Voters in punch-card counties were almost 10 times more likely to have their votes missed than those in scanner counties. If the Constitution somehow forbids recounting votes in Florida without detailed, statewide instructions on how far a chad must be displaced before it reveals the intent of a voter, then logic suggests it must even more strongly forbid conducting an election without any uniform statewide ballot and voting technology. And this is not just a Florida issue or a case of judicial overreach by its state Supreme Court. For example, transplant this close election to California instead of Florida. Here, without resorting to the courts, Gore would have been entitled by law to have a manual recount.
Nobody expects consistency and logic in partisans when so much is at stake.
But we have a right to expect it of our highest court. Today, the justices have a last chance to step back and give them to us.