Instead of arguing the laws in Florida are contradictory and vague, would it not be simpler to argue that the election laws in place were not followed, especially in reference to 101.5614(5) and 97.012(1).  The whole statute make sense, including the Nov. 14 deadline, if you put these things together under the heading of every vote was legally required to be counted by Nov. 14.  This statutory requirement was not followed.

All the state’s tens of thousands of uncounted ballots were supposed to be inspected for voter intent by local canvassing boards as part of the canvassing process delineated in 101.5614 (5): “If any paper ballot is damaged or defective so that it cannot be counted properly by the automatic tabulating equipment, the ballot shall be counted manually at the counting center by the  canvassing board.”

Because the election was so close, Section 102.141(4) required that every county go back and recanvass their ballots, a process that would presumably be a repeat of the previously quoted 101.5614 requirements for canvassing returns.  The stakes were high enough and the vote close enough to warrant full compliance. However, only 10 counties (7 of which were won by Bush) actually conducted a statutorily sufficient recanvass that included another machine count and manual counts of machine unreadable ballots.  The remaining 57 counties did something less.

If every county had conducted their canvass pursuant to Florida statute, then all of Florida’s now uncounted ballots would have been reviewed.  Florida law assumes as much under Section 101.5614(8): “the return printed by the automatic tabulating equipment, to which has been added the return of write-in, absentee, and manually counted votes, shall constitute the official return of the election.”  Even the largest counties could have manually inspected just their uncounted ballots in a matter of days, as opposed to the weeks it takes for a large county to conduct a full manual recount.  Given these statutory requirements, the Florida Statute’s November 14 deadline for county returns is not so unreasonable or contradictory.  Had all the votes been properly canvassed, efforts to get these uncounted votes counted in 4 South Florida counties by requesting full manual recounts pursuant to 102.166 would have been unnecessary (except in the case of obvious machine error or voter fraud).

The Secretary of Secretary of state is required under Section 97.012 (1) to “maintain uniformity in the application,
operation, and interpretation of the election laws.”  Clearly, a few counties complied with the full extent of the law, while the overwhelming majority did not.  To maintain uniformity in statutory compliance and to insure the full application of Florida’s canvassing provisions, she should have required every county to do what 10 already had -- a complete canvass pursuant to 101.5614. Every county could have followed these canvassing guidelines to the letter and still filed their returns with the state by the November 14 deadline she so dutifully imposed.