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. According to a massive months-long study commissioned by eight news organizations in 2001, George W. Bush probably still would have won even if the U.S. Supreme Court had allowed a limited statewide recount to go forward as ordered by Floridas highest court. Subsequent statements by Lewis and internal court documents support the likelihood that overvotes would have been included in the recount. 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. Seven of the nine justices saw constitutional problems with the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution in the Florida Supreme Court's plan for recounting ballots, citing differing vote-counting standards from county to county and the lack of a single judicial officer to oversee the recount. 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. Florida's secretary of state, Katherine Harris, a Republican, then gave counties until 2:00p.m. on November 15 to provide reasons for recounting their ballots. Direct link to shawnfu02's post Would it have been possib, Posted 6 years ago. On November 9, the Bush campaign announced they had hired George H. W. Bush's former Secretary of State James Baker and Republican political consultant Roger Stone to oversee their legal team, and the Gore campaign hired Bill Clinton's former Secretary of State Warren Christopher..mw-parser-output .ambox{border:1px solid #a2a9b1;border-left:10px solid #36c;background-color:#fbfbfb;box-sizing:border-box}.mw-parser-output .ambox+link+.ambox,.mw-parser-output .ambox+link+style+.ambox,.mw-parser-output .ambox+link+link+.ambox,.mw-parser-output .ambox+.mw-empty-elt+link+.ambox,.mw-parser-output .ambox+.mw-empty-elt+link+style+.ambox,.mw-parser-output .ambox+.mw-empty-elt+link+link+.ambox{margin-top:-1px}html body.mediawiki .mw-parser-output .ambox.mbox-small-left{margin:4px 1em 4px 0;overflow:hidden;width:238px;border-collapse:collapse;font-size:88%;line-height:1.25em}.mw-parser-output .ambox-speedy{border-left:10px solid #b32424;background-color:#fee7e6}.mw-parser-output .ambox-delete{border-left:10px solid #b32424}.mw-parser-output .ambox-content{border-left:10px solid #f28500}.mw-parser-output .ambox-style{border-left:10px solid #fc3}.mw-parser-output .ambox-move{border-left:10px solid #9932cc}.mw-parser-output .ambox-protection{border-left:10px solid #a2a9b1}.mw-parser-output .ambox .mbox-text{border:none;padding:0.25em 0.5em;width:100%}.mw-parser-output .ambox .mbox-image{border:none;padding:2px 0 2px 0.5em;text-align:center}.mw-parser-output .ambox .mbox-imageright{border:none;padding:2px 0.5em 2px 0;text-align:center}.mw-parser-output .ambox .mbox-empty-cell{border:none;padding:0;width:1px}.mw-parser-output .ambox .mbox-image-div{width:52px}html.client-js body.skin-minerva .mw-parser-output .mbox-text-span{margin-left:23px!important}@media(min-width:720px){.mw-parser-output .ambox{margin:0 10%}}. 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. The Florida Supreme Court extended the deadline for the recount and ordered a manual recount. 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. [84] A Gore win was impossible without a recount of overvotes, which he did not request; however, faxes between Judge Terry Lewis and the canvassing boards throughout the state indicated that Lewis, who oversaw the recount effort, intended to have overvotes counted.[81]. In punchcard counties, 1 in 25 ballots had uncountable presidential votes. If you're seeing this message, it means we're having trouble loading external resources on our website. The GOP effort in 2000 broadcasted massive talent within the party that likely helped Bush land a White House win. There were two main issues:[55][56][57][58]. The Court further held that it had "considerable uncertainty" as to the reasons given by the Florida Supreme Court for its decision. It was instead a painful reminder of the days when the battle for the ballot was, literally, a life-and-death matter. These convoluted ballot designs led to calls for election and voting reform, and some states installed electronic voting machines to ensure greater accuracy in future elections. Gore won 11, including three that elected Republicans. Gore request for recounts in four counties: Florida Supreme Court order: accepts completed recounts for Broward, Palm Beach, Volusia and Miami-Dade (139 precincts); applies the above "prevailing standard" (but with no overvotes) to remaining Miami-Dade and other 63 counties. In 2000, Florida was allocated 25 electors because it had 23 congressional districts and 2 senators. Networks said they relied on exit polling to call Florida. County officials tried to discern voter intent through a cloud of hanging chads (incompletely punched paper ballots) and pregnant chads (paper ballots that were dimpled, but not pierced, during the voting process), as well as overvotes (ballots that recorded multiple votes for the same office) and undervotes (ballots that recorded no vote for a given office). None of these findings are certain. Taken together with Florida, those states triggered the network's computer programs to conclude Gore would win the Electoral College. 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. a swing state with challenged votes. Direct link to David Knarian's post The Constitution has it s, Posted 2 years ago. The Herron memo gave postmark and "point of origin" criteria that Herron maintained could be used to challenge overseas ballots. He is also alleging thatthere have been widespread accounts of voter fraud in these uncalled states. 03.06 Elections and Voting. Also uncounted were many absentee, military and provisional ballots. a) helping the poor b) writing about slavery c) her Abolitionist newspaper d) running the underground railroad, what was fredrick dounglass best known for? Consider the fact that babies who were crying in cribs while their parents agonized over Florida's protracted presidential recount in 2000 are now of voting age. Once the closeness of the election in Florida was clear, both the Bush and Gore campaigns organized themselves for the ensuing legal process. Conservatives claimed that the same ballot had been successfully used in the 1996 election;[18] in fact, it had never been used in a Palm Beach County election among rival candidates for office. The Gore campaign requested that disputed ballots in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Volusia Counties be counted by hand. From the beginning of the controversy, politicians, litigants and the press focused exclusively on the undervotes, in particular incompletely punched chads. The result, released Nov. 11, 2001, was something of a muddle. According to factcheck.org, "Nobody can say for sure who might have won. 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. It was anecdotal evidence at best, and local authorities argued persuasively that the police presence near a polling place was pure coincidence. Eventually, the Gore campaign appealed to the Florida Supreme Court, which ordered the recount to proceed. The undervotes and overvotes in Florida amounted to 3% of all votes cast in the state. SC00-2431, Albert Gore, Jr., and Joseph I. Lieberman, Appellants, vs. Katherine Harris, as Secretary, etc., et al., Appellees", "2000 Presidential Election - Handcount (00genhc.xls)", "Counting the vote: the overview; Bush is declared winner in Florida, but Gore vows to contest results", "Disputed Palm Beach ballots held potential gains for Gore", "General, Nonpartisan and Special Elections Recount; Miami-Dade County, Florida", "So, who really won? . [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. [2] That deadline arrived two hours after the release of the Court's decision. Cauchon, Dennis and Jim Drinkard. during the presidential election of 2000, which state's voting system came under enormous scrutiny because of voting irregularities caused by poorly designed ballots? Direct link to Alex Nemchenko's post Why was a re-vote not ena, Posted 7 years ago. Technically, the voters of Florida cast their ballots for electors, representatives to the Electoral College. [20] It was expected that had they been able to vote, most would have chosen the Democratic candidate. Among the many bad things aboutBush v. Gore, one of the worst is it takes, like, till page seven until you find out the outcome of the case, Ron Klain, a Gore aide,toldthe Atlantic. Direct link to $chmitty$am's post Judges are either elected, Posted 7 years ago. Expert Answers. 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. First of all, this is a completely different election from the one 20 years ago, Goretold NBC News, saying that Biden has multiple pathways to secure his victory over Trump. [37] Because there was no clear indication of what the voters intended, those numbers were not included in the consortium's final tabulations. As the Electoral College vote took shape on election night, with the results piling up from around the country, it was clear the. "[7], The Florida election was closely scrutinized after Election Day. The 2000 United States presidential election recount in Florida was a period of vote recounting in Florida that occurred during the weeks after Election Day in the 2000 United States presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore. [37] After the election, recounts conducted by various United States news media organizations continued to focus on undervotes. [4], An analysis of the NORC data by University of Pennsylvania researcher Steven F. Freeman and journalist Joel Bleifuss concluded that, no matter what standard is used, after a recount of all uncounted votes, Gore would have been the victor. Africa? I don't understand why the Supreme Court couldn't have just let it proceed? 9 terms. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Outstanding Directing for a Limited Series, Movie, or Dramatic Special, Best Supporting Actress Series, Miniseries or Television Film, 2016 United States presidential election recounts, United States House of Representatives elections in Florida, 2006#District 13. USA Today, 11 May 2001. 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. 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. 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. On December 8, in a 43 decision, the Florida Supreme Court ordered immediate manual recounts of undervotes for the office of president in all counties where such recounts had not already taken place. AsNew York Magazinesreporter Andrew Ricewrites, many of the same characters from the 2000 presidential legal brawl are still involved. Rice points to Noel Francisco, the former solicitor general,Alex Azarthe current secretary of Health and Human Services,Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas)and three people who now sit on the nations highest bench: JusticesJohn Roberts,Brett KavanaughandAmy Coney Barrett. Circle Countries that came under the rule of a fascist government and dictator before WWII began Bush, Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon. The 2000 presidential election was a pivotal moment in history that ended up with a recount in Florida. A previous version of this story incorrectly gave Republican Ron DeSantis' first name as Brian. 2000 United States presidential election in Florida, Counties that flipped from Democratic to Republican, Counties that flipped from Republican to Democratic, The previous closest statewide presidential elections were two in. [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]. The 2000 United States presidential election in Florida took place on November 7, 2000, as part of the nationwide presidential election. 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. Although Gore had won the popular vote by roughly a half-million ballots, the all-important Electoral College count from the other 49 states (and District of Columbia) was so close that whoever won Florida would be the overall winner. Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shared Standards. 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. The Constitution has it structured the way it is, and they did it that way. Amount excludes 139 Miami-Dade precincts that were recounted. Although electors are pledged to their candidate and running mate, they are not obligated to vote for them. As adjusted, 176,343 ballots were expected, compared to 175,010 ballots actually provided to the NORC for review. The 2000 United States presidential election in Florida took place on November 7, 2000, as part of the nationwide presidential election. Copyright 2023 Center for the National Interest All Rights Reserved. In such case, only the write-in vote is void." [21] Additionally, this Florida election produced many more "overvotes" than usual, especially in predominantly African-American precincts in Duval County (Jacksonville), where some 21,000 ballots had multiple markings, such as two or more choices for president. A nationwide December 1421, 2000 Harris poll asked, "If everyone who tried to vote in Florida had their votes counted for the candidate who they thought they were voting forwith no misleading ballots and infallible voting machineswho do you think would have won the election, George W. Bush or Al Gore?". "[7] Even an elections supervisor in Madison County was barred from voting; she and others "tried to get the state to rectify the problem, but their pleas fell on deaf ears."[7]. Volusia County started its recount on November 12. Others have a different view. The recounts had gone up until December 9 (although they had been stopped and restarted and stopped and restarted several times before then) when the Supreme Court stopped the recount with a 7 to 2 decision, on the basis that it violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Direct link to SirenaWoodall's post It would of taken too muc, Posted 6 years ago. As the manual recounts continued, the battle to certify the results intensified. With only two hours remaining until the December 12 deadline, the Supreme Court's order effectively ended the recount. "[6] The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights found that an "overall lack of leadership in protecting voting rights was largely responsible for the broad array of problems in Florida during the 2000 election. George W. Bush 's two presidential election campaigns (2000, 2004). The only exception: African-Americans. They argue that American democracy is a far stricter, Lockean, Anglo-American system based on the letter of the law and a successful vote cast by a rational, responsible voter. It won Outstanding Television Movie at the Primetime Emmy Awards, with Roach winning Outstanding Directing for a Limited Series, Movie, or Dramatic Special, and Dern a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress Series, Miniseries or Television Film. Kohut thought the first waves of exit polls leaned too much on what appeared to be an over-sampling of demographic groups inclined to vote Democratic. This page was last edited on 31 January 2023, at 18:06. Direct link to 18_pkemp's post I have heard that Jeb Bus, Posted 6 years ago. Orange County presented fewer rejected ballots to the NORC than expected. [10] Voters from reliably Democratic states in the Northeast had also been migrating to Florida since the 1950s. Election results in some states, including New Mexico and Oregon, were too close to call, but it was Florida, with its 25 electoral votes, on which the outcome of the election hinged. Direct link to ArmstronMakenna's post Shouldn't the electoral c, Posted 6 years ago. the same name, a blank space or a historical or fictional name (1): the same name, a blank space or an uncertified person's name, the same name, a blank space, a historical or fictional name or an uncertified person's name. Four counties distributed sample ballots to voters that differed from the actual ballot used on election day, including Duval County, which used a caterpillar ballot, so called because the list of presidential candidates stretched over two pages. What followed was a five-week war over the ballots, the rules, the law and the courts. Advertisement It also stayed the state certification to November 26. Florida state election law required a mandatory statewide machine recount. 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. Undervotes from optical-scan counties, however, correlate with Democratic votes more than Republican votes, and in particular to counties that scanned ballots at a central location rather than at precinct locations. 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. It would surely be accepted by the reviewing authority, which was the U.S. Senate, where Republicans were in control. 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. After a rapid-fire of legal efforts from both parties -- similar to litigation efforts by Trumps campaign -- the Florida Supreme Court officially requested a recount of votes in Floridas 67 counties, which Bush then appealed. Yes, I do. The news organizations hired the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago to look at each untallied ballot. The voting is supposed to proceed night and day until a winner is clear. 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. Shouldn't the electoral college be scrapped then? A Project of The Annenberg Public Policy Center, Under the two most likely scenarios, Bush Wins Florida, Florida voter errors cost Gore the election. [22] At the same time that the Bush campaign was contesting hand recounts in Democratic counties, it accepted hand recounts in Republican counties that gained them 185 votes, including where Republican Party workers had been permitted to correct errors on thousands of applications for absentee ballots for Republicans. Most of the excitement in the primaries came on the Republican side, as Bush faced a stiff challenge from John McCain, a U.S. senator from Arizona; other candidates included businessman Steve Forbes, diplomat and conservative commentator Alan Keyes, U.S. senator Orrin Hatch, and conservative activist Gary Bauer. How long would the recount have taken? The court ruled that counties had that authority and to allow time for these efforts, extended the statutory deadline for the manual recounts. The NORC adjusted its analysis for the Orange County results and a few minor differences by increasing the starting baseline vote total by 535 votes. The ballots themselves became an issue, as the Democratic nominee argued that some of the counties ballots were confusing to interpret, surfacing the butterfly ballot discrepancy where Gore believed voters accidentally voted for Pat Buchanan, a third-party candidate due to the design of the ballot. It will go down in history as one of the most closest elections in US history. Networks initially projected Gore the winner in that state but later declared that Bush had opened an insurmountable lead. The results of the 2000 U.S. presidential election are provided in the table. After a five-week legal blitz that virtually ended in the Supreme Court, Bush was named the next president of the United States. USA Today, The Miami Herald, and Knight Ridder commissioned accounting firm BDO Seidman to count undervotes. 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. Between May 1999 and Election Day 2000, two Florida secretaries of state, While the Bush campaign opposed the Gore campaign's requests for manual recounts in four heavily Democratic counties, they quietly accepted manual recounts from four Republican-leaning counties. An official recount might well have come up with yet a third set of numbers. After that decision, the Bush campaign appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that the state court effectively rewrote state election statutes after the vote. Dr. Gary King of Harvard University applied statistical modeling to determine that the best estimate for the impact of illegal votes would reduce the certified vote margin for Bush from 537 to 245. More than 20% of ballots in black precincts of Duval County were rejected because of votes for president on each page. At an NAACP-sponsored hearing in Miami four days after the election, prospective voters told of police cars blocking the way to the polls, of voters harassed by election workers. Couldn't they have just redone the entire election? [1], The controversy began on election night, November 7, 2000, when the national television networks, using information provided to them by the Voter News Service, an organization formed by the Associated Press to help determine the outcome of the election through early result tallies and exit polling, first called Florida for Gore in the hour after polls closed in the peninsula (in the Eastern time zone) but about ten minutes before they closed in the heavily Republican counties of the panhandle (in the Central time zone). It would of taken too much time and money to do a complete re vote. [16][17], During the recount, controversy ensued with the discovery of various irregularities that had occurred in the voting process in several counties. The controversy in detail: A big recount controversy in Florida, a swing state, took centre stage in the election. The 2000 election between George W. Bush, the Republican candidate, and Democratic candidate Al Gore remains controversial because the vote between the two candidates was so close . That meant he would be president. (The case had also been argued on the basis of Article II jurisdictional grounds, which found favor with only Justices Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and William Rehnquist.) Florida Elections For Governor And U.S. Senate Heading For Recount. [4]:74. Could 2020 Be the Same. By the time the networks switched Florida to Bush, the Texan had enough Electoral College support to be the projected winner. emilyrawlings2444. The Florida Supreme Court clarified its ruling on this matter while the United States Supreme Court was deliberating Bush v. Gore. The 2000 presidential election between George W Bush and Al Gore was the closest election in modern history with the results hinging on voters in South Florida. The role of the US Supreme Court in the 2000 presidential election : The presidential election held in Florida on November 7, 2000, holds great significance in America's history because the Supreme Court chose the president of the United States rather than the people of the United States. There were confusing ballots marked for third-party candidate Patrick Buchanan in heavily Democratic precincts, suggesting they were cast by voters who had thought they were voting for Gore. Please select which sections you would like to print: Michael Levy was political science editor (2000-06), executive editor (2006-11), editor of Britannica Blog (2010-11), and director of product content & curriculum (2011-12) at Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. On December 8, the Florida justices, by a 43 vote, rejected the selective use of manual recounts in just four counties and ordered immediate manual recounts of all ballots in the state where no vote for president had been machine-recorded, also known as undervotes. The final decision was based on just a few hundred votes in Florida. For the results of the previous election, see United States presidential election of 1996. Thus the project included a sample within less than 1% of the expected total of votes.[78]. With the election effectively ended, Floridas 25 electoral votes were awarded to George W. Bush, whose lead in the state stood at 327 votes out of six million cast after a machine recount in November. florida expired registration fee; bahama breeze yellow rice recipe. a. won the popular vote. The Bush campaign immediately petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay of the recount order, which was granted on December 9. 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. Ultimately, it came down to just 537 votes out of six million cast. As the manual recounts progressed, most of Florida's counties were considering overseas absentee ballots. Judge Robert Rosenberg of the Broward County Canvassing Board uses a magnifying glass to examine a dimpled chad on a punch card ballot on November 24, 2000 during a vote recount in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. County officials tried to discern voter intent through a cloud of hanging chads (incompletely punched paper ballots) and pregnant chads (paper ballots that were dimpled, but not pierced, during the voting process), as well as overvotes (ballots that recorded multiple votes for the same office) and undervotes (ballots that recorded no vote for a given office). [10] The county canvassing board was then to decide whether to do a recount, as well as the method of the recount, in those three precincts. In 2000 that process took five weeks and only ended at the Supreme Court. Al Gore conceded the election to Bush, but disagreed with the US Supreme Court's ruling. When Palm Beach County completed its recount two hours after the certification deadline, its final count was Gore 501 votes, Bush 327 votes excluded from the state certified total.