On Monday, her employee, L. Clayton Roberts, the director of the state elections division, sent an opinion to the Palm Beach County elections board that a manual recount could only be justified by software errors in tabulation or a mechanical breakdown.
Sections 101.5614 5) and (6) also support the proposition that the "error in vote tabulation" encompasses more than a mere determination of whether the vote tabulation system is functioning.
The error in vote tabulation might be caused by a mechanical malfunction in the operation of the vote counting system, but the error might also result from the failure of a properly functioning mechanical system to discern the choices of the voters as revealed by the ballots.
Mr. Butterworth Dear Judge Burton: On behalf of the Palm Beach County Canvassing Board, you have asked this office's opinion as to the meaning of "error in voting tabulation which could affect the outcome of" an election as that phrase is used in section 102.166 5), Florida Statutes.
Here, the Division issued opinion DE 00-13, whiconstruedued the language "error in vote tabulation" to exclude the situation where a discrepancy between the original machine return and sample manual recount is due to the manner in which a ballot has been marked or punched.
With regard to the first issue, the court held that, under the plain text of the statute, a discrepancy between a sample manual recount and machine returns due to the way in which a ballot was punched or marked did constitute an "error in vote tabulation" sufficient to trigger the statutory provisions for a full manual recount.
Legal Opinion of the Division of Election The first issue this Court must resolve is whether a County Board may conduct a countywide manual recount where it determines there is an error in vote tabulation that could affect the outcome of the election.
Nonetheless, when large numbers of votes are to be counted, it can be expected that some error will occur in tabulation or in canvassing".
n The plain language of section 102.166 5) refers to an error in the vote tabulation rather than the vote tabulation system.
The odd sequence of events led to speculation that there must have been errors in the tabulation of the three riders' victory totals, giving them an illegal break in the weights.
