Easily one of the most controversial elections in American history, the 2000 election has exposed vulnerability in the voting process. The election was back and forth, and some states were in debate over which candidate gets the electoral votes. The major state in this case is Florida to decide the election. Many issues arose in the Florida system, such as the unconstitutional ballot recount, the Supreme Courts stands on the situation, and the back and forth battle over the deadline for the ballot recount.
The race in Florida was within a thousand votes for most of the race. This may have exposed an issue that was occurring not only in the state of Florida, but possibly throughout the United States. “The court noted that in many counties, machines did not register votes because of defects in punch-card ballots ("hanging chads")”. With this new information, the American government began to make changes in the entire voting process in hopes of preventing further controversies such as this election. The process in Florida as just the beginning of the longest president election decision in the history of the United States. “A month of tumult followed, until the U.S. Supreme Court, voting strictly along conservative/liberal lines, ordered the recount stopped and let Bush’s victory stand” (Henretta & Brody).
Many, including members of the Supreme Court, felt that a recount of the votes in some of the countries was unconstitutional. They felt that it violated the Fourteenth of the Equal Rights Clause in the United States. Although Vice President Gore wanted a recount of the votes in four countries, the Florida Supreme Court denied that the counts are able to perform a recount on December 12, 2000. “The U.S. Supreme Court to decide t...
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...e down to political view and opinion, whether in the Supreme Court, the Floridian government, or the candidates themselves, the election was taking out of the hands of the people of the United States.
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... of Florida, under the Electoral College, electoral votes for the candidate running for office receive a plurality of their popular vote. Therefore, whoever gets the majority of the national electoral votes wins the election. Bush won by a narrow margin of these votes resulting in a mandatory machine recount, which afterwards concluded that Bush’s victory margin, was even narrower. This allowed Al Gore to request a recount in the counties of his choice, so naturally he chose the counties whose votes were historically democratic. The uncertainty continued through the circuit courts all the way to The Florida Supreme Court who ruled in Bush v. Gore that there was not enough time to recount the popular vote ballots without violating the United States constitution. The recounting of the ballots would have violated the Fourteenth Amendments “Equal Protection Clause”.
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Florida with 25 electoral votes did not have an official winner because the result was inside the margin of error for machine counting. Gore knew the only way to figure this out was to have a manual recount of several counties ballots. As Palm Beach County was recounting its ballots, Florida Secretary Harris, a Republican and co-chair of the Florida Bush campaign, officially certified the election for Bush. In reaction to this decision, Gore and Palm Beach filed suit against Bush and Harris in Florida Supreme Court demanding that the recount should go on. On November 22, Bush appealed to the United States Supreme Court against Palm Beach County Canvassing Board stating the decision was in violation of a federal statute requiring electors to be finished at a given point before the Electoral College met.
Henretta, James A and David* Brody. America: A concise History . Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2010. Document.
Divine, Robert A. America past and Present. 10th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education/Longman, 2013. 245. Print.
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If one were to look at the voting history as of late in America you would surely find information on the Florida catastrophe in 2000. The problem with our voting system today is in the technology being used; many demographic groups find our current systems confusing and hard to use. As voters step into the polling places this election year many will be voting through new devices some even sporting “touch screen” technology and we can only hope that the new technology is understood and accepted.
3. Divine, Breen, Fredrickson, Williams, eds., America Past and Present Volume II: since 1865 sixth edition (New York: Longman 2002).
The election process in the United States is a valuable process to the election of the proper officials to satisfy the people. The people run the country which is why we live in freedom because we control what happens with major decisions by choosing whom we want to decide these decisions. The whole country goes to vote on a certain day and by the end of that day we will vote to select who will run the country, state, county, or city political positions. The most complex decision and one with the biggest impact are selecting who the President of the United States shall be. We examine what their views are and who would do a better job. Then vote in our respected states with a certain number of electoral votes depending upon the population in that state. Those votes go toward the overall count of the candidate and help choose who will reach the magic number of 270 electoral votes first. This hasn’t always remained the same since the beginning but the basic idea behind this type of voting system was created by the views of the Founding Fathers of our country.
further than the recent election. An old system of choosing the nations leader by electors, created in fairness to southern slave-owners who counted each of their "possesions" as two-fifths of a person, is preventing the nation from electing the majority's choice as president. The debacle that is now being called "Indecision 2000" should be a wake up call to Americans living under laws past in another age for a much different nation.
Breen, T.H., H.W. Brands, et al. America: Past and Present. Upper Saddle River NJ: Pearson, Print.