Also known as: voter intent standard · intent-of-the-voter · voter intent · voter's intent
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A recount procedure by which election officials attempt to discern a voter's intended selection from ambiguous or nonstandard ballot markings. Equal protection requires that the procedure be governed by uniform statewide standards so that similarly marked ballots receive the same treatment regardless of the county in which they are counted.
After a close statewide referendum, coastal counties counted mail ballots lacking a handwritten date while inland counties rejected identical ballots. Voters whose ballots were rejected under the stricter inland rule sued, claiming the lack of a single standard for discerning intent denied equal protection. The court halted the recount because ballots bearing the same marks were accepted or rejected solely on the basis of county practice.
Following a razor-thin presidential election, one county accepted ballots with checkmarks near the oval as valid expressions of intent while an adjacent county required perfectly filled ovals and discarded the same markings. The losing candidate sought to enjoin certification. The court ordered a new recount under uniform statewide rules because the differing local practices assigned unequal weight to identically marked ballots.
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Yes. Once a state undertakes a statewide recount, the Equal Protection Clause requires uniform standards for determining voter intent so that similarly marked ballots are treated alike regardless of county. Varying or standardless procedures that cause identical ballots to be counted in one county and rejected in another violate equal protection.
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No. Equal protection looks to treatment of similarly situated voters across the entire state. Even if each county applies its own rule consistently inside its borders, the absence of a uniform statewide standard produces unequal weighting of votes based solely on geography.
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The holding is expressly limited to the facts of that case, yet the underlying equal-protection principle—that a statewide recount must apply uniform standards—has been treated as instructive for other statewide contests in exam contexts.
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A court typically enjoins certification and orders a new recount conducted under uniform statewide standards so that every ballot is evaluated by the same criteria.
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…indication of the intent of the voter as determined by the canvassing board." The court read that objective of looking to the voter's intent as indicating that the legislature probably meant "legal vote" to mean a vote recorded on a ballot indicating what the voter intended. Gore v. Harris , 772 So. 2d 1243, 1256-1257 (2000).…