My eighth cache commemorating landmark decisions in American legal history. Twenty-one years ago this Sunday, Bush v Gore was decided in a 5–4 ruling by the US Supreme Court. The Court majority held that the vote certification made by Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris to stand for George W. Bush, who thereby won Florida's 25 electoral votes which then made him the winner of the 2000 American Presidential Election.
Background
Election night 2000 was unprecedented in American history. While having narrowly won the popular vote by only 0.5%, Democratic candidate Al Gore still needed the 25 electoral votes of Florida to win the overall election. Early in the evening all major networks called the state of Florida in his favor only to then retract that call. They then called the state too close to call and eventually in favor of Bush. Millions of Americans went to bed thinking Gore had won only to awaken to the turmoil of the following morning and the coming weeks. The Florida Division of Elections reported that Bush won with 48.8% of the vote in Florida, a margin of victory of only 1,784 votes out of over 6,000,000 cast. After automatic recounts that margin of victory decreased to only 329 votes.
There are simply too many details to document here. Let’s just say the following weeks were a circus and utter chaos ensued with countless lawsuits and counter suits. On December 8, the Florida Supreme Court had ordered a statewide recount of all undervotes, over 61,000 ballots that the vote tabulation machines had missed. The Bush campaign immediately asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the decision and halt the recount. Justice Antonin Scalia, convinced that all the manual recounts being performed in Florida's counties were illegitimate, urged his colleagues to grant the stay immediately. On December 9, the five conservative justices on the Court granted the stay for Bush, with Scalia citing "irreparable harm" that could befall Bush. This all led up to arguments before SCOTUS on December 11th.
The decision:
The Court first ruled 7–2, strictly on equal protection grounds, that the recount be stopped. Specifically, the use of different standards of counting in different counties violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Second, the Court ruled 5–4 that no alternative method could be established within the discretionary December 12 deadline set by Title 3 of the United States Code which the Florida Supreme Court had stated that the Florida Legislature intended to meet. The Court, stating that not meeting the deadline would therefore violate the Florida Election Code, rejected an extension of the deadline. The Court therefore effectively ended the proposed recount. As a result George W Bush became the 43rd President of the United States.