132
Souter, J., dissenting
So. 2d 1243, 1256-1257 (2000). It is perfectly true that the majority might have chosen a different reading. See, e. g., Brief for Respondent Harris et al. 10 (defining "legal votes" as "votes properly executed in accordance with the instructions provided to all registered voters in advance of the election and in the polling places"). But even so, there is no constitutional violation in following the majority view; Article II is unconcerned with mere disagreements about interpretive merits.
2. The Florida court next interpreted "rejection" to determine what act in the counting process may be attacked in a contest. Again, the statute does not define the term. The court majority read the word to mean simply a failure to count. 772 So. 2d, at 1257. That reading is certainly within the bounds of common sense, given the objective to give effect to a voter's intent if that can be determined. A different reading, of course, is possible. The majority might have concluded that "rejection" should refer to machine malfunction, or that a ballot should not be treated as "reject[ed]" in the absence of wrongdoing by election officials, lest contests be so easy to claim that every election will end up in one. Cf. id., at 1266 (Wells, C. J., dissenting). There is, however, nothing nonjudicial in the Florida majority's more hospitable reading.
3. The same is true about the court majority's understanding of the phrase "votes sufficient to change or place in doubt" the result of the election in Florida. The court held that if the uncounted ballots were so numerous that it was reasonably possible that they contained enough "legal" votes to swing the election, this contest would be authorized by the statute.* While the majority might have thought (as
*When the Florida court ruled, the totals for Bush and Gore were then less than 1,000 votes apart. One dissent pegged the number of uncounted votes in question at 170,000. Gore v. Harris, 772 So. 2d 1243, 1272-1273 (2000) (Harding, J., dissenting). Gore's counsel represented to us that the
Page: Index Previous 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007