FEP 43 Page 30 P: But she was being, as I have determined, advised by people like Mac Stipanovich and other individuals, and as Mac told me, he said, my objective was to bring home the election with George Bush at the wheel. M: Sure. P: So, he was advising her. Now, at this point, and jumping ahead a little bit from your particular responsibilities, the Florida Supreme Court will overturn Judge Lewis. They are going to vote 7-0 to extend the time to get these votes in until November 26. What immediately becomes an issue there is that by changing the date, did they change the rules after the game? Did they, in fact, make law as oppose to interpret law? What was your reaction to that decision? M: Well, now that decision came down after we had concluded. P: You were finished, yes. M: I don't think I had any strong opinions one way or the other because all the litigation that was going on had nothing to do with us because we did conclude our recount within the seven day period. My reaction was, well, here we have a contradictory statute and also we have actions taken by the secretary of state, herself, which tended to delay recount in some of the other counties. Should the people who voted in those counties be disenfranchised because of actions taken by the secretary of state? To the extent I had a reaction, it was along those lines. P: In fact, they were rather harsh with her because what they thought had happened here was the right to vote had been nullified. These people had voted but their votes would not get counted simply because of the hypertechnical view of the statutes. Because she could have allowed, at the very least, until November 17, when the overseas ballots were due. The totals couldn't be formally certified until then anyway. M: That's right. P: So, they looked at her, and the reason they picked November 26, and I talked to Justice Harding about this, is they figured that she had delayed the count by five days or so by erroneous interpretation of the law, so they added five days. They said they were interpreting the statute, and perhaps, as Justice Harding said, we were trying to fashion a remedy. Maybe that was a bad term, "to fashion a remedy", it sounds like they're making up law, but they claimed they interpreted law. Would you agree with that explanation? M: You know, the Supreme Court of Florida was presented with a really impossible 30