On November 11, it joined a group of Florida voters in suing in federal district court for a preemptive injunction to stop all manual recounting of votes in Florida. When we revisit the gut-wrenching night of Nov. 7, 2000, we recall that the TV networks looked at exit polls and sample swing precincts from Florida and declared it a win for Al Gore, who was the incumbent vice president and the Democratic nominee for president. What can the events of 20 years ago teach us about the 2020 election? The case then raced through the state-level court and headed to the US Supreme Court. "But," it said, "Gore could not have won without a hand count of overvote ballots, something that he did not request.". "[6], The 2001 book Stupid White Men and other books described allegations of efforts to deny black citizens in Florida the right to vote. Subsequent statements by Lewis and internal court documents support the likelihood that overvotes would have been included in the recount. Disputes erupted over the accuracy and reliability of election technology in the state, with confusion over butterfly ballots (ballots that have names on both sides), punch card voting machines, and hanging chads (punch card ballots that were only partially punched). [2] Gore phoned Bush the night of the election to concede, then retracted his concession after learning how close the Florida count was.[3]. The court ruled 54 on the remedy of the matter, with the majority holding that the Florida Supreme Courts decision had created new election lawa right reserved for the state legislatureand that no recount could be held in time to satisfy a federal deadline for the selection of state electors. That decision was announced on live worldwide television by the Florida Supreme Court's spokesman Craig Waters, the Court's public information officer. Furthermore, the number of undervotes correlates with how well the punch-card machines are maintained, and not with factors such as race or socioeconomic status. It was sponsored by the Associated Press, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN, St. Petersburg Times, Palm Beach Post, Washington Post and the Tribune Co., which owns papers including the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Orlando Sentinel and Baltimore Sun. A problem that occurred in Florida during the 2000 election was very minute difference in votes that state statute necessitated a repeat. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Bush won 12 of 23 congressional districts. Based on exit polls in Florida, the news media declared Gore the winner, but as the actual votes were tallied, Bush appeared to command the lead. Fewer than 600 votes separated the candidates, and that margin appeared to be narrowing. United States presidential election of 2000, American presidential election held on Nov. 7, 2000, in which Republican George W. Bush narrowly lost the popular vote to Democrat Al Gore but defeated Gore in the electoral college. Lawyers for the two sides began arriving in Florida, focusing on the state capital of Tallahassee. They lost in the state's circuit court, but that decision was reversed by the Florida Supreme Court. Print and broadcast media cited often contradictory exit-polling numbers, and the races in Oregon and New Mexico would remain too close to call for some days. It would have made the election longer, yes, but was it REALLY unconstitutional? How many electoral votes did George W. Bush win in the 2000 election? "In a per curiam decision, the Court first ruled 72 (Justices Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissenting), strictly on equal protection grounds, that the recount be stopped. The ruling effectively awarded Floridas 25 votes in the electoral collegeand thus the election itselfto Republican candidate George W. Bush. The Constitution has it structured the way it is, and they did it that way. About 19,000 ballots were spoiled because of overvotes (two votes in the same race), compared to 3000 in 1996. Nationally, Bush had won 246 electoral votes; Gore had won 260. . The recount was in progress on December 9 when the United States Supreme Court, by a 5 to 4 vote (Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer dissenting), granted Bush's emergency plea for a stay of the Florida Supreme Court recount ruling, stopping the incomplete recount. Directed by Jay Roach, it starred Kevin Spacey as Ron Klain, Bob Balaban as Benjamin Ginsberg, Ed Begley Jr. as David Boies, Laura Dern as Katherine Harris, John Hurt as Warren Christopher, Denis Leary as Michael Whouley, Bruce McGill as Mac Stipanovich, and Tom Wilkinson as James Baker. United States presidential election of 2000, American presidential election held on Nov. 7, 2000, in which Republican George W. Bush narrowly lost the popular vote to Democrat Al Gore but defeated Gore in the electoral college. About 10 p.m. EST on December 12, the United States Supreme Court handed down its ruling. The Bush campaign quickly filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court, asking it to delay the recounts until it could hear the case; a stay was issued by the court on December 9. do not count any votes for the marked candidate (4): Counties that count votes for the marked candidate if the write-in is. Expert Answers. [19]:215221 According to a 2001 study in the American Political Science Review, the voting errors caused by the butterfly ballot cost Gore the election: "Had PBC used a ballot format in the presidential race that did not lead to systematic biased voting errors, our findings suggest that, other things equal, Al Gore would have won a majority of the officially certified votes in Florida. [4][6] According to legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, later analysis showed that a total of 18 countiesaccounting for a quarter of all votes cast in Floridadid not carry out the legally mandated machine recount, but "No one from the Gore campaign ever challenged this view" that the machine recount had been completed.[7]. Ultimately, the contest focused on Florida. The final decision was based on just a few hundred votes in Florida. emilyrawlings2444. Salvado says that this alone cost Gore the election. "[4] According to Anthony Salvado, a political scientist at the University of California, Irvine, who acted as a consultant on the media recount, most of the errors were caused by ballot design, ballot wording, and efforts by voters to choose both a president and a vice president. This immediately reduced the Bush margin from 537 to 154 (537215168 is 154). Its a horribly written opinion. Bush v. Gore was a case heard before the U.S. Supreme Court in which that court reversed a Florida Supreme Court request for a selective manual recount of ballots cast in the U.S. presidential election of 2000. Some questioned Buchanan's 3,407 votes in Palm Beach County, Florida, given the liberal leanings of the county, the sizeable Jewish population, and his performance in the remainder of the state. Gore appealed that decision to the Florida Supreme Court. More than 20% of ballots in black precincts of Duval County were rejected because of votes for president on each page. All were among 10,310 undervotes in the county. [80], The NORC was expecting 176,446 uncounted ballots to be available from Florida's counties, based on county precinct reports that produced the final, state-certified vote totals. The process was extremely divisive and led to calls for electoral reform in Florida. In the month following the election, some 50 individual suits were filed concerning the various counts, recounts, and certification deadlines. Bush ultimately prevailed after a strenuous fight, including an especially brutal effort by the Bush campaign in the South Carolina primary. Fast forward three weeks later on Nov. 26, 2000, the state of Florida declared Bush the winner by just 537 votes. The 2000 presidential election was the closest in the history of the US Electoral College and the first ever to be decided by the US Supreme Court. Direct link to Tristan Lvin's post Couldn't they have just r, Posted 5 years ago. Networks initially projected Gore the winner in that state but later declared that Bush had opened an insurmountable lead. Here's one of them. It was the closest presidential election in American history, with only several hundred votes in Florida determining the winner out of more than 100 million ballots cast nationwide. That part of the vote count was completed on November 18, increasing Bush's lead to 930 votes. On the other hand, the study also found that Gore probably would have won, by a range of 42 to 171 votes out of 6 million cast, had there been a broad recount of all disputed ballots statewide. Only a fourth of the variance consisted of optical ballots. In one of the most controversial decisions that the Supreme Court concluded, the case ended up with a 5 to 4 ruling for Bush on Dec. 12, 2000, a move that puzzled reporters as some said they ruled in favor of Bush, while others said the same about Gore. Before long, other networks were hearing the objections and reaching the same conclusion. After calling the race, the networks began getting phone calls from Republicans. Charges of conflict of interest were leveled by both sidesBushs brother Jeb was the governor of the state and Secretary of State Katherine Harris was cochair of Bushs Florida campaign, while Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth headed the Gore campaign. [2] It was also the first time the Democratic candidate won Orange County since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944. Ballots received after deadline, lacking required postmarks, unsigned, undated, cast after election day, from unregistered voters or voters not requesting ballots, lacking witness signature or address, or double-counted. appealed the florida supreme court's decision to allow a hand recount. Also uncounted were many absentee, military and provisional ballots. Also at issue was the so-called butterfly ballot design used in Palm Beach county, which caused confusion among some residents who had intended to vote for Goreleading them to inadvertently cast some 3,400 votes for an ultraconservative third-party candidate, Pat Buchanan, which amounted to about 20 percent of his total votes statewide. With only two hours remaining until the December 12 deadline, the Supreme Court's order effectively ended the recount. [20] It was expected that had they been able to vote, most would have chosen the Democratic candidate. [10] Voters from reliably Democratic states in the Northeast had also been migrating to Florida since the 1950s. Karl Rove, in full Karl Christian Rove, (born December 25, 1950, Denver, Colorado, U.S.), American political consultant and principal architect of U.S. Pres. These standards are applied to both undervotes and overvotes. However, Kohut noted it might also mean that a disproportionate number of these Democratic-leaning groups were voting early, or that a disproportionate number were being represented in the exit polls. In effect, the latter ruling made Bush president. Direct link to Mr. S's post B.K., sounds like you are, Posted 5 years ago. Once the closeness of the election in Florida was clear, both the Bush and Gore campaigns organized themselves for the ensuing legal process. The Associated Press reported the findings this way: AP: A vote-by-vote review of untallied ballots in the 2000 Florida presidential election indicates George W. Bush would have narrowly prevailed in the partial recounts sought by Al Gore, but Gore might have reversed the outcome by the barest of margins had he pursued and gained a complete statewide recount. What Can This Tell Us About the 2020 Presidential Race? The 54 per curiam (unsigned) decision effectively awarded Floridas 25 Electoral College votes to Republican candidate George W. Bush, thereby ensuring his victory over Democratic candidate Al Gore. Officials in a majority of punch-card counties said they would accept a single-corner detached chad as an indicator of voter intent, and officials in a majority of optical scan counties said they would accept all affirmative marks as described in NORC codes as indicators of voter intent. Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris's certification of the election results was thus upheld, allowing Florida's electoral votes to be cast for Bush, making him president-elect. If Gore had won the recount, then he would have won the election with a total of 292 electoral votes, and Bush would have lost with 246 electoral votes. ", "Data Files NORC Files, Media Group Files", "Now Democrats Are Upset With The Way Lake Counted, Counters Threw Out 3,114 Ballots Because Voters Also Wrote In The Name Of Their Candidate", "No. Kohut was among those who saw this flaw even in 2000. In comparison, counties that used paper ballots scanned by computers at voting places (in order to give voters a chance to correct their ballot if it had an error) had just 1 in 200 uncountable ballots. Among these was the Palm Beach "butterfly ballot", which resulted in an unusually high number of votes for Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan. *One Gore elector from Washington, D.C., abstained from casting an electoral vote. Bush or Gore? In the weeks following Election Day in the 2000 U.S. presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore, there was a period of vote recounting in Florida. The results of the 2000 U.S. presidential election are provided in the table. In particular, from summer 1999 to spring 2000, Florida's voter list was subject to an unusually high number of problems. The only thing that could be done was to recount the votes but that was stopped. Fewer than 600 votes separated the candidates, and that margin appeared to be narrowing. I have Gore on the phone, people are bringing me pages one page at a time. [37] After the election, recounts conducted by various United States news media organizations continued to focus on undervotes. Controversies included: Many voters in Palm Beach County who intended to vote for Gore actually marked their ballots for Pat Buchanan or spoiled their ballots because they found the ballot's layout to be confusing. "Florida Review Shows Narrowest Margin." Former Vice President Al Gore evoked the ghosts of the 2000 election -- when he battled Republican nomineeGeorge W. Bushfor the White House -- as reporters asked him to comment on the state of the 2020 presidential race between Democratic nomineeJoe BidenandPresident Donald Trump. [82] The post-controversy recounts revealed that, "if a manual recount had been limited to undervotes, it would have produced an inaccurate picture of the electorate's position."[4]. "[5], This initiative occurred without sufficient protection of voting rights. "Florida recount study: Bush still wins: Study reveals flaws in ballots, voter errors may have cost Gore victory." They had won Florida, they insisted. ), 5, which the Florida Supreme Court had stated that the Florida Legislature intended to meet. The final official Florida count gave the victory to Bush by 537 votes, making it by percentage not only the tightest race of the campaign (New Mexico was decided by 366 votes but has a much smaller population, representing a 0.061% margin), but also the closest in any United States presidential election ever. The Bush campaign immediately petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay of the recount order, which was granted on December 9. The project ended up using a sample that was 1,333 votes fewer than the expected total of votes, with most of the variation in Votomatic overvotes, the ballots least likely to yield votes in a recount. Some media reports focused on undervotes (chad blocked hole, wrong ink or pencil used, partial oval mark not detected, humidity affected scanner, ballot feeder misalignment), while others also included overvotes (hole punched or oval filled plus a write-in name, other multi-marked ballots). Regarding the first issue, the court ruled that, while Harris was generally entitled to deference in her interpretation of state laws, in this case the interpretation "contravene[d] the plain meaning" of the phrase "error in the vote tabulation" and so must be overturned. The margin in Florida had shrunk to a sliver and a recount seemed in order. By November 10 the machine recount was complete, and Bushs lead stood at 327 votes out of six million cast. Instead, the electors from each state and the District of Columbia met in their respective capitols. rejected the decision of the us supreme court on the hand recount. The Florida recount was the subject of the 2008 television film Recount, which aired on HBO. Election of 2000 On election night in November, television news networks initially declared that Gore had won Florida, despite several polls open in Republican-leaning districts, with. That study was conducted by a group that included the Miami Herald, USA Today and Knight Ridder newspapers. Direct link to ayushkadri's post No. George W. Bush received fewer popular votes than Albert Gore Jr., but received a majority of electoral votes. decided a hand recount could not be done in time for the electoral college vote But the state of the 2020 race is completely different, as Gore stated, than two decades ago. A: There is currently no strong evidence that acetaminophen use during pregnancy causes autism or ADHD in children. 2000 Electoral College Results. Direct link to Edward (Eddie) W.'s post One big question that I h, Posted 2 years ago. The presidential election that took place on November 7, 2000, was so close that no one knew for more than a month who had won the election of 2000: Texas Governor George W. Bush (R), or Vice President Al Gore (D). On election night in November, television news networks initially declared that Gore had won Florida, despite several polls open in Republican-leaning districts, with voters still casting their ballots. Floridas electoral votes enabled Bush to win the presidency. [81] Florida State University professor of public policy Lance deHaven-Smith observed that, even considering only undervotes, "under any of the five most reasonable interpretations of the Florida Supreme Court ruling, Gore does, in fact, more than make up the deficit". Florida state law at the time allowed a candidate to request a manual recount by protesting the results of at least three precincts. In 2000 that process took five weeks and only ended at the Supreme Court. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. There is a real issue here about what voting actually means. [14]:89 On November 13, the federal court ruled against an injunction. The study cost nearly $1 million and was the most thorough and comprehensive news-media review of the Florida balloting. Various flaws and improprieties in Florida's electoral processes were immediately apparent, while others were reported after later investigation. As more votes were tallied, Gore narrowed Bushs lead to less than 2,000 votes, which pushed for an automatic recount in the state as the margin was so tight. Circle Countries that came under the rule of a fascist government and dictator before WWII began On November 21, the Florida Supreme Court ruled unanimously that manual counts in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade Counties must be included and set 5:00p.m. on November 26 as the earliest time for certification. At the nations highest court, Floridas election system wason pins and needlesas officials scanned election machines, voter lists, vote counting guidelines and partisan officials. Of these 4842 excluded ballots, 4513 had been set aside by the canvassing board for later inspection by a court (which never happened). Whoever wins the most votes in the state is awarded all 25 electoral votes. Following the machine recount, the Gore campaign requested a manual recount in four counties. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). What good and Ideas came from china ? To win the presidency, candidates must win a majority of votes in the Electoral College. On the evening of election dayNovember 7, 2000a clear winner of the presidential election had yet to emerge. Rick Scott did the same for the Senate seat. According to the study, 3146 (3%) of the 111,261 examined overvotes "contained clear and therefore legally valid votes not counted in any of the manual recounts during the dispute. [78][80], Based on the NORC review, the media group concluded that if the disputes over the validity of all the ballots in question had been consistently resolved and any uniform standard applied, the electoral result would have been reversed and Gore would have won by 60 to 171 votes (with, for each punch ballot, at least two of the three ballot reviewers' codes being in agreement). On November 14, Democratic lawyer Mark Herron authored a memo on how to challenge flawed ballots, including overseas ballots cast by members of the military. USA Today, The Miami Herald, and Knight Ridder commissioned accounting firm BDO Seidman to count undervotes. Bush v. Gore has been regarded as one of the most politically consequential decisions in the history of the court, and one that damaged the court's preferred image of itself as an institution far removed from everyday partisan politics. The undervotes and overvotes in Florida amounted to 3% of all votes cast in the state. Study with Quizlet and memorize flashcards containing terms like The legislative branch is responsible for enforcing the law divided into two separate houses accountable for conducting trials less powerful than the executive, If the president vetoes a bill, the executive branch can override the veto with a 2/3 vote legislative branch can override the veto with a 2/3 vote executive branch can . It is safe to say the wounds from the battles of 18 years ago have never healed not in Florida and not in the nation's highest court. The outcome of the election was ultimately decided by the US Supreme Court in, The 2000 presidential election pitted Republican George W. Bush, governor of Texas and son of former US president George H.W. It was governed by Jeb Bush, a staunch conservative[8] and George W. Bush's brother. Could Florida have decided not to send its electors to the Electoral College if it did not have time to ensure the election was properly counted? The Court, stating that not meeting the "safe harbor" deadline would therefore violate the Florida Election Code, rejected an extension of the deadline.". These lawsuits escalated to the U.S. Supreme Court where the final, 5-4 decision was made, ending the recounts and giving the state of Florida's Electoral votes to George W. Bush. Am I correct? A full, official recount of all votes statewide could have gone either way, but one was never conducted. ", "THE 2000 CAMPAIGN: THE VOTERS; Independents and the Elderly Lift Gore in Florida, Poll Says", "2000 Presidential General Election Results", "Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections County Data", Florida Recounts Would Have Favored Bush But Study Finds Gore Might Have Won Statewide Tally of All Uncounted Ballots., Category: Books about the 2000 United States presidential election, Florida election recount and legal proceedings, Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board, Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2000_United_States_presidential_election_in_Florida&oldid=1138104961, 2000 United States presidential election by state, United States presidential elections in Florida, Articles containing potentially dated statements from November 2020, All articles containing potentially dated statements, Articles to be expanded from November 2021, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 8 February 2023, at 01:40. At about 3:00 am Gore called a stunned Bush to retract his concession. Escambia County also reported completing its recount that day but did not include all of its precincts. Preventing the canvassing boards from continuing to conduct recounts beyond the seven-day timeframe (specified in the law, but with ambiguity as to how firm it was intended to be), would "summarily disenfranchise innocent electors [voters]" and could not be allowed unless the recounts continued for so long as to "compromise the integrity of the electoral process." [37] Such a statewide review including all uncounted votes was a tangible possibility, as Leon County Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis, whom the Florida Supreme Court had assigned to oversee the statewide recount, had scheduled a hearing for December 13 (mooted by the U.S. Supreme Court's final ruling on December 12) to consider including overvotes. It also goes down as one of the most controversial. Undervotes (ballots that did not register any vote when counted by machine) were the subject of much media coverage, most of the lawsuits and the Florida Supreme Court ruling. hide caption. It also stayed the state certification to November 26. All candidates who appear on the ballot or qualify to receive write-in votes must submit a list of 25 electors who pledge to vote for their candidate and his or her running mate. How such recounts in the case at hand could be made to fit into the statutory scheme, which, as Harris interpreted it, contemplated a quick certification followed, if necessary, by an election contest during which a court (rather than the canvassing boards) would be empowered to correct errors.

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