The reason there might be no violation, is that as long as counting those 20% ballots, would not make a difference in the election. (Since there is no irrepairable harm). No law ever requires a futile act. And from a common sense POV, Why count them if they don't make a difference ?
If the counting of those votes does make a difference, i.e. the number of over / under ballots are greater than the margin of victory, clearly they must be counted, and evaluated the same way.
Again, we are debating the handling of a tied election, where the undervote alone was 100 times larger than the margin of victory, and might have made a difference. So this "no harm" argument is not relevant to the case at hand. I am glad to see that you agree that there is no way telling if there was harm except by actually counting the rejected ballots. The USC prevented this by declaring, on December 12, that December 12 was a binding date for deciding the election.
You present three false characterizations, (1.) all working under one judge's supervision, (2.) interpret "clear intent of the voter" slightly differently during a recount
I don't think so. You are raising objections to the earlier Broward, Palm and Miami/Dade recounts; I was refering to the recount proceeding under Judge Lewis' supervision. (I admit that the decision to admit the earlier recounts and not to redo them was troubling). In any case, as Judge Ginsberg noted in her dissent, how were the imperfections of the the recounts fixed in any way by preventing the recounts from being done at all? Does this outcome give us a better idea of who actually got the most votes in Florida? |
