[EL] Bush v. Gore ballots question

[Rick Hasen]

In his opinion concurring in the stay order in Bush v. Gore, Justice 
Scalia wrote:  "If petitioner is correct that counting in this fashion 
is unlawful, permitting the count to proceed on that erroneous basis 
will prevent an accurate recount from being conducted on a proper basis 
later, since it is generally agreed that each manual recount produces a 
degradation of the ballots, which renders a subsequent recount inaccurate."
I recall controversy at the time over whether it was "generally agreed" 
that each manual recount degraded the ballots.  Regardless of what was 
generally agreed at the time, is there any evidence produced by any of 
the post-2000 studies to confirm or rebut the idea of ballot 
degradation?  Private replies would be fine.
Thanks.
rick
-- 
Rick Hasen
Visiting Professor
UC Irvine School of Law
401 E. Peltason Dr., Suite 1000
Irvine, CA 92697-8000
949.824.3072 - office
949.824.0495 - fax
rhasen at law.uci.edu
http://law.uci.edu/faculty/page1_r_hasen.html

William H. Hannon Distinguished Professor of Law
Loyola Law School
http://www.lls.edu/academics/faculty/hasen.html
http://electionlawblog.org