Publication Date
5-2020
Document Type
Casenote
Abstract
The right to vote is as close to sacrosanct as almost any right in our constitutional system. The election-battleground state of Florida has time and time again come under the national spotlight due to its vote counting practices. Florida fell under immense national scrutiny as the entire nation awaited the resolution of the 2000 presidential election. Bush v. Gore highlighted many of the inherent issues with the Florida system of allowing individual counties free rein to enact their own election procedures. The lack of any central guidance in election procedures has, in large part, persisted. The latest iteration concerns the second examination of the procedures, or lack thereof, used in validating vote-by-mail and provisional ballots. The established test to measure the constitutionality of an election law, restricting voting, is to weigh the magnitude of the burden on the voter, against the state's justifications for the restriction. The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit applied this test while using the established framework to consider an emergency stay of a preliminary injunction. A majority of an Eleventh Circuit panel ultimately held—with a single judge dissenting—that an emergency stay was not warranted, though the Court took the time to highlight several factors that continue to plague the Florida election system.
Recommended Citation
Christopher Wood, Note, Election Spotlight: Nearly Twenty Years After Hanging Chads, Problems Persist in Florida, 71 Mercer L. Rev. 895 (2020).