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Now 3 years later, the year 2000 presidential election still leaves a bitter feeling in the minds of a few Democrats, but does there exist a justification? Revisiting 2000 Election: Florida Supreme Court's decision ordering recounts had no legal justificationThe Court identified the minimum legal standard required for bringing a lawsuit to court, and applied it as the standard of proof for a court ordered remedy, declaring that the trial judge had erred by using the wrong standardThe controversy of the year 2000 election of George W. Bush centered on the Florida Supreme Court's ruling reversing Gore v. Harris, a lower court judgment decided favorably for Bush and the State of Florida. It started a a quickly concocted and erratic statewide recount process that the United States Supreme Court quickly ended. The Florida Supreme Court made an error substantial enough for even a smart grade school kid to identify, but the Federal Supreme Court followed tradition and left the state court to interpret it's own laws, focusing instead on violations of federal law. The Florida Supreme Court had overturned trial judge Sanders Sauls rejection of Gore's lawsuit contesting partially completed manual recounts, on a justification that the judge had made a legal error by failing to observe a new standard of judgment updated by the legislature in 1999. This was Title IX, Chapter 102.168. The section has to do with contesting an election; the bringing of a complaint to court. The applicable part is this: (3) ....The grounds for contesting an election under this section are: (c) Receipt of a number of illegal votes or rejection of a number of legal votes sufficient to change or place in doubt the result of the election The first obvious problem with the court's citing of this clause is that it has to do with bringing a contest (a lawsuit), not a standard for judgment and receiving relief. Judge Sauls had observed this code simply by having allowed Gore to present his evidence challenging a stopping of recounts by Florida officials.. The court made the assertion that the code had changed recently, and Saul's had used the old standard instead of the new standard. However, a reading of the old law demonstrates that it contains no standards whatsoever for making a judgment or ordering a recount, and is similar to the new law excepting that the law now better clarifies the grounds for contesting. The old law reads as follows: The certification of election or nomination of any person to office, or of the result on any question submitted by referendum, may be contested in the circuit court... The law was probably changed to eliminate a filing of frivolous election lawsuits, where formerly no actual cause was required for filing suit and proceeding to a trial.. When we equally apply other stated grounds of the section for comparison purposes, the Florida Supreme Court's legal error becomes obvious, such as this: The grounds for contesting an election [are]... (a) Misconduct, fraud, or corruption on the part of any election official or any member of the canvassing board sufficient to change or place in doubt the result of the election. The Florida Supreme Court's skewed reading of the law would require a remedy of a court ordered recount or overturning of the election whenever misconduct, fraud, or corruption is a mere possibility rather than Saul's applied standard of reasonable probability. It is not enough to show a reasonable possibility that election results could have been altered by such irregularities, or inaccuracies, rather, a reasonable probability that the results of the election would have been changed must be shown. -Judge Sanders Sauls, in Gore v. Harris) Sauls bluntly had declared that Gore didn't prove his case. The Florida Supreme Court's actual argument is not an error in law, but rather, is evidentiary. The Court believed that Gore did prove his case, that there was a reasonable probability that the results would have changed, based on partial recounting of ballots in several heavily Democrat counties. Sauls had addressed this also in his ruling: Further, this Court would further conclude and find that the properly stated cause of action under Section 102.168 of the Florida Statutes to contest a statewide federal election, the Plaintiff would necessarily have to place at issue and seek as a remedy with the attendant burden of proof, a review and recount on all ballots, and all of the counties in this state with respect to the particular alleged irregularities or inaccuracies in the balloting or counting processes alleged to have occurred. Gore's argument of a probability that a recount would have changed the election based on statistical evidence heard in Judge Sauls courtroom was rejected because it was skewed. Gore proved that he would gain some votes in counties that had favored him but did not prove this gain would be uniform across the state. In fact, Saul's finding was later proved accurate, even in heavily Democrat Miami-Dade county, when a later court ordered recount and subsequent news media led counts showed Bush to have picked up votes in Miami-Dade and other counties across the state. -States' Liberty Party Links with evidentiary information:Florida Election Code for any year requested |
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