What the Democratic pundits, as well as David Boies fail to appreciate or respect is the foundation upon which Harris dutifully exercised her discretion.
First, one should refer back to the ruling by the Florida circuit court judge in this matter. He essentially ruled that he could not remove from her the discretion vested her by the legislature whether to grant exceptions to the Tuesday 5pm deadline, but that in the exercise of her discretion should could not reject the request from the local canvassing boards ARBITRARILY. Arbitrarily means capriciously, without reason, without foundation, whimsical.
Now, if one listened to Harris' news conference she set forth the steps she went through to arrive at her decision to reject any late hand counted ballots. She had requested, and she had received, an explanation as to why she should accept late submitted ballots from each of the counties. She had researched Florida CASE LAW (and perhaps law from out of state) and applied the principles of that case law to the instant matter before her, the explanations provided by each county canvassing board. In HER ANALYSIS, that is essentially a manifestation of HER DISCRETION, she concluded that the explanation provided by the local canvassing boards did NOT MERIT her granting them a waiver from the Nov. 14 deadline. Such a procedure, if grounded in reasonable and justifiable legal analysis and conclusion is anything but arbitrary.
IMHO, this is the test that the Democrats will have to overcome tomorrow morning when the go before the judge that issued the ruling governing this issue.
Of course, the Democratic reaction to the media, and to the American public, was to color Ms. Harris' action as purely arbitrary. I am not familiar with the case law on this issue, but nevertheless, the burden is going to be quite high, IMHO, to prove her decision was arbitrary. The court MUST RESPECT to a certain degree the DISCRETION vested with Secretary of State in these matters by the legislature as evidenced in the Florida statutes. JMO. |
