MEDIATION AND POST-ELECTION LITIGATION elections or the secretary of state's office will facilitate a process to determine the procedural rules of the recount. 85 At the other end of the spectrum, in some states the authority to fill process gaps left by election statutes falls to individual county election administrators, which, as we know after Bush v. Gore, can lead to frustrating results. 86 Experience has shown that judicial misjudgment in resolving process disputes-either because of unanticipated consequences of a given judicial process decree, or events unanticipated at the time of the ruling-may protract process disputes unnecessarily. Process decisions in post-election disputes-particularly recounts-involve sophisticated and sometimes unknowable variables. Judges, many of whom have never tried election matters before, are seldom equipped to understand the impact of one process decision versus another. They are instead reliant on passionate partisan arguments of campaign attorneys. Even a politically neutral judge who takes her political leanings out of the mix will feel uncertain in this territory. This is to say nothing of the elected, partisan judge who might be called to make process decisions. In an environment in which judges and state election administrators often lack guidance on procedural details, election attorneys routinely rush to fill the vacuum. Individual campaigns hire nationally prominent, partisan election attorneys to help navigate procedural uncertainties. From Bush v. Gore to Coleman v. Franken, fierce partisan election lawyering has become the accepted model. 87 In many recounts, partisan recount experts are often details. The judge in this case allowed the parties access to the process of establishing procedural rules. 8S See infra Part VI.B. 86 Wisconsin provides a good example of this decentralized approach. Kevin Kennedy of the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board website confirms this characterization by noting that "Wisconsin has the most decentralized election administration in the United States". The site goes on to note that Wisconsin state law gives each county's Board of Canvassers the primary authority to conduct recounts, and to decide which ballots should and should not be counted. See Statewide Supreme Court Recount Update, http:l/gab.wi/node/1849. 87 Richard L. Hasen, Beyond the Margin of Litigation: Reforming US. Election Administration to Avoid Electoral Meltdown, 62 WASH. & LEE L. REV. 937, 957-59 (2005) (documenting the increase of election-related litigation since 2000); Richard L. Hasen, Will Armies of Lawyers in Service to Political Parties Determine Election 2008?, THE LOYOLA LAWYER, Aug. 19, 2008, at 5 (anticipating a number of lawyers-many of ihem volunteer-deployed in the 2008 election); Susan Greene et al., Legal Eagles Will Eye Voting: 'Armies of Lawyers' Tapped, DENVER POST, Oct. 17, 2004, at Cl; Kenneth P. Vogel, Election Lawyers are a Hot Commodity, POLITICO (Mar. 6, 2007, 5:29 pm), 345 HeinOnline -- 27 Ohio St. J. on Disp. Resol. 345 2012