Q:  A single judge?  I thought the standards were different.  I thought that was the whole point of the Supreme Court opinion.

A:  Judge Terry Lewis, who received the case upon remand from the Florida Supreme Court, had already ordered each of the counties to fax him their standards so he could be sure they were uniform when the US Supreme Court stopped him from counting the uncounted votes (because they were favoring Gore, according to Scalia's stay opinion). 

Q:  Hmmm.  Well, even if those .005% of difficult-to-tell votes are thrown out,  you can still count the votes where everyone, even Republicans, agrees the voter's intent is clear, right?

A:  Nope.

Q:  Why not?

A:  No time.

Q:  I thought the Supreme Court said that the Constitution was more important than speed.

A:  It did.  It said, "The press of time does not diminish the constitutional concern.  A desire for speed is not a general excuse for ignoring equal protection guarantees."

Q:  Well that makes sense. So there's time to count the votes when the intent is clear and everyone is treated equally then. Right?

A:  No. The Supreme Court won't allow it.

Q:  But they just said that the Constitution is more important than time!

A:  You forget.  There is the "Gore Exception."

Q:   No time to count legal votes where everyone, even Republicans, agree the intent is clear?  Why not?

A:  Because they issued the opinion at 10 p.m. on December 12.

Q:  Is December 12 a deadline for counting votes?

A:  No. January 6, 2001 is the deadline. In the Election of 1960, Hawaii's votes weren't counted until January 4, 1961

Q:  So why is December 12 important?

A:  December 12 is a deadline by which Congress can't challenge the results.

Q:  What does the Congressional role have to do with the Supreme Court?

A:  Nothing.  In fact, some 20 states still (as of December 13, 2000) haven't turned in their results.

Q:  But I thought...

A:  The Florida Supreme Court had earlier held it would like to complete its work by December 12 to make things easier for Congress.  The United States Supreme Court is trying to "help" the Florida Supreme Court out by forcing the Florida court to abide by a deadline that everyone agrees is not binding.

Q:  But I thought the Florida Court was going to just barely have the votes counted by December 12.

A:  They would have made it, but the five conservative justices stopped the recount last Saturday.

Q: Why?

A:  Justice Scalia said some of the counts may not be legal.

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