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 situation. You had the actions taken by the secretary of state, upon which some
 of the other counties relied, to their detriment, and when it finally gets to the
 Supreme Court of Florida, they said, well this clearly is not fair to those counties
 that wanted to conduct a full recount but have been relying upon interpretations
 generated by the secretary of state. So, I can understand their point. I can
 understand the position of the Supreme Court of Florida.

P: There's one other case that came up that once again involves your name,
 Touchston v. McDermott, and these are Republicans suing to stop the recount in
 all four counties, because they're going to argue in court that it was a violation of
 the Fourteenth Amendment. Judge Antoon, like Judge Middlebrooks, denied that
 request. Did you think that was the correct decision at that point?

M: Yes, because the rationale for the lawsuit was, we have different standards in
 different counties. Palm Beach County had those God-awful punch card ballots,
 whereas we had fill in the oval ballots. The whole process of ascertaining the
 intent of the voter was far easier in our county than in Palm Beach County. So
 yes, there were different mechanisms for ascertaining the intent of the voter, but
 the statutory mandate was still the same, and we followed the statutory mandate.

P: And what Judge Middlebrooks said was that because they have different
 standards for different voting machines, there's no harm to either party, it's
 neutral, that's the way it's been for all the years that Florida has voted, and,
 therefore, it is no harm to either party and it's a state matter, not a federal matter.
 Do you think that was a sound decision?

M: Oh, I think so, yes. Obviously, the judges said we were right, that tends to make
 you feel good anyway.

[End of side A2]

P: The public at least tends to look at it in that way. Let me ask another question.
 Did you ever anticipate, at this point, once the Supreme Court of Florida has now
 ruled and you've already done your recount so you don't have to worry about
 making the November 26 deadline, yours are already in, did you ever anticipate
 that this would get to the United States Supreme Court?

M: No, I really did not. That surprised me. But, you know there was federal litigation
 going on. In fact, I was a party defendant in two cases in federal court, so you
 would work your way up the chain and eventually you can go to the Supreme
 Court [of the United States] if they'll accept the case.

P: Did you testify in Touchston v. McDermott?
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