A tug-of-war ensued between Harris, who initially sought to certify the states election results on November 14, and the Florida Supreme Court, which ruled that hand recounts of questionable ballots should proceed in four counties and that the results must be included in the states final count. United States presidential election of 2000, A History of U.S. Presidential Elections in Maps. The official result was finally decided by Katherine Harris, Florida's Secretary of State, when she was forced to certified the . The Constitution has it structured the way it is, and they did it that way. 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. Want to feel old? 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. This immediately reduced the Bush margin from 537 to 154 (537215168 is 154). Due to the narrow margin of the original vote count, Florida Election Code 102.141 mandated a statewide machine recount, which began the day after the election. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Based on the review of these ballots, their results indicated that Bush would have won if certain recounting methods had been used (including the one favored by Gore at the time of the Supreme Court decision), but that Gore might have won under other standards and scenarios. 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. After an intense recount process and the United States Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore, Bush won Floridas electoral votes by a margin of only 537 votes out of almost six million cast (0.009%) and, as a result, became the president-elect. In late October, however, the gap in the polls between Bush and Gore narrowed dramatically. That call was made in the early morning hours of November 8 by all the TV networks cited above, but not by the AP. Bush's lawyers argued that recounting votes in just four counties violated the 14th Amendment and also that similarly punched ballots could be tabulated differently since Florida had no detailed statutory standards for hand-counting votes. Direct link to Edward (Eddie) W.'s post One big question that I h, Posted 2 years ago. 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. However, his presence as governor in Florida did help George W. Bush a lot. Gore, like 2016 Democratic presidential nomineeHillary Clinton, won the popular vote and eventually lost the Electoral College vote in a brutal defeat against Bush. Taken together with Florida, those states triggered the network's computer programs to conclude Gore would win the Electoral College. [15]. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Gore, however, won the popular vote over Bush by some 500,000 votesthe first inversion of the electoral and popular vote since 1888. c. 271. As the state has moved toward electronic voting, nothing in this evolution has diminished the standards first articulated in such [judicial] decisions that the intent of the voter is of paramount concern and should be given effect if the voter has complied with the statutory requirement and that intent may be determined. Ultimately, the contest focused on Florida. 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. One of them came from the campaign of the Republican nominee, George W. Bush, then governor of Texas. [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. In the 2000 Election, the State of Florida officials A. declared Al Gore the winner when the recount deadline passed B. decided that the recount should continue in all counties until complete C. decided that the recount procedures went against the U.S. Constitution D. declared George Bush the winner when the recount deadline passed 2 See answers [77] NORC investigators were able to examine 175,010 ballots, 99.2% of Florida's total,[78] but county officials were unable to deliver "as many as 2,200 problem ballots" to NORC. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). These standards are applied to both undervotes and overvotes. By winning Florida, Bush narrowly won the electoral vote over Gore by 271 to 266only 1 more than the required 270 (one Gore elector abstained). It also stayed the state certification to November 26. 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. Jeb Bush really didn't do anything to rig the vote in Florida. Decisions by some canvassing boards to count illegal overseas absentee ballots. The study cost nearly $1 million and was the most thorough and comprehensive news-media review of the Florida balloting. It was governed by Jeb Bush, a staunch conservative[8] and George W. Bush's brother. Meanwhile, there was a heavy backlash in the Cuban-American population against Democrats during the Elian Gonzalez dispute, during which Janet Reno, President Bill Clintons Attorney General, ordered the six-year-old Cuban refugee to be returned to Cuba. Gore received the most votes, with 48.4% of the popular vote compared to 47.9% for Bush. The outcome of the 2000 United States presidential election was not known for more than a month after balloting because of the extended process of counting and recounting Florida's presidential ballots. What did the U.S. Supreme Court decide in, https://www.britannica.com/event/Bush-v-Gore, Cornell University Law School - Bush Versus Gore, Bush v. Gore - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up), sample butterfly ballot from Florida, 2000. A larger consortium of news organizations, including USA Today, The Miami Herald, Knight Ridder, The Tampa Tribune, and five other newspapers next conducted a full recount of all machine-rejected ballots, including both undervotes and overvotes. Cox News Service, 11 Nov. 2001. Cantal Asia? [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]. Wednesday, November 8 dawned with some uncertainty as to who would be the next president. All were pledged to and voted for George W. Bush and Dick Cheney:[17]. Salvado says that this alone cost Gore the election. With only two hours remaining until the December 12 deadline, the Supreme Court's order effectively ended the recount. He captured it easily, seeing off a challenge from Bill Bradley, a former U.S. senator from New Jersey. Florida was the second of the 50 states (after Louisiana) to report its official results to the federal government (in a Certificate of Ascertainment submitted to the National Archivist, the manner prescribed for presidential elections). It was anecdotal evidence at best, and local authorities argued persuasively that the police presence near a polling place was pure coincidence. As a result of the state's contract with Database Technologies, "173,000 registered voters in Florida were permanently wiped off the voter rolls. Numerous local court rulings went both ways, some ordering recounts because the vote was so close and others declaring that a selective manual recount in a few heavily Democratic counties would be unfair. Fewer than 600 votes separated the candidates, and that margin appeared to be narrowing. Harris announced that Bush had won Florida. The Florida election was closely scrutinized after Election Day. About 19,000 ballots were spoiled because of overvotes (two votes in the same race), compared to 3000 in 1996. Jeb Bush really didn'. It would surely be accepted by the reviewing authority, which was the U.S. Senate, where Republicans were in control. The Herron memo gave postmark and "point of origin" criteria that Herron maintained could be used to challenge overseas ballots. Although theres much legal turmoil, the president is behind in a number of states -- not just one like in 2000. Gore, legal case, decided on December 12, 2000, in which the Supreme Court of the United States reversed an order by the Florida Supreme Court for a selective manual recount of that state's U.S. presidential election ballots. Democrats claimed that many of these were not felons and should have been eligible to vote under Florida law. "[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]. [11] If the board discovered an error that in its judgment could affect the outcome of the election, they were then authorized to do a full recount of the ballots. Circle Countries that came under the rule of a fascist government and dictator before WWII began Declared George bush the winner of Florida after intervention from the Supreme Court of the United States and gave bush the state by a margin of 537 votes. In punchcard counties, 1 in 25 ballots had uncountable presidential votes. Various flaws and improprieties in Florida's electoral processes were immediately apparent, while others were reported after later investigation. The State of Florida ordered a recount of the 2000 votes because (3 points) a too many counties used the "butterfly" ballot against the state law b George Bush did not believe that the state had run a fair election c Al Gore did not believe that the state had run a fair election d state law required a recount when the results were close [3], Election fairness was a major problem known to Floridians in the 1990s; for example, the 1997 Miami mayoral election was tainted by scandal. [4] Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's analysis of the NORC study and media coverage of it supported these interpretations and criticized the coverage of the study by media outlets such as The New York Times and the other media consortium members for focusing on how events might have played out rather than on the statewide vote count. [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. At the nations highest court, Floridas election system wason pins and needlesas officials scanned election machines, voter lists, vote counting guidelines and partisan officials. 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. In the hours that followed, the nation came to know the name Katherine Harris. On December 9, 2000, four counties (Leon, Liberty, Madison, Manatee) completed recounts of undervotes ordered by the Florida Supreme Court, identifying a small number of new votes. [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". [4] Once it became clear that Florida would decide the presidential election, the nation's attention focused on the manual recount. Sauls also rejected Gore's contest of the election result on December 4, and Gore appealed that decision too. Students also viewed. The longstanding case law in Florida [ ] has held that the intent of the voters as shown by their ballots should be given effect. The ruling effectively awarded Floridas 25 votes in the electoral collegeand thus the election itselfto Republican candidate George W. Bush. "[51], Although Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer said on November 9 that "Palm Beach County is a Pat Buchanan stronghold and that's why Pat Buchanan received 3,407 votes there",[52] Buchanan's Florida coordinator, Jim McConnell, responded by calling that "nonsense", and Jim Cunningham, chairman of the executive committee of Palm Beach County's Reform Party, responded, "I don't think so. Including overvotes in the above totals for undervotes gives different margins of victory: The overvotes with write-in names were also noted by Florida State University public policy professor and elections observer, Lance deHaven-Smith, in his interview with Research in Review at Florida State University:[85]. A: Nobody can say for sure who might have won. Dispute over the butterfly ballot The next day, the Florida Supreme Court allowed manual recounts in Palm Beach and Broward Counties to continue but left it to a state judge to decide whether Harris must include those votes in the final tally. 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. 5 Remarkably Close U.S. Presidential Elections, https://www.britannica.com/event/United-States-presidential-election-of-2000, Brookings - Reflections on the 2000 U.S. Presidential Election, Parliament of Australia - US Presidential Election 2000, GlobalSecurity.org - 2000 Presidential Election, sample butterfly ballot from Florida, 2000, United States presidential election of 1996, United States presidential election of 2004. How does the election of 2000 compare to other presidential elections? 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 . Have Any U.S. Presidents Decided Not to Run For a Second Term? The election came down to the results in . https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2000_United_States_presidential_election_recount_in_Florida&oldid=1136699969. 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. In such case, only the write-in vote is void." [37] After the election, recounts conducted by various United States news media organizations continued to focus on undervotes. It would of taken too much time and money to do a complete re vote. Will the current Florida conundrum need a resolution from the same source? Yes, I do. hide caption. Jeb Bush, the nominee's brother, and she had been co-chair of the nominee's statewide campaign. Rick Scott did the same for the Senate seat. Only a fourth of the variance consisted of optical ballots. How many electoral votes did George W. Bush win in the 2000 election? 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. Floridas electoral votes enabled Bush to win the presidency. Bush's name appeared at the top of the ballot, sparing most Bush voters from error. On December 12, the same day as the U.S. Supreme Court ruling, the Florida House approved awarding the state's electoral votes to Bush, but the matter was moot after the Court's ruling. Direct link to David Alexander's post There are many possible r, Posted 6 years ago. [4] According to The Palm Beach Post, "State lawmakers decided to weed out felons and other ineligible voters in 1998 after a Miami mayoral election was overturned because votes had been cast by the convicted and the dead. The small margin produced an automatic recount under Florida state law, which began the day after the election. Among those making that call were ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News and The Associated Press. I have heard that Jeb Bush rigged the decision in favor of his brother, when Gore should have become the 43rd president. Optical-scan counties were the only places in the study where Gore gained more votes than Bush, 1,036 to 775. You can specify conditions of storing and accessing cookies in your browser. In a statewide election decided by hundreds, maybe only dozens, of votes, the limitations of the voting machinery compounded with sometimes sloppy custody of the ballots and the slight but measurable biases of allegedly neutral human tabulators make getting precise vote totals virtually impossible. In addition, some counties had provided an extra 432 total ballots, while others produced 1,333 fewer ballots than expected. He chose former Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney as his running mate. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Gore won New Mexico and Oregon over the following few days; but the result in Florida was to be decisive, regardless of how those two states had voted. 3.06 Elections and Voting. A Project of The Annenberg Public Policy Center, Under the two most likely scenarios, Bush Wins Florida, Florida voter errors cost Gore the election. [10] Voters from reliably Democratic states in the Northeast had also been migrating to Florida since the 1950s. The Court further held that it had "considerable uncertainty" as to the reasons given by the Florida Supreme Court for its decision. Tanner, Robert and Sharon L. Crenson. 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). Bush, against Democrat Al Gore, former senator from Tennessee and vice president in the administration of. George W. Bush (R) & Dick Cheney (R) v. Al Gore (D) & Joe Liberman (D) No candidate won a majority in the 2000 election. Initial election returns showed that Gore had won the popular vote, but neither candidate had garnered the 270 electoral votes required to win the presidency. Would it have been possible to have some other non-partisan judges hear the Bush v Gore case? The Florida Supreme Court extended the deadline for the recount and ordered a manual recount. The 2000 election resulted in numerous court battles over contested ballots and recounts. decided a hand recount could not be done in time for the electoral college vote [23], Political commentator and author Jeff Greenfield observed that the Republican operatives in Florida talked and acted like combat platoon sergeants in what one called "switchblade time", the biggest political fight of the century. Eventually, the Gore campaign appealed to the Florida Supreme Court, which ordered the recount to proceed. See how a vote recount in the state. It pitted Republican candidate George W. Bush, then governor of Texas and son of former president George H. W. Bush (1989-1993), and Democratic candidate Al Gore, then Bill Clinton's Vice President. Direct link to 18_pkemp's post I have heard that Jeb Bus, Posted 6 years ago. Direct link to SirenaWoodall's post It would of taken too muc, Posted 6 years ago. 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. A full, official recount of all votes statewide could have gone either way, but one was never conducted. 2000 United States presidential election recount in Florida, NORC-sponsored Florida Ballot Project recount, County-by-county standards for write-in overvotes in 2000. 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. A result of the US recession that began in 2008 was. The instructions on the sample ballots said "Vote every page". There is a real issue here about what voting actually means. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Some have argued that awarding the electors in this manner would be illegal. Direct link to Alex Nemchenko's post Why was a re-vote not ena, Posted 7 years ago. Unlike the much-discussed Palm Beach County butterfly ballot, the Duval County ballot spread choices for president over two non-facing pages. Florida statutes also required that all counties certify and report their returns, including any recounts, by 5:00p.m. on November 14. They had won Florida, they insisted. 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). George W.. That's a load of high-profile, high-value races. 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. USA Today, The Miami Herald, and Knight Ridder commissioned accounting firm BDO Seidman to count undervotes.