Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. The best answer I can give you is "it's complicated". Optical-scan counties were the only places in the study where Gore gained more votes than Bush, 1,036 to 775. The Bush campaign subsequently appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, which took up the case Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board on December 1. The Court further held that it had "considerable uncertainty" as to the reasons given by the Florida Supreme Court for its decision. Gore called Bush to concede the election, but in the early hours of the following morning it became apparent that the Florida race was much closer than Gores staff had originally believed. All were pledged to and voted for George W. Bush and Dick Cheney:[17]. More than 20% of ballots in black precincts of Duval County were rejected because of votes for president on each page. A result of the US recession that began in 2008 was. 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. But in 2000, the prize was the presidency of the United States. There is a real issue here about what voting actually means. His Democratic opponent, Al Gore, officially conceded on December 13 and stated in a televised address, While I strongly disagree with the courts decision, I accept it.. Eventually, the Florida Supreme Court decided (43) to order a statewide manual recount of the approximately 45,000 undervotesballots that machines recorded as not clearly expressing a presidential voteand accepted some previously uncertified results in both Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, reducing Bushs lead to a mere 154 votes. Sauls also rejected Gore's contest of the election result on December 4, and Gore appealed that decision too. The process was extremely divisive and led to calls for electoral reform in Florida. Bush led Gore in Florida by 1784 votes. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. She was also an ally of Republican Gov. The electors of each state and the District of Columbia met on December 18, 2000,[16] to cast their votes for president and vice president. CNN's Gloria Borger explores the 2000 election in a special report Monday at 9 p.m. You can specify conditions of storing and accessing cookies in your browser. For the results of the subsequent election, see United States presidential election of 2004. 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. However, Kohut noted it might also mean that a disproportionate number of these Democratic-leaning groups were voting early, or that a disproportionate number were being represented in the exit polls. Gore appealed that decision to the Florida Supreme Court. By 8 p.m. He chose former Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney as his running mate. 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. The instructions on the sample ballots said "Vote every page". Would it have been possible to have some other non-partisan judges hear the Bush v Gore case? According to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, "the vast majority of issues in Florida during the 2000 election were caused by an overall lack of leadership in preserving voting rights.". Bush ultimately prevailed after a strenuous fight, including an especially brutal effort by the Bush campaign in the South Carolina primary. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. How does the election of 2000 compare to other presidential elections? Why or why not? She was the Florida secretary of state, in charge of legally certifying winners in any statewide vote. According to their results, Bush won under stricter standards and Gore won under looser standards. When the county segregated all ballots by machine for the NORC review, 512 previously rejected ballots were determined to be completely valid. As adjusted, 176,343 ballots were expected, compared to 175,010 ballots actually provided to the NORC for review. Florida, a swing state, had a major recount dispute that took center stage in the election. We shall see how long it takes to resolve this time. On December 12, 2000, in a 72 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Florida Supreme Courts decision that manual recounts of ballots should continue in some counties, holding that the various methods and standards of the recount process violated the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution. Gore, like 2016 Democratic presidential nomineeHillary Clinton, won the popular vote and eventually lost the Electoral College vote in a brutal defeat against Bush. Meanwhile, Republicans relied on their own 52-page manual for the same purpose. However, Gore never asked for such a recount. The court ordered counties to submit returns by November 26, until which time the stay of certification would stand.[59]. That could skew toward an unusual number of young voters, women voters and people of color. The 2000 United States presidential election in Florida took place on November 7, 2000, as part of the nationwide presidential election. Gore garnered 255 electoral votes to Bushs 246, but neither candidate won the 270 electoral votes necessary for victory. "The states highest officials responsible for ensuring efficiency, uniformity, and fairness in the election failed to fulfill their responsibilities. At the time, he urged caution, but in the heat of the moment, NPR like other media organizations called the state for Gore. That call was made in the early morning hours of November 8 by all the TV networks cited above, but not by the AP. [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. Only a fourth of the variance consisted of optical ballots. Second, the Court ruled 54 against the remedy, proposed by Justices Stephen Breyer and David Souter, of sending the case back to Florida to complete the recount using a uniform statewide standard before the scheduled December 18 meeting of Florida's electors in Tallahassee. 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. ", "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. Technically, the voters of Florida cast their ballots for electors, representatives to the Electoral College. Treating the petition as a writ of certiorari (a formal request for review), the Court agreed to take up the case, Bush v. Gore. The longstanding case law in Florida [ ] has held that the intent of the voters as shown by their ballots should be given effect. The standards considered by BDO Seidman were: The study notes that because of the possibility of mistakes, it is difficult to conclude that Gore would have won under the strict standard or that a high degree of certainty obtained in the study's results. 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). A previous version of this story incorrectly gave Republican Ron DeSantis' first name as Brian. We have to believe that based on the vote totals elsewhere. Two-coder general agreement for punch-card counties. 3.08 Module Exam (Government) ^2 2 ), 5, which the Florida Supreme Court had stated that the Florida Legislature intended to meet. 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. That 5-4 majority was composed of the nominees of Republican Presidents George H.W. The state's electorate was becoming more diverse in general, with growing Asian and Hispanic immigrant populations. 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. [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. rejected by the Florida Supreme Court in its ruling of December 8, 2000, the lightly populated counties of Gadsden, Hamilton, Lafayette and Union. They had won Florida, they insisted. The 2000 presidential election was a pivotal moment in history that ended up with a recount in Florida. "Florida voter errors cost Gore the election." By November 10 the machine recount was complete, and Bushs lead stood at 327 votes out of six million cast. Republican Ron DeSantis proclaimed victory in the governor's race and current Gov. USA Today, 11 May 2001. The Herron memo gave postmark and "point of origin" criteria that Herron maintained could be used to challenge overseas ballots. How many electoral votes did George W. Bush win in the 2000 election? What the Bush v. Gore studies showed", "Media Recount: Bush Won the 2000 Election", "Statistical Practice: Reliability of the Uncertified Ballots in the 2000 Presidential Election in Florida", "Newspapers' recount shows Bush prevailed", "Florida voter errors cost Gore the election", "Battlefield Florida: A Chat with Lance deHaven-Smith", How we got here: A timeline of the Florida recount, Video highlight of Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Wells opening, Video highlights of November 20, 2000 and December 7, 2000 oral arguments in. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. 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. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Rowman & Littlefield. The Florida Supreme Court clarified its ruling on this matter while the United States Supreme Court was deliberating Bush v. Gore. What was the primary election-year problem in Florida? 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. George W. Bush received fewer popular votes than Albert Gore Jr., but received a majority of electoral votes. Five hundred thirty-seven votes. 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. Both campaigns immediately dispatched teams of lawyers to Florida. How do you explain the data shown on this map? The vote had been announced by Florida's secretary of state. Following the machine recount, the Gore campaign requested a manual recount in four counties. Networks initially projected Gore the winner in that state but later declared that Bush had opened an insurmountable lead. About 10 p.m. EST on December 12, the United States Supreme Court handed down its ruling. [12] This statutory process primarily accommodated recounts for local elections. 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. "Study concludes accurate election recount virtually impossible." our elections: badly kept lists, shoddy ballots during the 2000 Presidential Election. 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. 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. 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. Conservative writer Andrew Sullivan in a contemporaneous article:[61]. Also uncounted were many absentee, military and provisional ballots. Am I correct? In 2000, Florida was allocated 25 electors because it had 23 congressional districts and 2 senators. 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. 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]. Could 2020 Be the Same. 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. The Bush campaign immediately petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay of the recount order, which was granted on December 9. To log in and use all the features of Khan Academy, please enable JavaScript in your browser. None of these findings are certain. [2] It was also the first time the Democratic candidate won Orange County since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944.