Why did the Florida Supreme Court reverse Judge Sauls?
First, the majority felt that Judge Sauls erred in framing his role as an appellate judge reviewing the reasonableness of the exercise of discretion by county canvassing boards. The Supreme Court’s opinion emphasized that protests and contests are two separate and distinct creatures and Judge Sauls had an independent duty to consider the contest claims, rather than applying an abuse of discretion standard. Second, Judge Sauls was found to have erred by requiring Gore to show “a reasonable probability” of a change in the results of the election. Based upon the 1999 amendments to the election contest statute, the Court said that a person contesting the election need only show that there have been legal votes cast in the election that have not been counted, and that available data on historical “recovery rate of legal votes within those undervotes” shows that a number of legal votes would be recovered from the entire pool of the subject ballots which, if cast for the unsuccessful candidat
