All were pledged to and voted for George W. Bush and Dick Cheney:[17]. On November 13 the Gore campaign and Volusia and Palm Beach Counties sued to have the deadlines extended.[13]. Bush or Gore? 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. 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? 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. Gore had first called Bush to congratulate him on his victory, called again to rescind the concession. Cantal Asia? "[7], The Florida election was closely scrutinized after Election Day. Another point of controversy in the 2000 election was the fact that George W. Bush's brother, Jeb Bush, was the governor of Florida at the time of the recount, although no evidence of wrongdoing surfaced. It was in line with a letter sent out by Harris stating that if a postmark was not present on an overseas ballot, it had to be thrown out. 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 . Networks initially projected Gore the winner in that state but later declared that Bush had opened an insurmountable lead. In late October, however, the gap in the polls between Bush and Gore narrowed dramatically. But in 2000, the prize was the presidency of the United States. By 8 p.m. As court challenges were issued over the legality of hand recounts in select counties, news stories were filled with the arcane vocabulary of the election judge. Their chosen electors then vote for president and vice president. State and Wire Reports, "State voter rolls: Election official finds more than 50,000 felons, 18,000 dead registered", recounting Florida's presidential ballots, 2000 United States presidential election recount in Florida, List of 2000 United States presidential electors, How the Red and Blue Map Evolved Over the Past Century, Voting Irregularities in Florida During the 2000 Presidential Election, "The Jeb Bush formula: How the staunch conservative learned to talk moderate and win", "THE 2000 CAMPAIGN: THE AD CAMPAIGN; In Sign Florida Is Now in Play, Bush Increases Buying There", "Did the Jewish Vote Cost Gore the Election? To some, voting is a right that should be guaranteed regardless of any incompetence, error, failure, or irresponsibility on the part of the voter. At NPR, the advice from election-night guest Andrew Kohut, the director of the Pew Research Center, was to hold off on calling Florida. By a 54 vote the justices reversed and remanded the case to the Florida Supreme Court "for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion", prior to the optional "safe harbor" deadline which the Florida court had said the state intended to meet. A result of the US recession that began in 2008 was. Unlike Biden, Gore only had one pathway to land a spot in the Oval Office, as the race all came down to Floridas then-21electoral votes. That phrase is being invoked a lot in light of this year's ultra-tight Florida statewide elections. There were punch-card ballots where the voters' attempt to make their choice had only succeeded in detaching a portion of the perforated paper ("hanging chads" ) or merely denting rather than removing the punch-out ("dimpled chads"). More than 20% of ballots in black precincts of Duval County were rejected because of votes for president on each page. That 5-4 majority was composed of the nominees of Republican Presidents George H.W. Bush won 12 of 23 congressional districts. 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. The Electoral College itself never meets as one body. Florida had 25 electoral votes and became the focus of a court battle over the outcome of the election. Under the FAC, a ballot with any other name written in (including Bush and Gore, who were not qualified as write-in candidates) was not an overvote, but rather a valid vote for the candidate whose name was marked by the voter. Conservative writer Andrew Sullivan in a contemporaneous article:[61]. 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. So this week we begin again the arduous process of deciding how to count, and recount, Florida. Cantal Asia? I have heard that Jeb Bush rigged the decision in favor of his brother, when Gore should have become the 43rd president. The result, released Nov. 11, 2001, was something of a muddle. Of the overvotes, 68,476 chose Gore and a minor candidate; 23,591 chose Bush and a minor candidate. rejected by the Florida Supreme Court in its ruling of December 8, 2000, the lightly populated counties of Gadsden, Hamilton, Lafayette and Union. These standards are applied to both undervotes and overvotes. Corrections? 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. [20] It was expected that had they been able to vote, most would have chosen the Democratic candidate. If you're seeing this message, it means we're having trouble loading external resources on our website. Optical-scan counties were the only places in the study where Gore gained more votes than Bush, 1,036 to 775. [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. [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. Florida Attorney General Robert Butterworth in his advisory opinion to county canvassing boards wrote:[60]. 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. That's a load of high-profile, high-value races. 3.06 Elections and Voting. Am I correct? The instructions on the sample ballots said "Vote every page". On the other hand, he said, Democrats talked like referees with a fear of pushing too hard, not wanting to be seen as sore losers. He is also alleging thatthere have been widespread accounts of voter fraud in these uncalled states. Bush ultimately prevailed after a strenuous fight, including an especially brutal effort by the Bush campaign in the South Carolina primary. Meanwhile, the Bush campaign worked to stop the recount. Tanner, Robert and Sharon L. Crenson. a) helping the poor b) writing about slavery c) her Abolitionist newspaper d) running the underground railroad, what was fredrick dounglass best known for? Shouldn't the electoral college be scrapped then? 2000 Electoral College Results. Under Florida election law, a machine recount of all votes cast was required because the margin of victory was less than 0.5 percent. 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 NORC study (see below) did not address either of the concerns about overseas absentee ballots and Nassau County's certification change, as their effects were already included in the baseline totals. The process was extremely divisive and led to calls for electoral reform in Florida. Was there anything else that he could have done? This immediately reduced the Bush margin from 537 to 154 (537215168 is 154). There were two main issues:[55][56][57][58]. "[4] A physical mark on a ballot, at or near a designated target, is such an indication. About 3:00 am Gore called a stunned Bush to retract his concession. Most of the variation occurred in Votomatic overvotes, the least likely ballots to yield votes in a recount. Kohut was among those who saw this flaw even in 2000. Rowman & Littlefield. All were among 10,310 undervotes in the county. Celebrations began in Democratic headquarters everywhere. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. hide caption. He shared his displeasure with someone who was likely to offer a sympathetic ear John Ellis, a Fox analyst and member of the extended Bush family. [74][75][76], The National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, sponsored by a consortium of major U.S. news organizations, conducted the Florida Ballot Project, a comprehensive review of ballots collected from the entire state, not just the disputed counties that were recounted. 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. Subsequent statements by Lewis and internal court documents support the likelihood that overvotes would have been included in the recount. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2000_United_States_presidential_election_recount_in_Florida&oldid=1136699969. How does the election of 2000 compare to other presidential elections? How many electoral votes did George W. Bush win in the 2000 election? The Gore campaign sued to force Miami-Dade County to continue its recount, but the Florida Supreme Court refused to consider the request. It would surely be accepted by the reviewing authority, which was the U.S. Senate, where Republicans were in control. The day of inauguration is in January and voting day is held in early November. That study was conducted by a group that included the Miami Herald, USA Today and Knight Ridder newspapers. Later in the evening, the networks reversed their call, moving to "too close to call", then later giving it to Bush; then they retracted that call as well, finally indicating the state was "too close to call". Miami-Dade County decided on November 17 to conduct a recount but suspended it on November 22. 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. [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]. If they did not send their electoral votes to Congress before the official the deadline to do so, neither Bush nor Gore could have reached 270 electoral votes and a contingent election would have taken place in the House of Representatives for President and in the Senate for Vice President, which would have been super messy and therefore everyone worked hard to avoid that situation. ", "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. 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. When 85 percent of the vote had been counted, news networks declared Bush the winner, though election results in a few heavily Democratic counties had yet to be tallied. Eventually, the Gore campaign appealed to the Florida Supreme Court, which ordered the recount to proceed. Undervotes from punch-card counties give new votes to candidates in roughly the same proportion as the county's official vote. Bush, and Democrat Bill Clinton. From affirmative action and hate-crime laws it's a small step to ensuring that all voters, however negligent, have their intent, however vague, reflected in the final result of an election. As adjusted, 176,343 ballots were expected, compared to 175,010 ballots actually provided to the NORC for review. Jeb Bush really didn'. Direct link to Alex Nemchenko's post Why was a re-vote not ena, Posted 7 years ago. Negative sign indicates number of votes that decision caused to be excluded from state certified total. Posted 7 years ago. For those with memories going back four decades, all this was no accident. a. won the popular vote. 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). 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. [3], Election fairness was a major problem known to Floridians in the 1990s; for example, the 1997 Miami mayoral election was tainted by scandal. [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. 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. 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. CNN's Gloria Borger explores the 2000 election in a special report Monday at 9 p.m. By November 10 the machine recount was complete, and Bushs lead stood at 327 votes out of six million cast. That call was made in the early morning hours of November 8 by all the TV networks cited above, but not by the AP. The ballot displayed the list of presidential running-mate pairs alternately across two adjacent pages, with a column of punch spaces down the middle. Direct link to Tejas's post The best answer I can giv, Posted 6 years ago. Gore, as Bill Clintons vice president for eight years, was the clear favourite in the primary to win the Democratic nomination. For the results of the subsequent election, see United States presidential election of 2004. Following the machine recount, the Gore campaign requested a manual recount in four counties. It also remarks that there were variations between examiners and that election officials often did not provide the same number of undervotes as were counted on Election Day. Direct link to $chmitty$am's post Judges are either elected, Posted 7 years ago. At the time, Republicans expressed dismay at the idea of a recount. 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. The 2000 election resulted in numerous court battles over contested ballots and recounts. "Under the two most likely scenarios, Bush Wins Florida." USA Today, The Miami Herald, and Knight Ridder commissioned accounting firm BDO Seidman to count undervotes. Great Britain,France,Germany,Russia,Italy,Japan, Explain five reason why self examination is important. Copyright 2023 Center for the National Interest All Rights Reserved. The 2000 United States presidential election in Florida took place on November 7, 2000, as part of the nationwide presidential election. She was also an ally of Republican Gov. So it is possible that either candidate might have emerged the winner of an official recount, and nobody can say with exact certainty what the "true" Florida vote really was. The organization analyzed 171,908 ballots (60,647 undervotes and 111,261 overvotes), 3102 less than the later NORC study. Republican Ron DeSantis proclaimed victory in the governor's race and current Gov. [15]. Couldn't they have just redone the entire election? On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. 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. Immediately following the presidential election in 2000, a. votes were recounted in the state of Florida. Nonetheless, Republicans put significant advertising resources into the state, and later polls indicated that the state was very much in play as late as September 2000. "[74] CNN and PBS reported that, had the recount continued with its existing standards, Bush would likely have still tallied more votes, but variations of those standards (and/or of which precincts were recounted) could have swung the election either way. Al Gore conceded the election to Bush, but disagreed with the US Supreme Court's ruling. She was the Florida secretary of state, in charge of legally certifying winners in any statewide vote. "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. Unlike the much-discussed Palm Beach County butterfly ballot, the Duval County ballot spread choices for president over two non-facing pages. 1 / 6. 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. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. [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. County officials were unable to deliver as many as 2,200 problem ballots to the investigators that news organizations hired to conduct the recount. The study cost nearly $1 million and was the most thorough and comprehensive news-media review of the Florida balloting. Bush also probably would have won had the state conducted the limited recount of only four heavily Democratic counties that Al Gore asked for, the study found. That part of the vote count was completed on November 18, increasing Bush's lead to 930 votes. In the Election of 2008, Florida had 27 electoral votes. Orange County total of 512 properly filled ballots not read by machine on November 8, 2000. 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. Networks said they relied on exit polling to call Florida. The same day, a state judge upheld that deadline but ruled that further recounts could be considered later. George W. Bush 's two presidential election campaigns (2000, 2004). 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). Meanwhile, Republicans relied on their own 52-page manual for the same purpose. The 2000 election was determined by the American voting public. Brady, Henry E.; Collier, David (2004). Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. 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. The Herron memo gave postmark and "point of origin" criteria that Herron maintained could be used to challenge overseas ballots. 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. In particular, from summer 1999 to spring 2000, Florida's voter list was subject to an unusually high number of problems. 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 this constitutional system, the "will of the people" is an irrelevant abstraction. 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. The official result was finally decided by Katherine Harris, Florida's Secretary of State, when she was forced to certified the . Why was a re-vote not enacted, that could have been monitored more carefully? Furthermore, the Florida Administrative Code: 1S-2.0031, "Write-in Procedures Governing Electronic Voting Systems", (7) at the time specified, "An overvote shall occur when an elector casts a vote on the ballot card and also casts a write-in vote for a qualified write-in candidate for that same office. 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. [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. The Florida Supreme Court ordered only a recount of so-called "undervotes," about 62,000 ballots where voting machines didnt detect any vote for a presidential candidate. The Florida election was closely scrutinized after Election Day. 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. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. In such case, only the write-in vote is void." By the time the networks switched Florida to Bush, the Texan had enough Electoral College support to be the projected winner. 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. Gore won 11, including three that elected Republicans. Even so, when we think of that time, many of us conjure up memories as sharp as barbed wire, roll our eyes or sigh out loud when anyone mentions "Florida 2000.". [1] The majority held that no alternative method could be established within the discretionary December 12 "safe harbor" deadline set by Title 3 of the United States Code (3 U.S.C. Gore garnered 255 electoral votes to Bushs 246, but neither candidate won the 270 electoral votes necessary for victory. Advertisement Trained investigators examined 175,010 ballots provided by local election officials. Engelhardt, Joel and Elliot Jaspin and Christine Stapleton. Map of the United States showing the number of electoral votes at stake in each state, colored red or blue according to whether Bush (red) or Gore (blue) won the state. Decisions by some canvassing boards to count illegal overseas absentee ballots. "[53], The ballot had been redesigned earlier that year by Theresa LePore (Supervisor of Elections and member of the Democratic Party). More than a few news organizations reached the same conclusion. One of them came from the campaign of the Republican nominee, George W. Bush, then governor of Texas. Volusia County started its recount on November 12. 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). Cerabino, Frank. 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. On December 4, the U.S. Supreme Court returned this matter to the Florida Supreme Court with an order vacating its earlier decision. [2] That deadline arrived two hours after the release of the Court's decision. Here's one of them. Sauls also rejected Gore's contest of the election result on December 4, and Gore appealed that decision too.