Opinion ID: 1833463
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: 3300 Votes in Palm Beach County

Text: Appellants also contend that the trial court erred in finding that they failed to satisfy their burden of proof with respect to the 3300 votes that the Palm Beach County Canvassing Board reviewed and concluded did not constitute legal votes pursuant to section 102.168(3)(c). However, unlike the approximately 9000 ballots in Miami-Dade that the County Canvassing Board did not manually recount, the Palm Beach County Canvassing Board did complete a manual recount of these 3300 votes and concluded that, because the intent of the voter in these 3300 ballots was not discernable, these ballots did not constitute legal votes. After the two-day trial in this case, the circuit court concluded: [W]ith respect to the approximately 3,300 Palm Beach County ballots of which plaintiffs seek review, the Palm Beach Board properly exercised its discretion in its counting process and has judged those ballots which plaintiffs wish this court to again judge de novo.... The Palm Beach County board did not abuse its discretion in its review and recounting process. Further, it acted in full compliance with the order of the circuit court in and for Palm Beach County. We find no error in the trial court's determination that appellants did not establish a preliminary basis for relief as to the 3300 Palm Beach County votes because the appellants have failed to make a threshold showing that legal votes were rejected. Although the protest and contest proceedings are separate statutory provisions, when a manual count of ballots has been conducted by the Canvassing Board pursuant to section 102.166, the circuit court in a contest proceeding does not have the obligation de novo to simply repeat an otherwise-proper manual count of the ballots. As stated above, although the trial court does not review a Canvassing Board's actions under an abuse of discretion standard, the Canvassing Board's actions may constitute evidence that a ballot does or does not qualify as a legal vote. Because the appellants have failed to introduce any evidence to refute the Canvassing Board's determination that the 3300 ballots did not constitute legal votes, we affirm the trial court's holding as to this issue. This reflects the proper interaction of section 102.166 governing protests and manual recounts and section 102.168 governing election contests. Whether the vote totals must be revised to include the legal votes actually identified in the Palm Beach County and Miami-Dade County manual recounts? Appellants claim that the certified vote totals must be amended to include legal votes identified as being for one of the presidential candidates by the County Canvassing Boards of Palm Beach County and Miami-Dade during their manual recounts. After working for a period of many days, the Palm Beach County Canvassing Board conducted and completed a full manual recount in which the Board identified a net gain of 215 votes for Gore. [19] As discussed above, the Miami-Dade Canvassing Board commenced a manual recount but did not complete the recount. During the partial recount it identified an additional legal votes, of which 302 were for Gore and 134 were for Bush, resulting in a net gain of 168 votes for Gore. The circuit court concluded as to Palm Beach County that there was not any authority to include any returns submitted past the deadline established by the Florida Supreme Court in this election. This conclusion was erroneous as a matter of law. The deadline of November 26, 2000, at 5 p.m. was established in order to allow maximum time for contests pursuant to section 102.168. The deadline was never intended to prohibit legal votes identified after that date through ongoing manual recounts to be excluded from the statewide official results in the Elections Canvassing Commission's certification of the results of a recount of less than all of a county's ballots. In the same decision we held that all returns must be considered unless their filing would effectively prevent an election contest from being conducted or endanger the counting of Florida's electors in the presidential election. As to Miami-Dade County, in light of our holding that the circuit court should have counted the undervote, we agree with appellants that the partial recount results should also be included in the total legal votes for this election. Because the county canvassing boards identified legal votes and these votes could change the outcome of the election, we hold that the trial court erred in rejecting the legal votes identified in the Miami-Dade County and Palm Beach County manual recounts. These votes must be included in the certified vote totals. We find that appellants did not establish that the Nassau County Canvassing Board acted improperly.