Siegel v. LePore

In the November 2000 American presidential election, the Republican Party’s candidate was George W. Bush (plaintiff), and the Democratic Party’s candidate was Albert Gore. In Florida, Bush was the certified winner by 1,784 votes after the first count. The small margin triggered Florida’s statutory recount process. After a recount using voting machines, Bush’s lead became even smaller, triggering a discretionary manual recount. Litigation in both state and federal courts ensued. A great deal of controversy surrounded whether ballots that could not be counted using voting machines (punch cards) were sufficiently reliable to be counted. In addition, Democrats were requesting recounts in select districts only. In federal district court, registered voters, Bush, and the Republican vice-presidential candidate, Richard Cheney (collectively, the voters) (plaintiffs) sued members of Florida county canvassing boards (defendants), seeking injunctive relief to stop the manual recounts. The voters claimed that the manual-recount process violated the United States Constitution’s due-process and equal-protection guarantees because there was no standard for counting punch cards. The district court denied injunctive relief, finding no substantial likelihood of success on the merits and that the voters had failed to show irreparable harm. The voters appealed, arguing that the Eleventh Circuit should abstain from hearing the case in consideration of ongoing state court litigation or, alternatively, reverse the district court’s order. Federal constitutional issues had not been addressed through the state-court litigation.