What was bush v gore

This is of course absurd. See DE 00—13 opinion of the Division of Elections. Harris , No. SC00— Dec. But as we indicated in our remand of the earlier case, in a Presidential election the clearly expressed intent of the legislature must prevail. SC, slip op. Broward County Canvassing Board v. Hogan , So. Bush v. This was done in a search for elusive—perhaps delusive—certainty as to the exact count of 6 million votes. No one claims there was any fraud in the election.

In light of the inevitable legal challenges and ensuing appeals to the Supreme Court of Florida and petitions for certiorari to this Court, the entire recounting process could not possibly be completed by that date.

Although the Florida Supreme Court has on occasion taken over a year to resolve disputes over local elections, see, e. Volusia County Canvassing Bd. But the federal deadlines for the Presidential election simply do not permit even such a shortened process. Fairness dictates that a provision be made for either party to object to how a particular ballot is counted.

Additionally, this short time period must allow for judicial review. It significantly departed from the statutory framework in place on November 7, and authorized open-ended further proceedings which could not be completed by December 12, thereby preventing a final determination by that date. For these reasons, in addition to those given in the per curiam , we would reverse.

That constitutional guarantee would, of course, afford no protection against state power if our inquiry could be concluded by a state supreme court holding that state property law accorded the plaintiff no rights. See Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, U. In one of our oldest cases, we similarly made an independent evaluation of state law in order to protect federal treaty guarantees. The Court should not have reviewed either Bush v. If this Court had allowed the State to follow the course indicated by the opinions of its own Supreme Court, it is entirely possible that there would ultimately have been no issue requiring our review, and political tension could have worked itself out in the Congress following the procedure provided in 3 U.

The case being before us, however, its resolution by the majority is another erroneous decision. I write separately only to say how straightforward the issues before us really are. None of these issues is difficult to describe or to resolve. The 3 U. Conclusiveness requires selection under a legal scheme in place before the election, with results determined at least six days before the date set for casting electoral votes.

Palm Beach County Canvassing Board. Bush does not, of course, claim that any judicial act interpreting a statute of uncertain meaning is enough to displace the legislative provision and violate Article II; statutes require interpretation, which does not without more affect the legislative character of a statute within the meaning of the Constitution. Brief for Petitioners 48, n.

But the majority view is in each instance within the bounds of reasonable interpretation, and the law as declared is consistent with Article II. It is perfectly true that the majority might have chosen a different reading.

But even so, there is no constitutional violation in following the majority view; Article II is unconcerned with mere disagreements about interpretive merits. Again, the statute does not define the term. The court majority read the word to mean simply a failure to count.

A different reading, of course, is possible. In sum, the interpretations by the Florida court raise no substantial question under Article II. That court engaged in permissible construction in determining that Gore had instituted a contest authorized by the state statute, and it proceeded to direct the trial judge to deal with that contest in the exercise of the discretionary powers generously conferred by Fla. It is an issue that might well have been dealt with adequately by the Florida courts if the state proceedings had not been interrupted, and if not disposed of at the state level it could have been considered by the Congress in any electoral vote dispute.

But because the course of state proceedings has been interrupted, time is short, and the issue is before us, I think it sensible for the Court to address it. Petitioners have raised an equal protection claim or, alternatively, a due process claim, see generally Logan v.

Zimmerman Brush Co. The differences appear wholly arbitrary. In deciding what to do about this, we should take account of the fact that electoral votes are due to be cast in six days. I would therefore remand the case to the courts of Florida with instructions to establish uniform standards for evaluating the several types of ballots that have prompted differing treatments, to be applied within and among counties when passing on such identical ballots in any further recounting or successive recounting that the courts might order.

Unlike the majority, I see no warrant for this Court to assume that Florida could not possibly comply with this requirement before the date set for the meeting of electors, December Although one of the dissenting justices of the State Supreme Court estimated that disparate standards potentially affected , votes, Gore v. The , figure apparently represents all uncounted votes, both undervotes those for which no Presidential choice was recorded by a machine and overvotes those rejected because of votes for more than one candidate.

But as Justice Breyer has pointed out, no showing has been made of legal overvotes uncounted, and counsel for Gore made an uncontradicted representation to the Court that the statewide total of undervotes is about 60, To recount these manually would be a tall order, but before this Court stayed the effort to do that the courts of Florida were ready to do their best to get that job done.

There is no justification for denying the State the opportunity to try to count all disputed ballots now. One dissent pegged the number of uncounted votes in question at , The Constitution assigns to the States the primary responsibility for determining the manner of selecting the Presidential electors.

See Art. When questions arise about the meaning of state laws, including election laws, it is our settled practice to accept the opinions of the highest courts of the States as providing the final answers. On rare occasions, however, either federal statutes or the Federal Constitution may require federal judicial intervention in state elections.

This is not such an occasion. The federal questions that ultimately emerged in this case are not substantial. It does not create state legislatures out of whole cloth, but rather takes them as they come—as creatures born of, and constrained by, their state constitutions. Lest there be any doubt, we stated over years ago in McPherson v. Smiley v. Holm , U. It hardly needs stating that Congress, pursuant to 3 U. Section 5, like Article II, assumes the involvement of the state judiciary in interpreting state election laws and resolving election disputes under those laws.

Admittedly, the use of differing substandards for determining voter intent in different counties employing similar voting systems may raise serious concerns.

Those concerns are alleviated—if not eliminated—by the fact that a single impartial magistrate will ultimately adjudicate all objections arising from the recount process. We must remember that the machinery of government would not work if it were not allowed a little play in its joints. Pinson , U. So, too, might the similar decisions of the vast majority of state legislatures to delegate to local authorities certain decisions with respect to voting systems and ballot design.

As the majority further acknowledges, Florida law holds that all ballots that reveal the intent of the voter constitute valid votes.

Recognizing these principles, the majority nonetheless orders the termination of the contest proceeding before all such votes have been tabulated. In the interest of finality, however, the majority effectively orders the disenfranchisement of an unknown number of voters whose ballots reveal their intent—and are therefore legal votes under state law—but were for some reason rejected by ballot-counting machines.

It does so on the basis of the deadlines set forth in Title 3 of the United States Code. Ante , at But, as I have already noted, those provisions merely provide rules of decision for Congress to follow when selecting among conflicting slates of electors. Supra , at 2. They do not prohibit a State from counting what the majority concedes to be legal votes until a bona fide winner is determined.

Indeed, in , Hawaii appointed two slates of electors and Congress chose to count the one appointed on January 4, , well after the Title 3 deadlines. Harris, WL Fla. If we assume—as I do—that the members of that court and the judges who would have carried out its mandate are impartial, its decision does not even raise a colorable federal question.

Otherwise, their position is wholly without merit. The endorsement of that position by the majority of this Court can only lend credence to the most cynical appraisal of the work of judges throughout the land. It is confidence in the men and women who administer the judicial system that is the true backbone of the rule of law. One thing, however, is certain.

Term Limits, Inc. Thornton, U. Garnett, U. Smith No. Code, Art. Code Ann. Victor v. Nebraska , U. Siegel v. LePore , No. Put in other terms, for every 10, votes cast, punch-card systems result in more nonvotes than optical-scan systems.

A total of 3,, votes were cast under punch-card systems, and 2,, votes were cast under optical-scan systems. A recount was ordered to begin on December 13, Both Democratic and Republican electors met on the appointed day to cast their votes.

On January 4, , the newly elected Governor certified the Democratic electors. The certification was received by Congress on January 6, the day the electoral votes were counted.

Rivers v. Roadway Express, Inc. I might join The Chief Justice were it my commission to interpret Florida law.

Mata , U. This Court more than occasionally affirms statutory, and even constitutional, interpretations with which it disagrees. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. And not uncommonly, we let stand state-court interpretations of federal law with which we might disagree.

Powell , U. Formulation of uniform rules determining intent based on recurring circumstances is practical and necessary. Application of different standards would result in impermissible inequality in the treatment of votes. In contrast, here the state Supreme Court announced that electors would be chosen subject to de novo review of ballots after the election.

As a result, the court was attempting to circumvent the prior practice of safe harbor protections and utilize a completely new procedure. The legislature intended to take advantage of the safe harbor provision and the remedy provided by the state Supreme Court violates both the safe harbor provision and statutory framework. This is the source for the statement in McPherson v.

Blacker , U. History has now favored the voter, and in each of the several States the citizens themselves vote for Presidential electors. When the state legislature vests the right to vote for President in its people, the right to vote as the legislature has prescribed is fundamental; and one source of its fundamental nature lies in the equal weight accorded to each vote and the equal dignity owed to each voter.

The State, of course, after granting the franchise in the special context of Article II, can take back the power to appoint electors. See id. The right to vote is protected in more than the initial allocation of the franchise. Equal protection applies as well to the manner of its exercise. Having once granted the right to vote on equal terms, the State may not, by later arbitrary and disparate treatment, value one person's vote over that of another.

See, e. Virginia Bd. Sims , U. There is no difference between the two sides of the present controversy on these basic propositions. Respondents say that the very purpose of vindicating the right to vote justifies the recount procedures now at issue. The question before us, however, is whether the recount procedures the Florida Supreme Court has adopted are consistent with its obligation to avoid arbitrary and disparate treatment of the members of its electorate.

Much of the controversy seems to revolve around ballot cards designed to be perforated by a stylus but which, either through error or deliberate omission, have not been perforated with sufficient precision for a machine to count them. In other cases there is no separation at all, just an indentation. The Florida Supreme Court has ordered that the intent of the voter be discerned from such ballots. For purposes of resolving the equal protection challenge, it is not necessary to decide whether the Florida Supreme Court had the authority under the legislative scheme for resolving election disputes to define what a legal vote is and to mandate a manual recount implementing that definition.

The recount mechanisms implemented in response to the decisions of the Florida Supreme Court do not satisfy the minimum requirement for non-arbitrary treatment of voters necessary to secure the fundamental right.

This is unobjectionable as an abstract proposition and a starting principle. The problem inheres in the absence of specific standards to ensure its equal application. The formulation of uniform rules to determine intent based on these recurring circumstances is practicable and, we conclude, necessary. The law does not refrain from searching for the intent of the actor in a multitude of circumstances; and in some cases the general command to ascertain intent is not susceptible to much further refinement.

In this instance, however, the question is not whether to believe a witness but how to interpret the marks or holes or scratches on an inanimate object, a piece of cardboard or paper which, it is said, might not have registered as a vote during the machine count.

The factfinder confronts a thing, not a person. The search for intent can be confined by specific rules designed to ensure uniform treatment. Campbell, Scott L. Rouse, and A. Magnuson; for William H. Haynes et al. Monaghan, Stuart J. Roth, Colby M. May, James M. Henderson, Sr. Cortman, Griffin B. Bell, Paul D. Clement, and Jeffrey S. Butterworth, Attorney General of Florida, by. Bush asserted that the net gain for Vice President Gore in Palm Beach County was votes, and directed the Circuit Court to resolve that dispute on remand.

Gore v. Harris, So. The court further held that relief would require manual recounts in all Florida counties where so-called "undervotes" had not been subject to manual tabulation. The court ordered all manual recounts to begin at once. Governor Bush and Richard Cheney, Republican candidates for President and Vice President, filed an emergency application for a stay of this mandate.

On December 9, we granted the application, treated the application as a petition for a writ of certiorari, and granted certiorari. Post, p. The proceedings leading to the present controversy are discussed in some detail in our opinion in Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Bd. On November 8, , the day following the Presidential election, the Florida Division of Elections reported that petitioner Bush had received 2,, votes, and respondent Gore had received 2,, votes, a margin of.

Butterworth, pro se, Paul F. Millian, Sarah A. Adams, and Roger J. Bernstein; and for Michael F. Wasserman, pro se. Because Governor Bush's margin of victory was less than "one-half of a percent A dispute arose concerning the deadline for local county canvassing boards to submit their returns to the Secretary of State Secretary. The Secretary declined to waive the November 14 deadline imposed by statute.

The Florida Supreme Court, however, set the deadline at November We granted certiorari and vacated the Florida Supreme Court's decision, finding considerable uncertainty as to the grounds on which it was based. Bush I, ante, at On December 11, the Florida Supreme Court issued a decision on remand reinstating that date.

On November 26, the Florida Elections Canvassing Commission certified the results of the election and declared Governor Bush the winner of Florida's 25 electoral votes. The Circuit Court denied relief, stating that Vice President Gore failed to meet his burden of proof. Accepting jurisdiction, the Florida Supreme Court affirmed in part and reversed in part. Harris, The court held that the Circuit Court had been correct to reject Vice President Gore's challenge to the results certified in Nassau County and his challenge to the Palm Beach County Canvassing Board's determination that 3, ballots cast in that county were not, in the statutory phrase, "legal votes.

Noting the closeness of the election, the court explained that "[o]n this record, there can be no question that there are legal votes within the 9, uncounted votes sufficient to place the results of this election in doubt. A "legal vote," as determined by the Supreme Court, is "one in which there is a 'clear indication of the intent of the voter. The court therefore ordered a hand recount of the 9, ballots in Miami-Dade County. The Supreme Court also determined that Palm Beach County and Miami-Dade County, in their earlier manual recounts, had identified a net gain of and legal votes, respectively, for Vice President Gore.

Rejecting the Circuit Court's conclusion that Palm Beach County lacked the authority to include the net votes sub-. As to Miami-Dade County, the court concluded that although the votes identified were the result of a partial recount, they were "legal votes [that] could change the outcome of the election. The Supreme Court therefore directed the Circuit Court to include those totals in the certified results, subject to resolution of the actual vote total from the Miami-Dade partial recount.

The petition presents the following questions: whether the Florida Supreme Court established new standards for resolving Presidential election contests, thereby violating Art. With respect to the equal protection question, we find a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. The closeness of this election, and the multitude of legal challenges which have followed in its wake, have brought into sharp focus a common, if heretofore unnoticed, phenomenon.

In certifying election results, the votes eligible for inclusion in the certification are the votes meeting the properly established legal requirements. This case has shown that punchcard balloting machines can produce an unfortunate number of ballots which are not punched in a clean, complete way by the voter. After the current counting, it is likely legislative bodies nationwide will examine ways to improve the mechanisms and machinery for voting.

The individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States unless and until the state legislature chooses a statewide election as the means to implement its power to appoint members of the electoral college.

This is the source for the statement in McPherson v. Blacker, U. History has now favored the voter, and in each of the several States the citizens themselves vote for Presidential electors. When the state legislature vests the right to vote for President in its people, the right to vote as the legislature has prescribed is fundamental; and one source of its fundamental nature lies in the equal weight accorded to each vote and the equal dignity owed to each voter.

The State, of course, after granting the franchise in the special context of Article II, can take back the power to appoint electors.

See id. The right to vote is protected in more than the initial allocation of the franchise. Equal protection applies as well to the manner of its exercise. Having once granted the right to vote on equal terms, the State may not, by later arbitrary and disparate treatment, value one person's vote over that. It must be remembered that "the right of suffrage can be denied by a debasement or dilution of the weight of a citizen's vote just as effectively as by wholly prohibiting the free exercise of the franchise.

Sims, U. There is no difference between the two sides of the present controversy on these basic propositions. Respondents say that the very purpose of vindicating the right to vote justifies the recount procedures now at issue. The question before us, however, is whether the recount procedures the Florida Supreme Court has adopted are consistent with its obligation to avoid arbitrary and disparate treatment of the members of its electorate.

Much of the controversy seems to revolve around ballot cards designed to be perforated by a stylus but which, either through error or deliberate omission, have not been perforated with sufficient precision for a machine to register the perforations. In some cases a piece of the card-a chad-is hanging, say, by two corners. In other cases there is no separation at all, just an indentation.

The Florida Supreme Court has ordered that the intent of the voter be discerned from such ballots. For purposes of resolving the equal protection challenge, it is not necessary to decide whether the Florida Supreme Court had the authority under the legislative scheme for resolving election disputes to define what a legal vote is and to mandate a manual recount implementing that definition.

The recount mechanisms implemented in response to the decisions of the Florida Supreme Court do not satisfy the minimum requirement for nonarbitrary treatment of voters necessary to secure the fundamental right. Florida's basic command for the count of legally cast votes is to consider the "intent of.

This is unobjectionable as an abstract proposition and a starting principle. The problem inheres in the absence of specific standards to ensure its equal application. The formulation of uniform rules to determine intent based on these recurring circumstances is practicable and, we conclude, necessary. The law does not refrain from searching for the intent of the actor in a multitude of circumstances; and in some cases the general command to ascertain intent is not susceptible to much further refinement.

In this instance, however, the question is not whether to believe a witness but how to interpret the marks or holes or scratches on an inanimate object, a piece of cardboard or paper which, it is said, might not have registered as a vote during the machine count. The factfinder confronts a thing, not a person. The search for intent can be confined by specific rules designed to ensure uniform treatment. The want of those rules here has led to unequal evaluation of ballots in various respects.

Here, the county canvassing boards disagree". As seems to have been acknowledged at oral argument, the standards for accepting or rejecting contested ballots might vary not only from county to county but indeed within a single county from one recount team to another. The record provides some examples.

A monitor in Miami-Dade County testified at trial that he observed that three members of the county canvassing board applied different standards in defining a legal vote. And testimony at trial also revealed that at least one county changed its evaluative standards during the counting process. Palm Beach County, for example, began the process with a guideline which precluded counting completely attached chads, switched to a rule that consid-.

This is not a process with sufficient guarantees of equal treatment. An early case in our one-person, one-vote jurisprudence arose when a State accorded arbitrary and disparate treatment to voters in its different counties. Gray v.

Sanders, U. The Court found a constitutional violation. We relied on these principles in the context of the Presidential selection process in Moore v. Ogilvie, U. There we observed that "[t]he idea that one group can be granted greater voting strength than another is hostile to the one man, one vote basis of our representative government. It mandated that the recount totals from two counties, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach, be included in the certified total.

The court also appeared to hold sub silentio that the recount totals from Broward County, which were not completed until after the original November 14 certification by the Secretary, were to be considered part of the new certified vote totals even though the county certification was not contested by Vice President Gore. Yet each of the counties used varying standards to determine what was a legal vote. Broward County used a more forgiving standard than Palm Beach County, and uncovered almost three times as many new votes, a result markedly disproportionate to the difference in population between the counties.

In addition, the recounts in these three counties were not limited to so-called undervotes but extended to all of the ballots.

The distinction has real consequences. A manual recount of all ballots identifies not only those ballots which show no vote but also those which contain more than one,. Neither category will be counted by the machine.

This is not a trivial concern. At oral argument, respondents estimated there are as many as , overvotes statewide. As a result, the citizen whose ballot was not read by a machine because he failed to vote for a candidate in a way readable by a machine may still have his vote counted in a manual recount; on the other hand, the citizen who marks two candidates in a way discernible by the machine will not have the same opportunity to have his vote count, even if a manual examination of the ballot would reveal the requisite indicia of intent.

Furthermore, the citizen who marks two candidates, only one of which is discernible by the machine, will have his vote counted even though it should have been read as an invalid ballot. The State Supreme Court's inclusion of vote counts based on these variant standards exemplifies concerns with the remedial processes that were under way. That brings the analysis to yet a further equal protection problem. The votes certified by the court included a partial total from one county, Miami-Dade.

The Florida Supreme Court's decision thus gives no assurance that the recounts included in a final certification must be complete. Indeed, it is respondents' submission that it would be consistent with the rules of the recount procedures to include whatever partial counts are done by the time of final certification, and we interpret the Florida Supreme Court's decision to permit this. See So. Harris, at respondents' own urging. The press of time does not diminish the constitutional concern.

A desire for speed is not a general excuse for ignoring equal protection guarantees. In addition to these difficulties the actual process by which the votes were to be counted under the Florida Supreme Court's decision raises further concerns. That order did not specify who would recount the ballots. The county canvassing boards were forced to pull together ad hoc teams of judges from various Circuits who had no previous training in handling and interpreting ballots.

Furthermore, while others were permitted to observe, they were prohibited from objecting during the recount. The recount process, in its features here described, is inconsistent with the minimum procedures necessary to protect the fundamental right of each voter in the special instance of a statewide recount under the authority of a single state judicial officer. Our consideration is limited to the present circumstances, for the problem of equal protection in election processes generally presents many complexities.

The question before the Court is not whether local entities, in the exercise of their expertise, may develop different systems for implementing elections. Instead, we are presented with a situation where a state court with the power to assure uniformity has ordered a statewide recount with minimal procedural safeguards. When a court orders a statewide remedy, there must be at least some assurance that the rudimentary requirements of equal treatment and fundamental fairness are satisfied.

Given the Court's assessment that the recount process underway was probably being conducted in an unconstitutional manner, the Court stayed the order directing the recount so it could hear this case and render an expedited decision. The contest provision, as it was mandated by the State Supreme Court, is not well calculated to sustain the confidence that all citizens must have in the outcome of elections.

The problem, for instance, of the estimated , overvotes has not been. Upon due consideration of the difficulties identified to this point, it is obvious that the recount cannot be conducted in compliance with the requirements of equal protection and due process without substantial additional work.

It would require not only the adoption after opportunity for argument of adequate statewide standards for determining what is a legal vote, and practicable procedures to implement them, but also orderly judicial review of any disputed matters that might arise.

In addition, the Secretary has advised that the recount of only a portion of the ballots requires that the vote tabulation equipment be used to screen out undervotes, a function for which the machines were not designed. If a recount of overvotes were also required, perhaps even a second screening would be necessary.

Use of the equipment for this purpose, and any new software developed for it, would have to be evaluated for accuracy by the Secretary, as required by Fla. The Supreme Court of Florida has said that the legislature intended the State's electors to "participat[e] fully in the federal electoral process," as provided in 3 U. That statute, in turn, requires that any controversy or contest that is designed to lead to a conclusive selection of electors be completed by December That date is upon us, and there is no recount procedure in place under the State Supreme Court's order that comports with minimal constitutional standards.

Because it is evident that any recount seeking to meet the December 12 date will be unconstitutional for the reasons we have discussed, we reverse the judgment of the Supreme Court of Florida ordering a recount to proceed. Seven Justices of the Court agree that there are constitutional problems with the recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court that demand a remedy. The only disagreement is as to the remedy. Because the Florida Supreme Court has said that the Florida Legislature intended to obtain the safe-harbor benefits of 3 U.

None are more conscious of the vital limits on judicial authority than are the Members of this Court, and none stand more in admiration of the Constitution's design to leave the selection of the President to the people, through their legislatures, and to the political sphere.

When contending parties invoke the process of the courts, however, it becomes our unsought responsibility to resolve the federal and constitutional issues the judicial system has been forced to confront. The judgment of the Supreme Court of Florida is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. Pursuant to this Court's Rule We join the per curiam opinion.

We write separately because we believe there are additional grounds that require us to reverse the Florida Supreme Court's decision. We deal here not with an ordinary election, but with an election for the President of the United States.

In Burroughs v. United States, U. The President is vested with the executive power of the nation. The importance of his election and the vital character of its relationship to and effect upon the welfare and safety of the whole people cannot be too strongly stated. Likewise, in Anderson v. Celebrezze, U. For the President and the Vice President of the United States are the only elected officials who represent all the voters in the Nation.

In most cases, comity and respect for federalism compel us to defer to the decisions of state courts on issues of state law. That practice reflects our understanding that the decisions of state courts are definitive pronouncements of the will of the States as sovereigns.

Erie R. Tompkins, U. Of course, in ordinary cases, the distribution of powers among the branches of a State's government raises no questions of federal constitutional law, subject to the requirement that the government be republican in character. See U. But there are a few exceptional cases in which the Constitution imposes a duty or confers a power on a particular branch of a State's government. This is one of them. Emphasis added.

In McPherson v. A significant departure from the legislative scheme for appointing Presidential electors presents a federal constitutional question. Title 3 U. Section 5 provides that the State's selection of electors "shall be conclusive, and shall govern in the counting of the electoral votes" if the electors are chosen under laws enacted prior to election day, and if the selection process is completed six days prior to the meeting of the electoral college.

As we noted in Bush v. In Florida, the legislature has chosen to hold statewide elections to appoint the State's 25 electors. Importantly, the legislature has delegated the authority to run the elections and to oversee election disputes to the Secretary of.

State Secretary , Fla. Isolated sections of the code may well admit of more than one interpretation, but the general coherence of the legislative scheme may not be altered by judicial interpretation so as to wholly change the statutorily provided apportionment of responsibility among these various bodies. In any election but a Presidential election, the Florida Supreme Court can give as little or as much deference to Florida's executives as it chooses, so far as Article II is concerned, and this Court will have no cause to question the court's actions.

But, with respect to a Presidential election, the court must be both mindful of the legislature's role under Article II in choosing the manner of appointing electors and deferential to those bodies expressly empowered by the legislature to carry out its constitutional mandate.

In order to determine whether a state court has infringed upon the legislature's authority, we necessarily must examine the law of the State as it existed prior to the action of the court.

Though we generally defer to state courts on the interpretation of state law-see, e. Wilbur, U. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, U. Petitioner had sought a state-law writ of certiorari in the Alabama Supreme Court when a writ of mandamus, according to that court, was proper.

We found this state-law ground inadequate to defeat our jurisdiction because we were "unable to reconcile the procedural holding of the Alabama Supreme Court" with prior Alabama precedent. The purported state-law ground was so novel, in our independent. Six years later we decided Bouie v. City of Columbia, U. Relying upon NAACp, we concluded that the South Carolina Supreme Court's interpretation of a state penal statute had impermissibly broadened the scope of that statute beyond what a fair reading provided, in violation of due process.

What we would do in the present case is precisely parallel: hold that the Florida Supreme Court's interpretation of the Florida election laws impermissibly distorted them beyond what a fair reading required, in violation of Article