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high court’s decision as final and got onwith business as usual.“Everyone believed this wouldresolve itself and a lot of people believed,at the end of the day, the Electoral Collegewould step in as it is designed to do ifnecessary,” said Zack. “I’ve recentlyspoken at law schools in China, Russiaand Poland, and this was a commonquestion. My unequivocal answer wasthat we as a people are fully committedto the constitutional electoral processand, at all times, were going to turn toour lawyers and not to our generals.”That reliance on the law hasn’tsquelched cynical speculation by somethat partisan fervor motivated decisionsmade by both the Florida Supreme Courtand the U.S. Supreme Court. Yet the truthof the matter may have been in plain sightall along.“The [Florida] election laws reallywere not designed in such a way thatfit a presidential election where themargin of victory was within the marginof error. The courts were trying todeal in a very short time span with theproverbial square peg in a round hole.It just was not something that could bedealt with in a very satisfactory way,”said Wells. “What I have said, and whatI truly believe, is this was the electionof the president of the United States,and no matter what the legal avenues orapproaches were for the United StatesSupreme Court to get to it, it still wasnecessary for the United States SupremeCourt to have the final say.”ELECTION REFORM, FLORIDA-STYLEFlorida is no stranger to presidentialelection problems. Few are aware thatthe congressional Electoral Count Actof 1877 — which, ironically, establishedthe Dec. 12 safe haven deadline drivinglitigation in Florida’s 2000 presidentialelection — was enacted in part as a resultof Florida’s disputed 1876 presidentialelection between Rutherford B. Hayesand Samuel J. Tilden. The scandal ofthat election involved alleged ballot boxstuffing and suppression of Republicanvoters, mostly freed slaves.With Florida’s 27 electoral votes upfor grabs and tight margins reported inadvance of the 2008 election betweenAP PHOTO/PETE COSGROVEMillsStanding on the FloridaSupreme Court steps,spokesman Craig Waters (JD86), announces the court’s7-0 ruling in Tallahassee, Fla.,Nov. 21, 2000 that amendedvote tallies must be acceptedin the state’s contestedpresidential election.John McCain and Barack Obama, manyworried the state could again experiencechaos. This election went smoothly,for the most part, despite heavy voterturnout — 73 percent of the state’sregistered voters, nearly 8.2 millionFloridians, voted (4.3 million of thoseduring early voting).“Since 2000, there have been aseries of statutory responses thatwould make [a recount] muchmore streamlined, standardizedand easier to conduct.”“The 2000 situation was unique inhistory,” said Jon Mills, a UF professorof law, dean emeritus, and director ofthe Levin College of Law Center forGovernmental Responsibility (whichsponsored a post-election conference atthe Levin College of Law featuring theprincipals of the court cases, includingFALL 2008 19