The vote in Florida came down to a mere 600 votes out of a total of six million, a margin so narrow that a machine recount was ordered (as a large portion of the votes had been checked by hand). The machine recount deemed Bush the winner by only 327 votes, which many Gore supporters argued could also be inaccurate. Various court challenges were issued, as there were many "muddy" ballots, which were ballots that did not clearly indicate which candidate was selected. There was also a problem with the ballot design in Palm Beach county, which caused many Gore voters to accidentally vote for Pat Buchanan, the third-party candidate. Put together, these issues could have been enough to change the Bush victory into a Gore victory.
The Florida Supreme Court eventually ruled 4-3 to order a statewide manual recount of the undervotes (ballots that machines could not clearly determine who was voted for). This reduced Bush's lead to 154 votes, and the Bush campaign, fearing that they would lose their voting majority, filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court, asking to delay the recounts until the Supreme Court could hear the case. The Court agreed, and when they heard the case on December 12, they ruled 5-4 to reverse the Florida Supreme Court's recounter order, arguing that the recount would not be completed by December 18, the deadline for certifying the state's electors. This controversial decision effectively awarded Bush the presidency, ending a month-long dispute over the results of the election.
Sources:
https://www.270towin.com/2000_Election/
https://www.britannica.com/event/United-States-presidential-election-of-2000
Cody, this was a very interesting post. I knew that a candidate winning the electoral college and not the popular vote was a rare thing, but I was not aware that it has only happened five times. I researched the election further and found out that part of the reason why there was so much suspicion regarding the results in Florida was that Jeb Bush, Bush's brother, was the governor of Florida at the time. Also, the Supreme Court ruling has been considered controversial as well because only the justices that were appointed by a republican president voted in favor of Bush. Thanks for such a great post!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-us-history/period-9/apush-1990s-america/a/the-election-of-2000
Great post Cody, I never knew how close this presidential race was. I was curious about what it would be like if Gore had won, or if he really could have been the one to win. After the elections tons of outside groups did their own studies to see who would have won the election and found that "Bush would have most likely won the Florida statewide hand recount of all undervotes."
ReplyDeleteSource: https://www.cnn.com/2015/10/31/politics/bush-gore-2000-election-results-studies/index.html
This post was incredibly interesting, and I also found it interesting that a candidate has lost the popular vote and won the electoral vote only 5 times in history. While the election of 2000 was extremely close, it was actually not the closest presidential election in US history. In 1876, Rutherford Hayes won by only 1 electoral vote, whereas Bush won by 5. Specifically in the decision that determined Bush's victory, the Bush v. Gore case, the judges controversially determined that there could be no recount despite the different standards for counting from county to county. Despite this fact, the decision by the court still remains to help the court keep order in the chaotic election process.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.clickondetroit.com/news/elections/5-of-the-closest-presidential-elections-in-us-history
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/22/world/americas/22iht-23bar.18877361.html?module=ArrowsNav&contentCollection=Americas&action=keypress®ion=FixedLeft&pgtype=article
Thanks for writing this post on one of the most controversial elections in US history. I found it interesting how this was one of the only times when the winner of the popular vote lost the election. This brings up an interesting question, which is if the popular vote is a better metric for the presidential election. Would it be reasonable to get rid of the electoral college altogether? I also found it interesting how the court, which was supposed to be conservative and not activist, took this case and ruled in favor of Bush. This brings up another question, which is how justices are influenced by the party which nominated them, as their conservatism most likely influenced their decision.
ReplyDelete