The 2000 election was one of the more controversial in recent history. The election was between George W. Bush, a Republican governor of Texas, against Al Gore, a Democratic former Tennessee Senator. Both candidates had a lot of support from people all across the nation. The election was very contested, which is what ultimately led to the controversy.
Although Gore, more or less, had a smooth path to the Democratic nomination, Bush had a tougher road to the Republican nomination. He fought against John McCain, a senator from Arizona, in a very close primary election.
The presidential election turned out to be even more of a battle. The candidates had heated debates over issues such as the economy, healthcare policies, and welfare programs. After the dust of the election cleared, there was a lot of controversy over who actually won.
During the election, Bush won most of the Southern and Midwestern states, and Gore won most of the remaining regions along with the popular vote. The election was pretty evenly split after all of the voting. Bush ended up winning 246 of the electoral votes, although Gore won 255 electoral votes. However, under the current system of the electoral college, a candidate has to win 270 electoral votes. Neither of the candidates won enough of the votes to reach 270, which caused problems. Florida ended up being an important state, as it had 25 electoral votes which would decide the election. News networks gave conflicting statements over who won Florida due to the extremely thin margin of victory.
As a result of this, there was a lot of controversy and confusion over who won the election. At a time of new technology that caused more accessibility to information, controversy and confusion is a big problem. Different news media outlets gave different impressions of what was going on with the election, which caused confusion across the country.
Additionally, people started to question the election system, and the confusion with the punching cards. This gave rise to the term “hanging chad”, which is what happened when the punch card ballots were not punched all the way through. This confusion allowed technology to spread into the political world as well, as some states began to institute electronic voting methods. However, in the present, Gore attempted to force the state of Florida to recount the votes. After Bush disagreed with the recount, the Supreme Court got the case.
Known as Bush v. Gore, this case ended up being a very important one in the history of the Supreme Court. After a 5 to 4 decision, the recount as well as Gore’s push to win the presidency was stopped.
The close nature of the Supreme Court decision also ended up being controversial to the nation, and many groups were angered by Bush winning the presidency, which carried over into his initial years in office. In hindsight, this scenario and court case shaped a lot of the political climate of the last 20 years. It also plagued Bush during his time in the presidency, and it shaped the early impressions of Bush during the first few years of his presidency. The controversy over the recount also led to the modernization of voting methods to decrease uncertainty in recent elections.
Supreme Court #4 Worksheet
Good job on the post Rushil. I liked how you described the presidential election of 2000 in detail so we could really understand why it was such a weird election, and also why it shaped the political climate of the last 20 years. This incident was also important for the Supreme Court, since it showed how the supreme court had the power and authority to decide important national issues such as this one. I wonder if anything would have changed had the Supreme Court decided to allow the recount.
ReplyDeleteIt's been fascinating in my opinion to learn that the Supreme Court actually decided the outcome of the 2000 election. Before learning it in this class, I would never have guessed that this was the way Bush won the election over Gore. I was wondering what new systems were put in place for voting and if the butterfly ballots went out of usage after this whole controversy. Since 2000, punch card ballots and lever ballots have completely ceased to be used, and now almost all states use direct electronic machines to vote or optical scans, which scan the written ballots.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/08/on-election-day-most-voters-use-electronic-or-optical-scan-ballots/ft_16-11-07_votingtechnology_time/