SIEGEL V. LEPORE 234 F.3d 1163 (11th Cir. 2000) CASE BRIEF

SIEGEL V. LEPORE

234 F.3d 1163 (11th Cir. 2000)

NATURE OF THE CASE: Siegel (Ps) appealed from an order denying their request for a preliminary injunction to enjoin four Florida counties from conducting manual recounts of ballots cast for President of the United States in the November 7, 2000 election.

FACTS: On November 7, 2000, Florida voters cast ballots for the twenty-five electors for President and Vice-President of the United States. The following day, the Division of Elections for the State of Florida reported that the Republican Party presidential ticket received 2,909,135 votes, and the Democratic Party presidential ticket received 2,907,351 votes, for a margin of difference of 1,784, or 0.0299% of the total Florida vote. Pursuant to this statute, because the Presidential vote returns reflected that the Democratic ticket was defeated by less than one-half of one percent, the canvassing boards conducted automatic recounts of the votes. After the automatic recounts, the Republican ticket retained the majority of votes, although by a slimmer margin. A manual recount may be requested by any candidate whose name appeared on the ballot. Such a request must be filed with the canvassing board within 72 hours after midnight of the date the election was held, or before the canvassing board has certified the challenged results, whichever is later. The canvassing board may, but is not required to, grant the request. The statutory manual recount provision applies to all Florida counties. Therefore, the procedure for requesting a manual recount is the same in all counties, although the decision of whether to conduct a manual recount would, of course, be made separately by each county's canvassing board. A manual recount must include 'at least three precincts and at least 1 percent of the total votes cast for such candidate.' The Democratic Party filed requests for manual recounts in Broward, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, and Volusia Counties on November 9, 2000, within the 72-hour statutory deadline. The stated reasons for the requests included the closeness of the statewide race and a concern that the vote totals might not reflect the true will of Florida voters. The apparent practical effect of a manual recount is that some ballots which were unreadable by machine due, for example, to voters' failure to mark or punch the ballots in a machine-legible fashion, might be read by human counters; and these votes could be added to the totals for each candidate. On November 11, 2000 Ps filed a Complaint and a Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order and Preliminary Injunction in the district court for the Southern District of Florida. Ps sued members of the county canvassing boards of Volusia, Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade Counties. Ps allege that the manual recounts violate the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantees of due process and equal protection, and deny and burden the First Amendment's protection of votes and political speech. Ps asked the district court to prohibit the county canvassing boards from proceeding with manual recounts of the November 7th election results. Like the Complaint, this motion contended that the manual recounts violate the First Amendment and the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. While this was ongoing several Florida cases were appealed to the Florida Supreme Court. Those cases challenged Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris's decision to refuse to accept the results of manual recounts submitted by county canvassing boards after the statutory deadline of 5:00 p.m. on November 14, 2000. The Supreme Court of Florida decided that Florida Secretary of State Harris must accept the late-reported results of manual recounts from these counties submitted by the evening of November 26, 2000. Ps then filed an Emergency Motion for an Injunction Pending Appeal, asking this Court to prohibit Ds from proceeding with manual ballot recounts. This motion was denied without prejudice on November 17, 2000. Both the Constitution of the United States and 3 U.S.C. 5 indicate that states have the primary authority to determine the manner of appointing Presidential Electors and to resolve most controversies concerning the appointment of Electors. Ps then moved this Court to expedite the underlying appeal, which motion we granted.

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LEGAL ANALYSIS:

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