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Florida Supreme Court values voters' will over legal technicalities
(CNN) -- The Florida Supreme Court stressed the importance of the voter Tuesday in its opinion that requires Secretary of State Katherine Harris to accept the results of manual recounts. The unanimous decision said court's goal was "to reach the result that reflects the will of the voters, whatever that might be." The court, on two separate occasions, pointed to Article I, Section 1 of the state Constitution, which says, "All political power is inherent in the people. The enunciation herein of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or impair others retained by the people." The court also cited the 1975 case Boardman v. Esteva, which said that "by refusing to recognize an otherwise valid exercise of the right of a citizen to vote for the sake of sacred, unyielding adherence to statutory scripture, we would in effect nullify that right."
The court said Harris had the authority to ignore amended returns submitted by a County Canvassing Board after the seven-day deadline, but only in limited circumstances. The court said rejecting a county's returns is a drastic measure that should be used only if they are so late that their inclusion would compromise the integrity of the election process. "To disenfranchise electors in an effort to deter Board members, as the Secretary in the present case proposes, is unreasonable, unnecessary, and violates longstanding law," the court said. The opinion rejected Harris' argument that counties could only ask for a manual recount in cases of machine error or an act of God. It said that Florida statutes allow recounts in cases where there was an "error in vote tabulation," while statutes dealing with voting machines used the phrases "vote tabulation system" and "automatic tabulating equipment." The court said a machine's failure to read some ballots would be considered a tabulation error. "Although error cannot be completely eliminated in any tabulation of the ballots, our society has not yet gone so far as to place blind faith in machines. In almost all endeavors, including elections, humans routinely correct the errors of machines," the court said. Conflict between 'shall' and 'may'The court said there were conflicts in the Florida statutes involving the deadline for including returns in the final tally. It said section 102.111 says that "if the county returns are not received by the Department of State by 5 p.m. of the seventh day following an election, all missing counties shall be ignored," while section 102.112, which says late returns may be ignored. Emphasis added by CNN.com. The court said it would use standard rules of statutory construction in interpreting the two laws. Harvard Law School professor Heather Gerkin said courts routinely use these rules, known as canons of statutory construction, to make decisions interpreting statutes. "The problem presented to the court was a problem that is often presented to courts which is that the statute's text is not clear. So the court has to use something other than the text of the statute to figure out what it was that the legislators intended," she said.
Justices said there were a number of reasons why section 102.112 should be followed. • Section 102.112 is more specific, because it says late returns may be returned, and that canvassing board members can be fined for not meeting the deadline. • Section 102.112 was passed in 1989, 38 years after section 102.111, so it is the "clearest and most recent expression of legislative intent." • The fine mandated in Section 102.112 would be meaningless if late returns were ignored under Section 102.111 because there would be no reason for election officials to turn in their results after the deadline. • The court said that state statutes should be read as a whole and that section 102.111 would have the effect of blocking other statutes that allow candidates to request a manual recount until the election results are certified. • The court also said that the legislature had enacted section 102.111 because it wanted all votes cast during an election to be submitted at the same time, but that is no long possible because of the later federal deadline for overseas absentee ballots. The court said that since the right to vote is such an important one, the statutes should be read broadly to protect citizens' rights. "Courts must not lose sight of the fundamental purpose of election laws: The laws are intended to facilitate and safeguard the right of each voter to express his or her will in the context of our representative democracy. Technical statutory requirements must not be exalted over the substance of this right," the court said. RELATED STORIES: Deadlines and 'will of the voters' debated in Florida Supreme Court RELATED SITES: Florida State Courts | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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