The voter who shows up at the polls five minutes after they close clearly intended to vote, but is disenfranchised by the clock; the door is locked.

Politicians are forever ignoring history, claiming mandates that voters never intended and then paying a price for their miscalculation.

"There is no way for anybody to tell from those ballots what the voter intended," Mr. Meloy said.

Following last week's undecided racists, more voters who believe crazy things about Obama but intend to vote for him anyway.

But Mr. Schwartzman vehemently denied the possibility that his voters had intended to vote for the new governor.

If Judge Sauls is persuaded by the Democrats' argument, he would be free to simply make his own decision about what voters intended.

Because there was no clear indication of what the voters intended, those numbers were not included in the consortium's final tabulations.

If the conflict is resolved, then, in a way that fairly reflects what the voters intended, Mr. Gore will carry Florida and be president.

The script then divides into two sections based on whether the voter intends to support Labour or another party.

Democratic election officials - guessing what individual voters might have intended - would substitute their subjective judgment for the count by the all-too-impartial machines.