That intent of the vote standard is the election law that Scalia himself seems so obsessed with defending from any interpretations, clarifications, or modifications.  His judicial position creates a Catch-22 for Florida.  If election officials do use the statutory standard, then they may be violating the 14th Amendment in Scalia's mind because it is too liberal a standard.  However, if the courts try to change it or clarify it, then Scalia would jump all over them for changing the election laws after the election (i.e., a violation of Title 3 Section 5 of the US Code).  It seems Scalia's point here is a transparent effort to discredit this final count by discrediting the counting standard.  If he was truly concerned about possible violations of the 14th Amendments Equal Protection Clause due to varying standards from county to county, then his concern would not be limited to just the manual counts.  Varying standards across counties has been the norm starting with the different voting systems with differing levels of reliability used in different counties on election night, then continuing with the automatic recount, the absentee ballot count, and the manual recounts (click here for more information about how all the ways Florida violated the equal protection clause during the vote count).  Scalia's equal protection concerns in this matter are made even more ridiculous because by his own interpretation of that standard, the very federal law that allows states to provide their own methods for picking electors (Title 3 Section 5) is a violation of the constitution's equal protection standard because it allows for variations in the treatment of voters and the counting of those votes across states.  The only logic conclusion for Scalia's 14th Amendment concerns is a repeal of Title 3 Section 5 and the enactment of nationally standardized system.  Although I believe that a nationalized system is exactly what we need, I have a hard time believing that a state's rights guru like Scalia would truly advocate such a system.  However, it is an intellectually untenable position to be both outraged by any attempt to violate Title 3 section 5 (i.e., the one that prohibits any change election laws after election day) and outraged by 14th Amendment violations.  His own position neither allows for a change in the law to correct for any possible 14th Amendment conflicts nor does it recognize that the very nature of Title 3 Section 5 creates variations in the way voters and votes are treated depending upon where they live.