Hi John and Thread, for Monday's FL Supreme Court ruling, here are points from Bush, Gore, and Harris' briefings.
I'll try to list the points without injecting bias - (I'll write my opinion in parenthesis).
There is a question before the FL Supreme Court, which is, whether or not the manual recounts should be continued.
After reading about 250 pages in briefings by both sides, the core of the matter appears to be simply this:
a) Do you continue the manual count per 102.661 - which is Gore's position, or,
b) Do you require the FL Dem Party to dispute the results of the election a different way, by a post-certified Election dispute? (rather than allowing the current pre-certified Election dispute to continue). Bush said there's a FL statute which allows Dems to dispute the election after the election has been certified and he states that this is what the Dems should do. This would allow the SOS to certify the election, without the manual recounts (since these could be disputed after the Election results have been submitted to the Electoral College's governing body). This frees the SOS (i.e. allows certification to happen immediately, using the # of votes as reported last Tue), and this means the Dems could only dispute the election after the election had been certified and submitted. (My opinion: while it might sound like a good idea, it appears this would essentially block any ability for the Dem's to dispute/complete by Dec 18th, partially due to delays inflicted by Harris).
Tomorrow, I believe the court will decide which of the two statutes should govern over the other and why.
If the Court selects a), then there will be a continuation of a manual count (which is the original question the court was asked).
If they select b), then there will be a discontinuation of a manual count (which is the original question the court was asked).
Both Parties did a reasonable job presenting their cases in their briefings, which of course were positioned to better their own side of the argument, while neglecting the other side. Like John said, an answer might be in-between.
One such answer might be a request to do a state-wide manual recount because in the briefings, a) the Dems said they would be open to this, and b) Reps said it wasn't fair that only 3 Dem counties are selected (and I concur with the Reps on this particular point).
I'm not sure what will happen to Harris. In her filing she said her actions were legal and a Judge agreed to her actions in his Second Order (but not her other actions in the first one).
One thing that was completely contrary to what we all thought on this Thread (and media), was that BOTH Dems and Reps feel the law pertaining to the Nov 15th Tue deadline is not a deadline for manual counts in dispute. (Jozef, this is ironic because this was one of the few points you and I had agreed upon!). However, each Party has an interpretation to this that benefits their own respective Parties, which is as follows:
a) Dems believe that the deadline did not apply to amended "late returns of manual counts" because these ballots could not be counted in time to meet the deadline even though they needed to be counted and included due to 102.661's statute requiring them to be counted and not ignored by SOS.
b) Reps believe that the Tue Nov 15th deadline did not apply to "late returns of manual counts" because there should be no late returns of manual counts. Basically, the Reps argued that the Dems should allow the certification to happen, and then, after the Election votes are certified and submitted, the Dems could then dispute the Election. In only this scenario, there is no deadline on manual counts as imposed by FL law.
At least both Parties seemed to agree on one point.
However, it's interesting to note that Harris said the manual counts could have been completed on time (by Tue Nov 15th) and that there was "no evidence" to suggest the other counties could not get their manual counts done in time by Tue, especially since Volussa (SP?) county did complete their manual recounts on time. (I think her answer was incredibly poor - how on earth could those larger counties have gotten their manual counts done by Tue Nov 15th? - isn't Volussa (SP?) a smaller county in population than the other precincts? Her answer seemed to be a tad out of touch with what the Reps said, which is why I continue to think she is acting on her own, without guidance from Reps).
I hope I was objective in my post, and if not, just let me know (as I'm sure you will). After reading both briefings, I believe there are two sides to the case and both have pointed to laws which they believe support their positions (however, I believe Gore's briefing to be more accurate and I believe Harris incorrectly blocked a manual recount and I believe Harris illegally created a delay tactic).
I kind of got the feeling the Reps might let her hang a tad, and maybe that's why she asked to have her own time during the Court, however, the Reps did support her quite thoroughly in their briefing.
The FL Supreme Court's decision will determine whether or not manual counts should continue and I believe they will determine this decision by deciding if FL Statute 102.661 (5)(C) should be upheld so that manual counts are continued (Gore's position), or, if Bush's claim that FL Statute allows the election to be disputed post-fact (i.e. let the certification happen, discontinue manual recounts, submit the results from last Tue, declare the winning candidate, and then allow the Dems to dispute it).
I believe the answer could be somewhere in the middle, without disregarding certain valid points that both Parties' have claimed.
Regards,
Amy J |
