Excerpts from Gore's Appeal

©Associated Press

© St. Petersburg Times Online, November 16, 2000

Excerpts from Vice President Al Gore's legal team's argument to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, filed Thursday morning:

"The District Court was manifestly correct in denying plaintiffs request for an injunction against the continuation of the Florida election process. Plaintiffs clearly failed to meet the standards for granting preliminary injunctive relief. Plaintiffs likewise fail here to meet the exacting abuse of discretion standards embraced by this court to grant the extraordinary remedy of an injunction pending appeal.

"More fundamentally, as recognized by the District Court, this case is simply not appropriate for federal court intervention of any kind at this point in the proceeding."

"Plaintiffs asking this Court to intervene in the Florida process and bring to a sudden halt the manual recount verification process which is currently taking place in an organized and orderly manner in several Florida counties pursuant to state law. ...This dramatic relief is sought without any demonstration that the Plaintiffs will suffer any harm if the status quo remains undisturbed. Additionally, the relief sought, though nominally temporary appeal, is no different from the ultimate relief sought in the underlying lawsuit. Put simply, a grant of Appellant's motion would provide to them the fruits of final victory."

"At the heart of their motion, Plaintiffs ask this Court to ignore the extensive, constitutionally authorized statutory process provided by the Florida Legislature for selecting presidential electors and ask it to intrude in a fundamental state matter.

"Plaintiff's motion reflects an intense distrust of the laws and courts of the State of Florida and a desire for the federal courts to dictate the details of Florida's electoral process. Plaintiffs offer no allegations of misconduct or bad faith. Instead their entire argument rests upon an imagined scenario in which by availing themselves of procedures which are uniformly applied to all counties, certain county canvassing boards are acting in a manner that will thwart the intent of Florida voters. But Florida's procedures for a manual recount to verify votes do not favor any candidate. The manual recount procedure is available to all candidates and parties in Florida. In this election there were no instances where a manual request that was timely made with a statement of the reason for the request was not granted."

"Florida has embarked upon an orderly and structured process pursuant to its statutes to enfranchise voters by carefully and accurately counting the votes cast for Florida's presidential electors. The process quite reasonably includes a combination of ballot counts conducted with and without the assistance of automation."

"The Florida process is reasonable and trustworthy. The Florida Legislature exercised its constitutionally reserved discretion when deciding that presidential electors are to be selected by popular vote in accordance with the state's election laws."

"They (the Plaintiffs) ask this Court to interfere with Florida's elaborate and comprehensive ballot counting process. A federal court's involvement in this case would be a grave overreaching of its authority."

"Plaintiffs argument that 102.166 is constitutionally defective because it does not provide certainty of notice is particularly unavailing in the circumstances of this case. In at least two of the counties at issue here -- Dade and Broward -- the Republican Party not only received notice of a request for a recount, but responded within the 72 hour deadline, arguing in at least one case that there was not a sufficient showing that a recount would affect the election."

"Not only have the plaintiffs failed to make out a case for the existence of irreparable damage resulting from the manual recounts, but they have in fact not even alleged any concrete legally cognizable injury which would justify the issuance of such extraordinary injunctive relief."

"Moreover, even if Plaintiffs had asserted an injury of the type which could be recognized and even if Plaintiffs' claims and challenges were ultimately upheld, there would still be sufficient time to fashion an appropriate remedy before the election results are properly certified either by disallowing the results of manual recounts or by recounting other votes."

"If the claims of the Plaintiffs here and others challenging the Florida statutory procedure are found entirely without merit, the granting of an injunction at this point would have worked an enormous public disservice. ...Any further delay in that process could seriously threaten the timeliness and integrity of the entire election process, for if it is found days or weeks from now that the injunction were improvident, the recounts would need to begin again."

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