawsuits in play, two more were filed in
Tallahassee by citizens alleging racial discrimination in
the balloting. Some voters claim they were unable to
cast ballots after being directed to the wrong polling
places.
But Palm Beach County remains the real battleground.
And the elections office there, legal experts say, has a
problem on its hands.
Here`s why:
Under Florida law, ballots must be designed so that
candidates` names appear on the left side and the
spaces or punch holes next to those names appear on
the right. Also, according to the law, the ballot must list
the presidential candidates in the order in which their
parties collected votes in the last gubernatorial election.
The Palm Beach County ballot, though, did not follow
that required format. Instead, it listed the candidates on
two side-by-side pages, with all the punch holes running
in a column between their names.
As a result, the punch hole meant for Buchanan
appeared as the second choice on the ballot -- the
place, according to plaintiffs, that should have been
reserved for Gore.
Indeed, the two-page layout left many voters flummoxed
with its array of punch-holes and arrows.
Republican George W. Bush did appear first on the
ballot, as required by law. That`s because his brother
Jeb Bush, a Republican, won the last race for governor
here.
However, the second punch hole on the list was meant
for Buchanan -- not Gore, as it should have been.
Jon Mills, dean of the University of Florida Law School,
said the ballot does appear to be illegal. "They have
stated at least a rationale question for a judge," he said
of the plaintiffs.
Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Theresa
LePore said she designed the side-by-side pages so that
it could be printed large enough for elderly voters to
read.
The two-page ballot, which Palm Beach County officials
say has been used successfully in previous elections, was
reviewed by state and local Democratic and Republican
Party officials prior to the election.
But Democrats on Thursday said that does not preclude
the latest court challenge.
"Here in Florida, it seems very likely that many more
people went to the polls thinking they were voting for Al
Gore when they were not," said William Daley, Gore`s
campaign strategist.
But former Secretary of State James Baker, who raced
to Tallahassee to monitor the state`s ballot recount for
the Bush campaign, blasted the Democratic challenges
to Florida`s returns, saying they were putting the nation
in jeopardy.
"The presidential election, of course, is on hold," Baker
said. "And that affects the position of the United States
in a number of different ways -- particularly
internationally."
In the Palm Beach County lawsuits, the court likely will
follow a precedent set by the state`s Supreme Court that
involved a disputed 1996 Volusia County sheriff`s race.
In that case, justices set a two-part standard for voiding
election results in cases in which there is no outright vote
fraud. First, the court must determine whether there has
been "substantial compliance" with state voting law,
which Democrats in this case say there is not.
Secondly, the court must determine whether the
irregularities sparking the challenge are sufficient to
"adversely affect. . . the integrity of the election."
Democrats insist this standard easily applies, given
Florida`s razor-thin presidential count.
In their ruling in the Volusia case, however, justices
cautioned that any court should weigh heavily the
decision to void an election since doing so would
interfere with the rights of those who legitimately cast
ballots.
"We must tread carefully on that right or we risk the
unnecessary and unjustified muting of the public voice,"
Justice Charles Wells, a former Orlando lawyer, wrote
for the court.
Indeed, in the 1997 Miami mayoral election, where
thousands of ballots were thrown out because of fraud,
courts stopped short of ordering a new election.
Instead, Xavier Suarez was defeated when his edge in
the absentee ballot count was declared fraudulent and
his opponent, incumbent Mayor Joe Carollo, became
the leading vote-getter.
University of Florida law professor Joe Little said
Democrats in Palm Beach County will have trouble
persuading a court that a second round of balloting is
needed, although few other effective remedies exist.
"It`s really so messy that I think it`s going to have to be a
very, very strong showing to get the court to do anything
to disturb the election," Little said.
Richard McFarlain, a former general counsel for the
Florida Republican Party, agreed.
"I don`t see any fraud there," McFarlain said. "It`s just
an honest mistake. Everybody is entitled to vote. But
nowhere is it written that you have to vote intelligently."
Posted Nov 9 2000 11:10PM
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