The Presidential Election of 2000

The Presidential Election of 2000

The Presidential Election of 2000 is the closet election in history. It took five

weeks to decide who would be the next president of the United States of America. On

December 12, 2000, the US Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 vote to stop recounting the

undervotes. The decision reversed the ruling in Florida made by Florida’s Supreme Court.

The Florida justices Fred Lewis, Harry Anstead, Leander Shaw, Jr., Charles T. Wells,

Major Harding, Barbara Pariente, and Peggy Quince had voted 4-3 to recount all the

undervotes of Florida’s 67 counties. The U.S. Supreme Court overruled the Florida

Supreme Court and declared that the state’s ruling was unconstitutional. “Under

federalism, the US Supreme Court can overrule state courts where issues of federal law

are involved” (Cohen 42). When the Florida Supreme Court decision violated the equal

rights provision of the US Constitution.

Gore and his legal team repealed to Florida Supreme Court because of Judge

Sanders. “ A plain outspoken, sharp-witted man who uses his folksiness as a shield, Sauls,

59, proved to be an important jurist in the legal feud over the presidency” (Roche). Judge

N. Sanders Sauls, the Leon County judge made the decision not to count the undervotes

in the election after listening to nine hours of argument and testimony.

“On Friday night, Gore told TIME that he was ‘not all that surprised’ by the state

Supreme Court decision rescuing him from the abyss” (Pooley 34). The Florida Supreme

Court had decided to recount the undervotes to make the election easier. It’s decision

delayed the election for more than a month. The election was delayed because of

undervotes being counted and then recounted. Undervotes are ballots that contain votes

in some races but not all. The undervotes raised attention because the election was really

close between Bush and Al Gore. Before the Florida’s Supreme Court ruling George W.

Bush was ahead with 537 votes. After the order from the court to recount 42,000

undervotes Bush’s lead dropped to 193 votes. The Election of 2000 became the most

controversial one is history because of the recounts. The nation was divided on whether

the ballots should have been recounted. Many of the ballots that were recounted were

paper punch cards. The machines that read the cards miss counted the votes because

many cards were not fully punched. Election officials never had to examine undervotes

therefore they did not have a uniform standard.