United States presidential election in Florida, 2000
Encyclopedia
The 2000 United States presidential election in Florida took place on November 7, 2000 as it did in the other 49 states and D.C., which was part of the 2000 United States presidential election
. Voters chose 25 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for President
and Vice President
.
Florida
, a swing state
, had a major recount dispute that took center stage in the election. Thus, the outcome of the 2000 United States presidential election
was not known for more than a month after balloting, because of the extended process of counting and then recounting of Florida
presidential ballots. State results tallied on election night gave 246 electoral votes to Republican
candidate George W. Bush
and 255 to Democratic
nominee Al Gore
, with New Mexico
(5), Oregon
(7), and Florida
(25) too close to call that evening. The arithmetic of the available electoral votes in all three states meant that at that point, the result in Florida was all that mattered, and even when both New Mexico and Oregon were declared in favor of the eventual loser Gore over the following few days, the drama in Florida uniquely dragged out for several weeks before eventually settling the election for the entire nation.
After an intense recount process and the decision of Bush v. Gore
, Governor George W. Bush
officially won Florida's electoral votes and as a result, the entire presidential election. The process was extremely divisive, and led to calls for electoral reform in Florida
. The Florida election saga eventually made its way to Hollywood in the HBO straight-to-TV movie, Recount
, 2008.
, a staunch conservative and George W. Bush's brother. Nonetheless the Republicans appear to have focused significant advertising resources in the large state, and later polls indicated that the state result was very much in play as late as September 2000. Some late momentum for Gore and his Jewish running mate Joe Lieberman may also have come from the significant Jewish population. Also various Northern-born population from reliable blue states in the Northeast
have been migrating to Florida in the past few decades since the 1950s, as well as a large growing Asian
and Hispanic
immigrant population have been moving into Florida, thus supplanting Republican gains in the state, and making the state in general a swing state in 2000.
In 1996, exit polling showed 42% of the state were made up of voters older than 60 years old, thus making social security
and Medicare
the top issues in Florida. Polls showed older voters favored Gore 51% to 37%.
In late October, one poll found that Gore was leading Bush and third parties with 44-42-4 among registered voters and 46-42-4 among likely voters.
, an organization formed by the Associated Press
to help determine the outcome of the election through early result tallies and exit polling, first called Florida for Gore in the hour after polls closed in the eastern peninsula (which is in the Eastern time zone) but before they had closed in the heavily Republican counties of the western panhandle
(which is in the Central time zone).
Once the polls had closed in the panhandle, the networks retracted their call for Gore, calling the state for Bush; then retracted that call as well, finally indicating the state was "too close to call". In an editorial for National Review
magazine, Tim Graham, director of media analysis for the conservative Media Research Center
, claimed that the media's premature call for Gore's victory in Florida might have disenfranchised many pro-Bush voters in the Panhandle; however, this claim was deemed "extremely unlikely" by Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), a liberal media watch group. Gore made a concession phone call to Bush the night of the election, then retracted it after learning just how close the election was.
Bush won the election night vote count in Florida by 1,784 votes. Florida state law provided for an automatic recount due to the small margins. There were general concerns about the fairness and accuracy of the voting process, especially since a small change in the vote count could change the result. The final official Florida count gave the victory to Bush by 537 votes, making it the tightest race of the campaign (at least in percentage terms; New Mexico was decided by 363 votes but has a much smaller population, meaning those 363 votes represent a 0.061% difference while the 537 votes in Florida are just 0.009%). Most of the reduction in the ensuing recount came from Miami-Dade county alone, a statistical anomaly.
The Florida election has been closely scrutinized since the election, and several irregularities are thought to have favored Bush. These included the Palm Beach
"butterfly ballot," which produced an unexpectedly large number of votes for third-party candidate Patrick Buchanan. Also noted was a purge of over 54,000 citizens from the Florida voting rolls identified as felons, of whom 54% were African-Americans. The majority of these were not felons and should have been eligible to vote under Florida law. Additionally, there were many more 'overvotes' than usual, especially in predominantly African-American precincts in Duval county (Jacksonville), where some 27,000 ballots showed two or more choices for President . Unlike the much-discussed Palm Beach County 'butterfly ballot,' the Duval County ballot spread choices for President over two pages with instructions to 'vote on every page' on the bottom of each page.
In a 2010 issue of TV Guide
, the premature calls for Bush's victory ranked #2 on a list of TV's ten biggest "blunders", and is blamed for ushering in a new era of public distrust of the media.
Conveniently, the memo attached a form that could be duplicated and used to protest the validity of individual ballots. By the time the Herron memo made headlines, the Democrats had challenged more than 1,500 absentee ballots (which grew to more than 2,400) mostly from soldiers overseas.
One controversial aspect of the Florida recount was an unexpectedly large number of votes for Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan
in Palm Beach County
. Early reports had Buchanan receiving about 0.8% of the vote in Palm Beach County (a total of 3,407 votes), significantly outperforming his state-wide vote share of 0.29%. Representatives of Buchanan's campaign and the Reform Party estimated Buchanan's true vote total at between 400 and 1,000 votes. A later review of discarded ballots in Palm Beach County by The Palm Beach Post showed that 5,330 votes were cast for the presumably rare cross-party combination of Gore and Buchanan, compared with only 1,631 for the equivalent cross-party combination of Bush and Buchanan. The number of votes that may have been mistakenly cast for Buchanan was well in excess of George W. Bush's certified margin of victory.
One theory is that voters might have accidentally voted for Buchanan when they thought they were voting for Al Gore on a so-called "butterfly ballot". The Democrats are listed second in the left-hand column; but punching a hole in the second circle actually cast a vote for Buchanan, first listing in the right-hand column. If the machine loading the ballot did not line it up with the candidates properly, then it became confusing for the voter to discern where they should punch the hole. Voters who punched the second hole would have ignored an arrow on the ballot showing which hole was to be punched if the arrow did not line up with the hole correctly due to machine error, because the design of the ballot neglected the effects of parallax
due to the center row of holes being in a different plane from the two columns of printed names, and the ballot being viewed at an oblique angle.
Buchanan said on The Today Show, November 9, 2000:
He, unlike the voters, did not see the ballot before Election Night.
Although Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer
said on November 9, 2000, "Palm Beach County is a Pat Buchanan stronghold and that's why Pat Buchanan received 3,407 votes there", Buchanan's Florida coordinator, Jim McConnell, responded, "That's nonsense", and Jim Cunningham, chairman of the executive committee of Palm Beach County's Reform Party, responded, "I don't think so. Not from where I'm sitting and what I'm looking at." Cunningham estimated the number of Buchanan supporters in Palm Beach County to be between 400 and 500. Asked how many votes he would guess Buchanan legitimately received in Palm Beach County, he said, "I think 1,000 would be generous. Do I believe that these people inadvertently cast their votes for Pat Buchanan? Yes, I do. We have to believe that based on the vote totals elsewhere."
In response, others point out that the ballot was designed by Theresa LePore
, a Democrat, and approved by representatives of both major parties.
Prior to the election, unusually substandard paper ballots, including misaligned chads, were manufactured by employees of the Sequoia Pacific company, out of normal specifications and failing quality testing, prior to shipping to Palm Beach County. (see http://election-reform.org/dan_rather.html#palm_beach)
Once the closeness of the election in Florida was clear, both the Bush and Gore campaigns organized themselves for the ensuing legal process. The Bush campaign hired George H. W. Bush
's former Secretary of State
James Baker
to oversee their legal team, and the Gore campaign hired Bill Clinton
's former Secretary of State Warren Christopher
.
The canvassing board did not discover any errors in the tabulation process in the initial mandated recount.
The Bush campaign sued to prevent additional recounts on the basis that no errors were found in the tabulation method until subjective measures
were applied in manual recounts.
The Gore campaign, as allowed by Florida statute, requested that disputed ballots in four counties be counted by hand. Florida statutes also required that all counties certify and report their returns, including any recounts, by 5 p.m. on November 14. The manual recounts were time-consuming, and, when it became clear that some counties would not complete their recounts before the deadline, both Volusia and Palm Beach Counties sued to have their deadlines extended.
The trial of Palm Beach Canvassing Board v. Katherine Harris was a response from the Bush campaign to state litigation against extending the statutory deadlines for the manual recounts. Besides deadlines, also in dispute were the criteria that each county's canvassing board would use in examining the overvotes and/or undervotes. Numerous local court rulings went both ways, some ordering recounts because the vote was so close and others declaring that a selective manual recount in a few heavily-Democratic counties would be unfair.
Eventually, the Gore campaign appealed to the Florida Supreme Court which ordered the recounting process to proceed. 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. On December 4, the U.S. Supreme Court returned this matter to the Florida Supreme Court with an order vacating
its earlier decision. In its opinion, the Supreme Court cited several areas where the Florida Supreme Court had violated both the federal and Florida constitutions. The Court further held that it had "considerable uncertainty" as to the reasons given by the Florida Supreme Court for its decision. The Florida Supreme Court clarified its ruling on this matter while the United States Supreme Court was deliberating Bush v. Gore
.
At 4:00 p.m. EST on December 8, the Florida Supreme Court, by a 4 to 3 vote, ordered a manual recount, under the supervision of the Leon County Circuit Court and Leon County
Elections Supervisor Ion Sancho
, of disputed ballots in all Florida counties and the portion of Miami-Dade county in which such a recount was not already complete. That decision was announced on live world-wide television by the Florida Supreme Court's spokesman Craig Waters
, the Court's public information officer
. The Court further ordered that only undervotes be considered. The results of this tally were to be added to the November 14 tally.
About 10 p.m. EST on December 12, the United States Supreme Court handed down its ruling in favor of Bush. Seven of the nine justices saw constitutional problems with the Equal Protection Clause
of the United States Constitution
in the Florida Supreme Court's plan for recounting ballots, citing differing vote-counting standards from county to county and the lack of a single judicial officer to oversee the recount. Five justices held there was insufficient time to impose a unified standard and that the recounts should therefore be stopped and Florida be allowed to certify its vote, effectively ending the legal review of the vote count with Bush in the lead. The 5–4 decision became extremely controversial due to the partisan split in the decision and the majority's irregular instruction that its judgment in Bush v. Gore
should not set precedent but should be "limited to the present circumstances". Gore publicly disagreed with the court's decision, but conceded the election.
This ruling
stopped the vote recount, allowing Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris
to certify the election results. This allowed Florida's electoral votes to be cast for Bush, making him the winner.
at the University of Chicago
, sponsored by a consortium of major United States news organizations, conducted a Florida Ballot Project comprehensive review of all ballots uncounted (by machine) in the Florida 2000 presidential election, both undervotes and overvotes, with the main research aim being to report how different ballot layouts correlate with voter mistakes. The total number of undervotes and overvotes in Florida amounted to 3% of all votes cast in the state. The findings of the review were reported by the media during the week after November 12, 2001.
The NORC study was not primarily intended as a determination of which candidate "really won". Analysis of the results found that different standards for the hand-counting of machine-uncountable ballots would lead to differing results. The results according to the various standards were reported in the newspapers which funded the recount, such as The Miami Herald
and the Washington Post.
After the election, USA Today
, The Miami Herald
, and Knight Ridder
commissioned accounting firm BDO Seidman to count undervotes, that is, ballots which did not register any vote when counted by machine. BDO Seidman's results, reported in USA Today, show that under the strictest standard, where only a cleanly punched ballot with a fully removed chad
was counted, Gore won by three votes. Under all other standards, Bush won, with Bush's margin increasing as looser standards were used. The standards considered by BDO Seidman were:
The study remarks that because of the possibility of mistakes, it is difficult to conclude that Gore was surely the winner under the strict standard. It also remarks that there are variations between examiners, and that election officials often did not provide the same number of undervotes as were counted on Election Day. Furthermore, the study did not consider overvotes, ballots which registered more than one vote when counted by machine.
The study also found that undervotes break down into two distinct types, those coming from punch-card using counties, and those coming from optical-scan using counties. Undervotes from punch-card using counties give new votes to candidates in roughly the same proportion as the county's official vote. Furthermore, the number of undervotes correlates with how well the punch-card machines are maintained, and not with factors such as race or socioeconomic status. Undervotes from optical-scan using counties, however, correlate with Democratic votes more than Republican votes. Optical-scan counties were the only places in the study where Gore gained more votes than Bush, 1,036 to 775.
A larger consortium of news organizations, including the USA Today, the Miami Herald, Knight Ridder, the Tampa Tribune, and five other newspapers next conducted a full recount of all ballots, including both undervotes and overvotes. According to their results, under stricter standards for vote counting, Bush won, and under looser standards, Gore won. However, a Gore win was impossible without a recount of overvotes, which he did not request, but may have occurred, as faxes discovered after the media recount, being sent to and from Judge Terry Lewis to canvassing boards around Florida, who was overseeing the recount effort were discovered by indicated that Judge Lewis clearly intended to have the overvotes counted, in which case Gore emerges the victor.
According to the study, only 3% of the 111,261 overvotes had markings that could be interpreted as a legal vote. According to Anthony Salvado, a political scientist at the University of California, Irvine
, who acted as a consultant on the media recount, most of the errors were caused by ballot design, ballot wording, and efforts by voters to choose both a president and a vice-president. For example, 21,188 of the Florida overvotes, or nearly one-fifth of the total, originated from Duval County, where the presidential race was split across two pages. Voters were instructed to "vote every page". Half of the overvotes in Duval County had one presidential candidate marked on each page, making their vote illegal under Florida law. Salvado says that this error alone cost Gore the election.
Including overvotes in the above totals for undervotes gives different margins of victory:
asked
"If everyone who tried to vote in Florida had their votes counted for the candidate who they thought they were voting for -- with no misleading ballots and infallible voting machines -- who do you think would have won the election, George W. Bush or Al Gore?". The results were 49% for Gore and 40% for Bush with 11% unable to make up their mind or not wishing to respond.
.
The electors of each state and the District of Columbia met on December 18, 2000 to cast their votes for President and Vice President. The Electoral College itself never meets as one body. Instead the electors from each state and the District of Columbia met in their respective capitols.
The following were the members of the Electoral College from the state. All were pledged to and voted for George W. Bush and Dick Cheney:
United States presidential election, 2000
The United States presidential election of 2000 was a contest between Republican candidate George W. Bush, then-governor of Texas and son of former president George H. W. Bush , and Democratic candidate Al Gore, then-Vice President....
. Voters chose 25 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
and Vice President
Vice President of the United States
The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term...
.
Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, a swing state
Swing state
In United States presidential politics, a swing state is a state in which no single candidate or party has overwhelming support in securing that state's electoral college votes...
, had a major recount dispute that took center stage in the election. Thus, the outcome of the 2000 United States presidential election
United States presidential election, 2000
The United States presidential election of 2000 was a contest between Republican candidate George W. Bush, then-governor of Texas and son of former president George H. W. Bush , and Democratic candidate Al Gore, then-Vice President....
was not known for more than a month after balloting, because of the extended process of counting and then recounting of Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
presidential ballots. State results tallied on election night gave 246 electoral votes to Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
candidate George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
and 255 to Democratic
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
nominee Al Gore
Al Gore
Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election....
, with New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
(5), Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
(7), and Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
(25) too close to call that evening. The arithmetic of the available electoral votes in all three states meant that at that point, the result in Florida was all that mattered, and even when both New Mexico and Oregon were declared in favor of the eventual loser Gore over the following few days, the drama in Florida uniquely dragged out for several weeks before eventually settling the election for the entire nation.
After an intense recount process and the decision of Bush v. Gore
Bush v. Gore
Bush v. Gore, , is the landmark United States Supreme Court decision on December 12, 2000, that effectively resolved the 2000 presidential election in favor of George W. Bush. Only eight days earlier, the United States Supreme Court had unanimously decided the closely related case of Bush v...
, Governor George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
officially won Florida's electoral votes and as a result, the entire presidential election. The process was extremely divisive, and led to calls for electoral reform in Florida
Electoral reform in Florida
Electoral reform in Florida refers to efforts to change the voting and election laws in the United States state of Florida.-Alternate voting systems:Voters in Sarasota, Florida voted to switch to instant runoff voting in November 2007.-Ballots:...
. The Florida election saga eventually made its way to Hollywood in the HBO straight-to-TV movie, Recount
Recount (film)
Recount is a 2008 made-for-TV film about the 2000 Presidential election in the United States. The political drama was written by Danny Strong, directed by Jay Roach, and produced by Kevin Spacey, who also stars in the film....
, 2008.
Campaign
Initially Florida had been considered a reliable red state . It was governed by Jeb BushJeb Bush
John Ellis "Jeb" Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd Governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007. He is a prominent member of the Bush family: the second son of former President George H. W. Bush and former First Lady Barbara Bush; the younger brother of former President George W...
, a staunch conservative and George W. Bush's brother. Nonetheless the Republicans appear to have focused significant advertising resources in the large state, and later polls indicated that the state result was very much in play as late as September 2000. Some late momentum for Gore and his Jewish running mate Joe Lieberman may also have come from the significant Jewish population. Also various Northern-born population from reliable blue states in the Northeast
Northeastern United States
The Northeastern United States is a region of the United States as defined by the United States Census Bureau.-Composition:The region comprises nine states: the New England states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont; and the Mid-Atlantic states of New...
have been migrating to Florida in the past few decades since the 1950s, as well as a large growing Asian
Asian American
Asian Americans are Americans of Asian descent. The U.S. Census Bureau definition of Asians as "Asian” refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent, including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan,...
and Hispanic
Hispanic and Latino Americans
Hispanic or Latino Americans are Americans with origins in the Hispanic countries of Latin America or in Spain, and in general all persons in the United States who self-identify as Hispanic or Latino.1990 Census of Population and Housing: A self-designated classification for people whose origins...
immigrant population have been moving into Florida, thus supplanting Republican gains in the state, and making the state in general a swing state in 2000.
In 1996, exit polling showed 42% of the state were made up of voters older than 60 years old, thus making social security
Social security
Social security is primarily a social insurance program providing social protection or protection against socially recognized conditions, including poverty, old age, disability, unemployment and others. Social security may refer to:...
and Medicare
Medicare (United States)
Medicare is a social insurance program administered by the United States government, providing health insurance coverage to people who are aged 65 and over; to those who are under 65 and are permanently physically disabled or who have a congenital physical disability; or to those who meet other...
the top issues in Florida. Polls showed older voters favored Gore 51% to 37%.
In late October, one poll found that Gore was leading Bush and third parties with 44-42-4 among registered voters and 46-42-4 among likely voters.
Recount
Election night
The controversy began on election night, when the national television networks, using information provided them by the Voter News ServiceVoter News Service
The Voter News Service was a consortium whose mission was to provide results for United States presidential elections, so that individual organizations and networks would not have to do exit polling and vote tallying in parallel.-Members:...
, an organization formed by the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
to help determine the outcome of the election through early result tallies and exit polling, first called Florida for Gore in the hour after polls closed in the eastern peninsula (which is in the Eastern time zone) but before they had closed in the heavily Republican counties of the western panhandle
Florida Panhandle
The Florida Panhandle, an informal, unofficial term for the northwestern part of Florida, is a strip of land roughly 200 miles long and 50 to 100 miles wide , lying between Alabama on the north and the west, Georgia also on the north, and the Gulf of Mexico to the south. Its eastern boundary is...
(which is in the Central time zone).
Once the polls had closed in the panhandle, the networks retracted their call for Gore, calling the state for Bush; then retracted that call as well, finally indicating the state was "too close to call". In an editorial for National Review
National Review
National Review is a biweekly magazine founded by the late author William F. Buckley, Jr., in 1955 and based in New York City. It describes itself as "America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for conservative news, commentary, and opinion."Although the print version of the...
magazine, Tim Graham, director of media analysis for the conservative Media Research Center
Media Research Center
The Media Research Center is a content analysis organization based in Alexandria, Virginia, founded in 1987 by conservative activist L. Brent Bozell III...
, claimed that the media's premature call for Gore's victory in Florida might have disenfranchised many pro-Bush voters in the Panhandle; however, this claim was deemed "extremely unlikely" by Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), a liberal media watch group. Gore made a concession phone call to Bush the night of the election, then retracted it after learning just how close the election was.
Bush won the election night vote count in Florida by 1,784 votes. Florida state law provided for an automatic recount due to the small margins. There were general concerns about the fairness and accuracy of the voting process, especially since a small change in the vote count could change the result. The final official Florida count gave the victory to Bush by 537 votes, making it the tightest race of the campaign (at least in percentage terms; New Mexico was decided by 363 votes but has a much smaller population, meaning those 363 votes represent a 0.061% difference while the 537 votes in Florida are just 0.009%). Most of the reduction in the ensuing recount came from Miami-Dade county alone, a statistical anomaly.
Recount irregularities
Palm Beach County, Florida
Palm Beach County is the largest county in the state of Florida in total area, and third in population. As of 2010, the county's estimated population was 1,320,134, making it the twenty-eighth most populous in the United States...
"butterfly ballot," which produced an unexpectedly large number of votes for third-party candidate Patrick Buchanan. Also noted was a purge of over 54,000 citizens from the Florida voting rolls identified as felons, of whom 54% were African-Americans. The majority of these were not felons and should have been eligible to vote under Florida law. Additionally, there were many more 'overvotes' than usual, especially in predominantly African-American precincts in Duval county (Jacksonville), where some 27,000 ballots showed two or more choices for President . Unlike the much-discussed Palm Beach County 'butterfly ballot,' the Duval County ballot spread choices for President over two pages with instructions to 'vote on every page' on the bottom of each page.
Controversial issues
Following the election a number of studies have been made of the electoral process in Florida by Democrats, Republicans, and other interested parties. A number of flaws and improprieties have been discovered in the process. Controversies included:- All five major US TV news networks (CBSCBSCBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
, NBCNBCThe National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
, ABCAmerican Broadcasting CompanyThe American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
, FoxFox Broadcasting CompanyFox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
and CNNCNNCable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
) made the incorrect assumption that all of Florida's polls closed at 7:00 p.m. EST, which was not the case. All five of them reported this incorrect statement at the top of the 6:00-7:00 hour. Westernmost counties in Florida had polls open for another hour, until 8:00 p.m. EST, as they were part of the Central Time Zone. This region of the state traditionally voted mostly Republican. Because of the above mistaken assumption, some media outlets reported at 7:00 p.m. EST that all polls had closed in the state of Florida. Also, significantly, the Voter News ServiceVoter News ServiceThe Voter News Service was a consortium whose mission was to provide results for United States presidential elections, so that individual organizations and networks would not have to do exit polling and vote tallying in parallel.-Members:...
called the state of Florida for Al Gore at 7:48 p.m. EST. A survey estimate by John McLaughlinJohn McLaughlin (host)John McLaughlin is an American television personality and political commentator. He created, produces and hosts the long-running political commentary series The McLaughlin Group as well as John McLaughlin's One On One....
& Associates put the number of voters who did not vote due to confusion as high as 15,000, which theoretically reduced Bush's margin of victory by an estimated 5,000 votes; a study by John LottJohn LottJohn Richard Lott Jr. is an American academic and political commentator. He has previously held research positions at academic institutions including the University of Chicago, Yale University, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Maryland, College Park,...
found that Bush's margin of victory was reduced by 7,500 votes. This survey assumes that the turnout in the Panhandle counties would have equalled the statewide average of 68% if the media had not incorrectly reported the polls' closing time and if the state had not been called for Gore while the polls were still open. This opens the possibility that Bush would have won by a larger victory margin and controversy would have been avoided if the networks had known and reported the correct poll closing times, and called the state after all polls were closed. Some individuals made public statements to the effect that they would have voted for Bush, but did not vote because of the poll close time confusion, or the Gore call.
In a 2010 issue of TV Guide
TV Guide
TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...
, the premature calls for Bush's victory ranked #2 on a list of TV's ten biggest "blunders", and is blamed for ushering in a new era of public distrust of the media.
- Jeb BushJeb BushJohn Ellis "Jeb" Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd Governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007. He is a prominent member of the Bush family: the second son of former President George H. W. Bush and former First Lady Barbara Bush; the younger brother of former President George W...
, the brother of George W. Bush, was governor of Florida, leading some Gore advocates to make various allegations of impropriety, especially due to their joint campaigning for the Republican vote in Florida and Jeb Bush's assurances to George W. Bush that the Republicans would win Florida. While it is typical for sitting governors to campaign strongly on behalf of the candidate with the same party affiliation, it is unusual for the governor to be related by blood to the candidate and in a position to influence the election in his favor. Some democracy advocates have taken offense at his request for the removal of Florida election officials explaining voting/recount law on TV. - Democratic State senator Daryl JonesDaryl JonesDaryl Jones is a politician from Miami, Florida, United States.- Early years :The son of public school teachers, Daryl Jones was born in Jackson, MS, the oldest of four children. He attended Lanier High School where he was elected President of the Mississippi State Association of Student Councils...
said that there had to have been an order to set up road-blocks in heavily Democratic regions of the state on the day of the election. - Democratic lawyer Mark Herron authored a memo distributed to Democratic election canvassers on how to invalidate military absentee ballots. The Herron Memo stated postmark and "point of origin" criteria Herron maintained could be used to invalidate military ballots. However, the Herron Memo was in line with a letter sent out by Secretary of State Kathryn Harris which stated that if a postmark was not present on the military ballots that the ballots had to be thrown out. Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth, a Gore backer, later told the counties to go back and reconsider those ballots without a postmark.
Conveniently, the memo attached a form that could be duplicated and used to protest the validity of individual ballots. By the time the Herron memo made headlines, the Democrats had challenged more than 1,500 absentee ballots (which grew to more than 2,400) mostly from soldiers overseas.
- The actions of the Florida Secretary of State, Katherine HarrisKatherine HarrisKatherine Harris is an American Republican politician, former Secretary of State of Florida, and former member of the United States House of Representatives. Harris won the 2002 election to represent Florida's 13th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives. She held that post...
, who was in charge of state election procedures, also came under fire, due to her status as a Bush state campaign co-chairman, her involvement with the "scrub listFlorida Central Voter FileThe Florida Central Voter File was an internal list of legally eligible voters used by the US Florida Department of State Division of Elections to monitor the official voter lists maintained by the 67 county governments in the State of Florida between 1998 and January 1, 2006...
", and her behavior during the recount crisis. In particular, democracy advocates have taken issue with her antagonizing of Democratic lawyers, her dispatching of a lawyer to Palm Beach county to convince the voting board of voting down a manual recount (despite thousands of protesters within the county including 12,000 with affidavits), and in particular her collaboration with Republican party advisers (at one point housing them). - There were a number of overseas ballots missing postmarkPostmarkthumb|USS TexasA postmark is a postal marking made on a letter, package, postcard or the like indicating the date and time that the item was delivered into the care of the postal service...
s or filled out in such a way that they were invalid under Florida law. A poll worker filled out the missing information on some absentee ballot applications; the Democrats moved to have the returned ballots thrown out because of this. These disputes added to the mass of litigation between parties to influence the counting of ballots. The largest group of disputed overseas ballots were military ballots. On November 19, 2000, Democratic vice-presidential candidate Senator Joseph I. Lieberman appeared on Meet the PressMeet the PressMeet the Press is a weekly American television news/interview program produced by NBC. It is the longest-running television series in American broadcasting history, despite bearing little resemblance to the original format of the program seen in its television debut on November 6, 1947. It has been...
and said that election officials should give the "benefit of the doubt" to military voters rather than disqualifying any overseas ballots that lacked required postmarks or witness signatures. Up until that point, the Democrats had pursued a strategy of persuading counties to strictly enforce those requirements disqualifying illegal ballots and reducing votes from overseas, which were predominantly cast for Bush. - A suit by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored PeopleNational Association for the Advancement of Colored PeopleThe National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, usually abbreviated as NAACP, is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909. Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to...
(NAACP) (NAACP v. Harris) argued that Florida was in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the United States Constitution'sUnited States ConstitutionThe Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
Equal Protection Amendment. Settlement agreements were reached in this suit. However, a systematic investigation by the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice found no evidence of racial discrimination. - Between May 1999 and Election Day 2000, two Florida secretaries of state - Sandra MorthamSandra MorthamSandra Mortham, also known as Sandra Barringer, was born in Erie, Pennsylvania on January 4, 1951.- Political career :Mortham was a member of the Florida House of Representatives for the 52nd District from 1986 to 1994. She was the Secretary of State of Florida from 1995 to 1999. Mortham was...
and Katherine HarrisKatherine HarrisKatherine Harris is an American Republican politician, former Secretary of State of Florida, and former member of the United States House of Representatives. Harris won the 2002 election to represent Florida's 13th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives. She held that post...
, contracted with a new company (DBT Online Inc.), at an increase of $4.294 million to have the "scrub listFlorida Central Voter FileThe Florida Central Voter File was an internal list of legally eligible voters used by the US Florida Department of State Division of Elections to monitor the official voter lists maintained by the 67 county governments in the State of Florida between 1998 and January 1, 2006...
"'s re-worked. Nearly 1% of Florida's electorate and nearly 3% of its African-American voters - 96,000 citizens were listed as felons and removed from the voting rolls. (For instance, many had names similar to actual felons, some listed "felonies" were dated years in the future, and some apparently were random.) In a vast minority of cases, those on the scrub list were given several months to appeal, and some successfully reregistered and were allowed to vote. However, most were not told that they weren't allowed to vote until they were turned away at the polls. The company was directed not to use cross-checks or its sophisticated verification plan (used by the FBI). - People like Washington CountyWashington County, FloridaWashington County is a county located in the state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 20,973. The U.S. Census Bureau 2005 estimate for the county was 22,299. Its county seat is Chipley, Florida...
Elections Chief Carol Griffen (1 p.25The Best Democracy Money Can BuyThe Best Democracy Money Can Buy is a 2002 book written by investigative journalist Greg Palast. It is about corporate corruption, global capitalism, environmental destruction, third world exploitation, freedom of speech and political corruption, and the United States presidential election of 2000...
), have argued that Florida was in violation of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993National Voter Registration Act of 1993The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 , also known as The Motor Voter Act, was signed into effect by United States President Bill Clinton on May 20, 1993, however, compliance did not become mandatory until 1995...
by requiring those convicted of felonies in other states (and subsequently restored their rights by said states), to request clemency and a restoration of their rights, from Governor Bush, in a process which might take two years and ultimately was left to Bush's discretion. One should note Schlenther v. Florida Department of State (June 1998) which ruled that Florida could not prevent a man convicted of a felony in ConnecticutConnecticutConnecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
, where his civil rightsCivil rightsCivil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
had not been lost, from exercising his civil rights. - A full cousin of George W. Bush, John Prescott EllisJohn Prescott EllisJohn Prescott Ellis , formerly an American journalist and media consultant, and now a partner in the venture-capital firm Sand Hills Partners. He is a nephew of former President of the United States George H.W. Bush and a first cousin of former President George W...
, was analyzing data from the Voter News ServiceVoter News ServiceThe Voter News Service was a consortium whose mission was to provide results for United States presidential elections, so that individual organizations and networks would not have to do exit polling and vote tallying in parallel.-Members:...
for Fox News and had several times contact by telephone with both George and Jeb Bush that night. It was his decision to call Florida for Bush, with Fox being the first network to do so. However, Fox had also incorrectly called the state for Gore before the polls had closed, like the other networks, and retracted around the same time they did which was at around 10 p.m. that evening. Fox only called the state for Bush at 2:16 a.m., shortly after the famous Volusia errorVolusia errorThe Volusia error is an example of the problems with electronic voting from the 2000 US Presidential election.Late in the night on November 7, 2000 the US election had come down to a tight race over Florida and its 25 electoral votes. Both Al Gore and George W...
was introduced. This error took 16,022 votes away from Gore and added those votes and more to Bush, producing more total votes in the precinct than there were registered voters. The other major networks announced the same totals within minutes. The error was corrected quickly and the calls retracted one by one. - Xavier SuarezXavier SuarezXavier L. Suarez was the first native born Cuban mayor of Miami.Suarez attended the Colegio de Belen but graduated from St. Anselm's Abbey School in 1967, earned a degree in engineering from Villanova University in 1971, and later studied government and law at Harvard University...
, who was ousted as mayor of Miami in 1998 on charges of absentee voter fraud, was later elected to the Executive Committee of the Miami-Dade Republican PartyRepublican Party (United States)The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
. Suarez helped fill out absentee ballot forms and enlist Republican absentee voters in Miami-Dade County for the 2000 presidential election. “Dade County Republicans have a very specific expertise in getting out absentee ballots,” Suarez is claimed to have remarked. “I obviously have specific experience in this myself.” - The "preppy/Brooks Brothers riot": the manual recount in Miami-Dade County was shut down shortly after screaming protestors arrived at Miami's recount center. It turned out that these protesters were Republican Party members flown in from other states, some at Republican Party expense.
- The suppression of vote pairingVote pairingVote pairing is the method where a voter in one district agrees to vote tactically for a less-preferred candidate or party who has a greater chance of winning in their district, in exchange for a voter from another district voting tactically for the candidate the first voter prefers, because that...
. In brief, web sites sprang up to match Nader supporters in swing states like Florida with Gore supporters in non-swing states like Texas: the Nader supporters in Florida would vote for Gore and the Gore supporters in Texas would vote for Nader. This would have allowed Nader to still get his fair share of the vote and perhaps get into the Presidential debates, while also allowing Gore to carry swing states. Six Republican state secretaries of state, led by Bill Jones of California, threatened the web sites with criminal prosecution and caused some of them reluctantly to shut down. The ACLU got involved to protect the web sites, and the Federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Bill Jones two years later, but by then the election was over. The vote pairing web sites tallied 1,412 Nader supporters in Florida who vote paired for Gore, and if only a few more of the 97,421 people who did vote for Nader in Florida had known about vote pairing, the election might have had a different outcome. - Claimed evidence of vote tampering by double punching to "rob" the republican side.
Palm Beach County's butterfly ballots
Pat Buchanan
Patrick Joseph "Pat" Buchanan is an American paleoconservative political commentator, author, syndicated columnist, politician and broadcaster. Buchanan was a senior adviser to American Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan, and was an original host on CNN's Crossfire. He sought...
in Palm Beach County
Palm Beach County, Florida
Palm Beach County is the largest county in the state of Florida in total area, and third in population. As of 2010, the county's estimated population was 1,320,134, making it the twenty-eighth most populous in the United States...
. Early reports had Buchanan receiving about 0.8% of the vote in Palm Beach County (a total of 3,407 votes), significantly outperforming his state-wide vote share of 0.29%. Representatives of Buchanan's campaign and the Reform Party estimated Buchanan's true vote total at between 400 and 1,000 votes. A later review of discarded ballots in Palm Beach County by The Palm Beach Post showed that 5,330 votes were cast for the presumably rare cross-party combination of Gore and Buchanan, compared with only 1,631 for the equivalent cross-party combination of Bush and Buchanan. The number of votes that may have been mistakenly cast for Buchanan was well in excess of George W. Bush's certified margin of victory.
One theory is that voters might have accidentally voted for Buchanan when they thought they were voting for Al Gore on a so-called "butterfly ballot". The Democrats are listed second in the left-hand column; but punching a hole in the second circle actually cast a vote for Buchanan, first listing in the right-hand column. If the machine loading the ballot did not line it up with the candidates properly, then it became confusing for the voter to discern where they should punch the hole. Voters who punched the second hole would have ignored an arrow on the ballot showing which hole was to be punched if the arrow did not line up with the hole correctly due to machine error, because the design of the ballot neglected the effects of parallax
Parallax
Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight, and is measured by the angle or semi-angle of inclination between those two lines. The term is derived from the Greek παράλλαξις , meaning "alteration"...
due to the center row of holes being in a different plane from the two columns of printed names, and the ballot being viewed at an oblique angle.
Buchanan said on The Today Show, November 9, 2000:
- When I took one look at that ballot on Election Night ... it's very easy for me to see how someone could have voted for me in the belief they voted for Al Gore.
He, unlike the voters, did not see the ballot before Election Night.
Although Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer
Ari Fleischer
On May 19, 2003, he announced that he would resign during the summer, citing a desire to spend more time with his wife and to work in the private sector...
said on November 9, 2000, "Palm Beach County is a Pat Buchanan stronghold and that's why Pat Buchanan received 3,407 votes there", Buchanan's Florida coordinator, Jim McConnell, responded, "That's nonsense", and Jim Cunningham, chairman of the executive committee of Palm Beach County's Reform Party, responded, "I don't think so. Not from where I'm sitting and what I'm looking at." Cunningham estimated the number of Buchanan supporters in Palm Beach County to be between 400 and 500. Asked how many votes he would guess Buchanan legitimately received in Palm Beach County, he said, "I think 1,000 would be generous. Do I believe that these people inadvertently cast their votes for Pat Buchanan? Yes, I do. We have to believe that based on the vote totals elsewhere."
In response, others point out that the ballot was designed by Theresa LePore
Theresa LePore
Theresa LePore is a former Supervisor of Elections for Palm Beach County, Florida. She is most notable as the person who designed the infamous "butterfly ballot", used in the 2000 presidential election...
, a Democrat, and approved by representatives of both major parties.
Prior to the election, unusually substandard paper ballots, including misaligned chads, were manufactured by employees of the Sequoia Pacific company, out of normal specifications and failing quality testing, prior to shipping to Palm Beach County. (see http://election-reform.org/dan_rather.html#palm_beach)
Timeline
Due to the narrow margin of the original vote count, Florida law mandated a statewide recount. In addition, the Gore campaign requested that the votes in three counties be recounted by hand. Florida state law at the time allowed the candidate to request a manual recount by protesting the results of at least three precincts. The county canvassing board would then decide whether to recount as well as the method of the recount in those three precincts. If the board discovered an error, they were then authorized to recount the ballots.Once the closeness of the election in Florida was clear, both the Bush and Gore campaigns organized themselves for the ensuing legal process. The Bush campaign hired George H. W. Bush
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...
's former Secretary of State
United States Secretary of State
The United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence...
James Baker
James Baker
James Addison Baker, III is an American attorney, politician and political advisor.Baker served as the Chief of Staff in President Ronald Reagan's first administration and in the final year of the administration of President George H. W. Bush...
to oversee their legal team, and the Gore campaign hired Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
's former Secretary of State Warren Christopher
Warren Christopher
Warren Minor Christopher was an American lawyer, diplomat and politician. During Bill Clinton's first term as President, Christopher served as the 63rd Secretary of State. He also served as Deputy Attorney General in the Lyndon Johnson administration, and as Deputy Secretary of State in the Jimmy...
.
The canvassing board did not discover any errors in the tabulation process in the initial mandated recount.
The Bush campaign sued to prevent additional recounts on the basis that no errors were found in the tabulation method until subjective measures
Chad (paper)
Chad refers to paper fragments created when holes are made in a paper, card or similar synthetic materials, typically computer punched tape or punched cards. Sometimes chad has been used as a mass noun or as a countable noun, and the plural is commonly either "chad" or "chads"...
were applied in manual recounts.
The Gore campaign, as allowed by Florida statute, requested that disputed ballots in four counties be counted by hand. Florida statutes also required that all counties certify and report their returns, including any recounts, by 5 p.m. on November 14. The manual recounts were time-consuming, and, when it became clear that some counties would not complete their recounts before the deadline, both Volusia and Palm Beach Counties sued to have their deadlines extended.
Florida supreme court trials
Eventually, the Gore campaign appealed to the Florida Supreme Court which ordered the recounting process to proceed. The Bush campaign subsequently appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
which took up the case Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board on December 1. On December 4, the U.S. Supreme Court returned this matter to the Florida Supreme Court with an order vacating
Vacated judgment
A vacated judgment makes a previous legal judgment legally void. A vacated judgment is usually the result of the judgment of an appellate court which overturns, reverses, or sets aside the judgment of a lower court....
its earlier decision. In its opinion, the Supreme Court cited several areas where the Florida Supreme Court had violated both the federal and Florida constitutions. The Court further held that it had "considerable uncertainty" as to the reasons given by the Florida Supreme Court for its decision. The Florida Supreme Court clarified its ruling on this matter while the United States Supreme Court was deliberating Bush v. Gore
Bush v. Gore
Bush v. Gore, , is the landmark United States Supreme Court decision on December 12, 2000, that effectively resolved the 2000 presidential election in favor of George W. Bush. Only eight days earlier, the United States Supreme Court had unanimously decided the closely related case of Bush v...
.
At 4:00 p.m. EST on December 8, the Florida Supreme Court, by a 4 to 3 vote, ordered a manual recount, under the supervision of the Leon County Circuit Court and Leon County
Leon County, Florida
Leon County is a county located in the state of Florida, named after the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León. At the 2010 Census, the population was 275,487. The county seat of Leon County is Tallahassee which also serves as the state capital. The county seat is home to two of Florida's major...
Elections Supervisor Ion Sancho
Ion Sancho (politician)
Ion Voltaire Sancho is an elected public official serving Leon County, Florida, USA as Supervisor of Elections. His family first moved to Louisiana and then to Columbus, Ohio. As the eldest child, he cared for his younger siblings. He moved to Florida after high school...
, of disputed ballots in all Florida counties and the portion of Miami-Dade county in which such a recount was not already complete. That decision was announced on live world-wide television by the Florida Supreme Court's spokesman Craig Waters
Craig Waters
Craig Waters has been the public information officer of the Florida Supreme Court in Tallahassee since June 1, 1996. He is best known as the public spokesman for the Court during the 2000 presidential election controversy, when he frequently appeared on worldwide newscasts announcing decisions of...
, the Court's public information officer
Public information officer
Public Information Officers are the communications coordinators or spokespersons of certain governmental organizations . They differ from public relations departments of private organizations in that marketing plays a more limited role...
. The Court further ordered that only undervotes be considered. The results of this tally were to be added to the November 14 tally.
U.S. supreme court trial
The recount was in progress on December 9, when the United States Supreme Court 5-4 (Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer dissenting) granted Bush's emergency plea for a stay of the Florida Supreme Court recount ruling, stopping the incomplete recount, which had an unofficial lead of 154 votes for Bush.About 10 p.m. EST on December 12, the United States Supreme Court handed down its ruling in favor of Bush. Seven of the nine justices saw constitutional problems with the Equal Protection Clause
Equal Protection Clause
The Equal Protection Clause, part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, provides that "no state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws"...
of the United States Constitution
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
in the Florida Supreme Court's plan for recounting ballots, citing differing vote-counting standards from county to county and the lack of a single judicial officer to oversee the recount. Five justices held there was insufficient time to impose a unified standard and that the recounts should therefore be stopped and Florida be allowed to certify its vote, effectively ending the legal review of the vote count with Bush in the lead. The 5–4 decision became extremely controversial due to the partisan split in the decision and the majority's irregular instruction that its judgment in Bush v. Gore
Bush v. Gore
Bush v. Gore, , is the landmark United States Supreme Court decision on December 12, 2000, that effectively resolved the 2000 presidential election in favor of George W. Bush. Only eight days earlier, the United States Supreme Court had unanimously decided the closely related case of Bush v...
should not set precedent but should be "limited to the present circumstances". Gore publicly disagreed with the court's decision, but conceded the election.
This ruling
Bush v. Gore
Bush v. Gore, , is the landmark United States Supreme Court decision on December 12, 2000, that effectively resolved the 2000 presidential election in favor of George W. Bush. Only eight days earlier, the United States Supreme Court had unanimously decided the closely related case of Bush v...
stopped the vote recount, allowing Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris
Katherine Harris
Katherine Harris is an American Republican politician, former Secretary of State of Florida, and former member of the United States House of Representatives. Harris won the 2002 election to represent Florida's 13th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives. She held that post...
to certify the election results. This allowed Florida's electoral votes to be cast for Bush, making him the winner.
Final certified results
| Presidential candidate | Vote total | % | Party | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| George W. Bush George W. Bush George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000.... (W) |
2,912,790 | 48.847 | Republican | ||
| Al Gore Al Gore Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election.... |
2,912,253 | 48.838 | Democratic | ||
| Ralph Nader Ralph Nader Ralph Nader is an American political activist, as well as an author, lecturer, and attorney. Areas of particular concern to Nader include consumer protection, humanitarianism, environmentalism, and democratic government.... |
97,488 | 1.635 | Green | ||
| Patrick J. Buchanan | 17,484 | 0.293 | Reform | ||
| Harry Browne Harry Browne Harry Browne was an American libertarian writer, politician, and free-market investment analyst. He ran for President of the United States as the nominee of the Libertarian Party in 1996 and 2000.... |
16,415 | 0.275 | Libertarian | ||
| John Hagelin John Hagelin John Samuel Hagelin is an American particle physicist, three-time candidate of the Natural Law Party for President of the United States , and the director of the Transcendental Meditation movement for the US.... |
2,281 | 0.038 | Natural Law United States Natural Law Party The Natural Law Party was a United States political party affiliated with the international Natural Law Party. It was founded in 1992 and mostly dissolved in 2004... /Reform |
||
| Howard Phillips | 1,371 | 0.023 | Constitution | ||
| Other | 3,028 | 0.051 | — | ||
| Total | 5,963,110 | ||||
| Source: 2000 official presidential general election results | |||||
By county
| County | Bush George W. Bush George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000.... |
Votes | Gore Al Gore Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election.... |
Votes | Nader Ralph Nader Ralph Nader is an American political activist, as well as an author, lecturer, and attorney. Areas of particular concern to Nader include consumer protection, humanitarianism, environmentalism, and democratic government.... |
Votes | Buchanan Pat Buchanan Patrick Joseph "Pat" Buchanan is an American paleoconservative political commentator, author, syndicated columnist, politician and broadcaster. Buchanan was a senior adviser to American Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan, and was an original host on CNN's Crossfire. He sought... |
Votes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alachua Alachua County, Florida Alachua County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. The U.S. Census Bureau 2006 estimate for the county is 227,120. Its county seat is Gainesville, Florida. Alachua County is the home of the University of Florida and is also known for its diverse culture, local music, and artisans... |
40.28% | 34,135 | 55.91% | 47,380 | 3.81% | 3,226 | 0% | 0 |
| Baker Baker County, Florida Baker County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 22,259. The U.S. Census Bureau 2008 estimate for the county is 26,164 . Its county seat is Macclenny, Florida. While primarily rural, the county is included in the Jacksonville Metropolitan Area.-... |
69.65% | 5,611 | 29.69% | 2,392 | 0.66% | 53 | 0% | 0 |
| Bay Bay County, Florida Bay County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. The U.S. Census Bureau 2006 estimate for the county is 163,505 . Its county seat is Panama City, Florida. The county is best known for its white sand beaches and crystal blue water, where large pods of dolphins swim year-round... |
66.26% | 38,682 | 32.33% | 18,873 | 1.42% | 828 | 0% | 0 |
| Bradford Bradford County, Florida Bradford County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 26,088. The 2005 U.S. Census Bureau estimate for the county was 28,118 . Its county seat is Starke, Florida. Bradford County is the home of the Florida State Prison as well as several other state... |
63.16% | 5,416 | 35.86% | 3,075 | 0.98% | 84 | 0% | 0 |
| Brevard Brevard County, Florida Brevard County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida, along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. As of 2007 U.S. Census Bureau estimates, the population is 536,521, making it the 10th most populous county in the state. Influenced by the presence of the John F. Kennedy Space Center, Brevard... |
53.1% | 115,253 | 44.84% | 97,341 | 2.06% | 4,470 | 0% | 0 |
| Broward Broward County, Florida -2000 Census:As of the census of 2000, there were 1,623,018 people, 654,445 households, and 411,645 families residing in the county. The population density was 1,346 people per square mile . There were 741,043 housing units at an average density of 615 per square mile... |
31.06% | 177,939 | 67.7% | 387,760 | 1.24% | 7,101 | 0% | 0 |
| Calhoun Calhoun County, Florida Calhoun County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 13,017. The U.S. Census Bureau 2006 estimate for the county was 13,410 . Its county seat is Blountstown, Florida.- History :... |
56.69% | 2,873 | 42.54% | 2,156 | 0.77% | 39 | 0% | 0 |
| Charlotte Charlotte County, Florida Charlotte County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 141,627. In 2005, the population of the MSA was 154,030.The U.S. Census Bureau 2007 estimate for the county was 152,814... |
53.26% | 35,428 | 44.55% | 29,636 | 2.2% | 1,461 | 0% | 0 |
| Citrus Citrus County, Florida Citrus County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 118,085. The U.S. Census Bureau 2008 estimate for the county was 141,416 . Its county seat is Inverness, Florida... |
52.55% | 29,801 | 45.02% | 25,531 | 2.43% | 1,379 | 0% | 0 |
| Clay Clay County, Florida Clay County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. As of 2010, the population was 190,895. Its county seat is Green Cove Springs, Florida. Clay County is part of the Greater Jacksonville Metropolitan area.- History :... |
73.34% | 41,903 | 25.67% | 14,668 | 0.98% | 562 | 0% | 0 |
| Collier Collier County, Florida Collier County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 251,377. The U.S. Census Bureau 2007 estimate for the county is 315,839... |
65.86% | 60,467 | 32.61% | 29,939 | 1.52% | 1,399 | 0% | 0 |
| Columbia Columbia County, Florida Columbia County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 56,513. The U.S. Census Bureau 2005 estimate for the county is 64,040 . Its county seat is Lake City, Florida.... |
60.02% | 10,968 | 38.57% | 7,049 | 1.41% | 258 | 0% | 0 |
| De Soto | 55.03% | 4,256 | 42.94% | 3,321 | 2.03% | 157 | 0% | 0 |
| Dixie Dixie County, Florida Dixie County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 13,827. The U.S. Census Bureau 2005 estimate for the county is 14,647 . Its county seat is Cross City, Florida.- History :... |
58.64% | 2,697 | 39.73% | 1,827 | 1.63% | 75 | 0% | 0 |
| Duval Duval County, Florida Duval County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. As of 2010, the population was 864,263. Its county seat is Jacksonville, with which the Duval County government has been consolidated since 1968... |
57.91% | 152,460 | 41.04% | 108,039 | 1.05% | 2,757 | 0% | 0 |
| Escambia Escambia County, Florida Escambia County is the westernmost county in the U.S. state of Florida. The 2010 population was 297,619. The U.S. Census Bureau 2005 estimate for the county is 296,772. Its county seat is Pensacola.- History :... |
63.14% | 73,171 | 35.37% | 40,990 | 1.49% | 1,727 | 0% | 0 |
| Flagler Flagler County, Florida Flagler County was created in 1917 from portions of Saint Johns and Volusia counties. It was named for Henry Morrison Flagler, a famous railroad builder who built the Florida East Coast Railway. Bunnell is the county seat of Flagler County.... |
46.82% | 12,618 | 51.57% | 13,897 | 1.61% | 435 | 0% | 0 |
| Franklin Franklin County, Florida Franklin County is a coastal county located in the panhandle of the U.S. state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 11,057. The U.S. Census Bureau 2005 estimate for the county is 11,177... |
53.51% | 2,454 | 44.64% | 2,047 | 1.85% | 85 | 0% | 0 |
| Gadsden Gadsden County, Florida Gadsden County is a county located in the panhandle of the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2000 census, the population was 45,087. The U.S. Census Bureau 2005 estimate for the county is 46,428 . Its county seat is Quincy, Florida. Gadsden County is the only predominantly African-American... |
32.57% | 4,770 | 66.48% | 9,736 | 0.95% | 139 | 0% | 0 |
| Gilchrist Gilchrist County, Florida Gilchrist County is a rural county located in the U.S. state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 14,437. The U.S. Census Bureau 2005 estimate for the county is 16,402. Gilchrist County has only one traffic light in the entire county and has no road with more than one lane of traffic... |
62.18% | 3,300 | 35.99% | 1,910 | 1.83% | 97 | 0% | 0 |
| Glades Glades County, Florida Glades County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 10,576. The U.S. Census Bureau 2005 estimate for the county is 11,252 . Its county seat is Moore Haven, Florida.- History :... |
55.14% | 1,841 | 43.19% | 1,442 | 1.68% | 56 | 0% | 0 |
| Gulf Gulf County, Florida Gulf County is a county located in the panhandle of the U.S. state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 13,332. The U.S. Census Bureau 2005 estimate for the county is 13,975 . Its county seat is Port St. Joe.- History :... |
58.85% | 3,553 | 39.72% | 2,398 | 1.42% | 86 | 0% | 0 |
| Hamilton Hamilton County, Florida Hamilton County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 13,327. The U.S. Census Bureau 2005 estimate for the county is 13,983 . Its county seat is Jasper, Florida.- History :... |
54.95% | 2,147 | 44.1% | 1,723 | 0.95% | 37 | 0% | 0 |
| Hardee Hardee County, Florida Hardee County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 26,938. The U.S. Census Bureau 2005 estimate for the county is 28,286 . Its county seat is Wauchula, Florida. The county comprises the Wauchula, Florida, Micropolitan Statistical Area.- History :It... |
60.9% | 3,765 | 37.88% | 2,342 | 1.21% | 75 | 0% | 0 |
| Hendry Hendry County, Florida Hendry County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 36,210. The U.S. Census Bureau 2007 estimate for the county is 39,611 . Its county seat is La Belle. The county comprises the Clewiston, Florida, Micropolitan Statistical Area.-History:Hendry County... |
58.67% | 4,747 | 40.04% | 3,240 | 1.29% | 104 | 0% | 0 |
| Hernando Hernando County, Florida Hernando County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 130,802. The U.S. Census Bureau 2006 estimate for the county is 165,409 . Its county seat is Brooksville, Florida. The majority of the county's population is in Spring Hill, west portion of Hernando... |
47.31% | 30,658 | 50.38% | 32,648 | 2.32% | 1,501 | 0% | 0 |
| Highlands Highlands County, Florida Highlands County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. The U.S. Census Bureau 2006 estimate for the population was 97,346. Its county seat is Sebring, Florida. The county comprises the Sebring, Florida, Micropolitan Statistical Area.- History :... |
57.86% | 20,207 | 40.57% | 14,169 | 1.56% | 545 | 0% | 0 |
| Hillsborough Hillsborough County, Florida As of the census of 2000, there were 998,948 people, 391,357 households, and 255,164 families residing in the county. The population density was 951 people per square mile . There were 425,962 housing units at an average density of 405 per square mile... |
50.52% | 180,794 | 47.39% | 169,576 | 2.09% | 7,496 | 0% | 0 |
| Holmes Holmes County, Florida Holmes County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 18,564. The U.S. Census Bureau 2005 estimate for the county was 19,264 . Its county seat is Bonifay, Florida.-History:... |
68.82% | 5,012 | 29.89% | 2,177 | 1.29% | 94 | 0% | 0 |
| Indian River Indian River County, Florida Indian River County is a county located in the Treasure Coast region in the U.S. state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 112,947. The U.S. Census Bureau 2005 estimate for the county is 128,594... |
58.02% | 28,639 | 40.05% | 19,769 | 1.92% | 950 | 0% | 0 |
| Jackson Jackson County, Florida Jackson County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. The population as of the 2000 census was 46,755. As of 2005, the population was estimated to be 48,985 . Its county seat is Marianna, Florida.- History :... |
56.6% | 9,139 | 42.55% | 6,870 | 0.85% | 138 | 0% | 0 |
| Jefferson Jefferson County, Florida Jefferson County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. As of 2000, the population is 12,902. The U.S. Census Bureau 2005 estimate for the county is 14,490 . Its county seat is Monticello, Florida.... |
44.29% | 2,478 | 54.35% | 3,041 | 1.36% | 76 | 0% | 0 |
| Lafayette Lafayette County, Florida Lafayette County is a county located in the state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 7,022. It is the second least populated county in the state, having one more resident, according to the 2000 census, than Liberty County, Florida. The U.S. Census Bureau 2005 estimate for the county is... |
67.2% | 1,670 | 31.75% | 789 | 1.05% | 26 | 0% | 0 |
| Lake Lake County, Florida Lake County is a county located in the state of Florida, United States. As of the 2000 Census, the population was 210,528. The Census Bureau estimated the population in 2008 to be 307,243. Its county seat is Tavares... |
56.8% | 50,010 | 41.54% | 36,571 | 1.66% | 1,460 | 0% | 0 |
| Lee Lee County, Florida Lee County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. Located in southwest Florida, the principal cities in the county are Fort Myers and Cape Coral... |
57.91% | 106,151 | 40.13% | 73,571 | 1.96% | 3,588 | 0% | 0 |
| Leon Leon County, Florida Leon County is a county located in the state of Florida, named after the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León. At the 2010 Census, the population was 275,487. The county seat of Leon County is Tallahassee which also serves as the state capital. The county seat is home to two of Florida's major... |
38.14% | 39,073 | 59.97% | 61,444 | 1.89% | 1,934 | 0% | 0 |
| Levy Levy County, Florida Levy County is a county located in the state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 34,450. The U.S. Census Bureau 2005 estimate for the county is 37,998. Its county seat is Bronson, Florida. Levy is pronounced lee vee.- History :... |
54.71% | 6,863 | 43.03% | 5,398 | 2.26% | 284 | 0% | 0 |
| Liberty Liberty County, Florida Liberty County is a county located in the state of Florida. Its population was estimated in 2005 as 7,733. Its most populous incorporated area and county seat is Bristol.... |
55.5% | 1,317 | 42.86% | 1,017 | 0% | 0 | 1.64% | 39 |
| Madison Madison County, Florida Madison County is a county located in the state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 18,733. The U.S. Census Bureau 2005 estimate for the county is 19,902. Its county seat is Madison, Florida. Madison County is one of Florida's five dry counties.... |
49.75% | 3,038 | 49.37% | 3,015 | 0.88% | 54 | 0% | 0 |
| Manatee Manatee County, Florida Manatee County is a county in the state of Florida. According to the 2010 census by the U.S. Census Bureau there are 322,833 people living in Manatee Country.Manatee County is part of the North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota Metropolitan Statistical Area... |
52.87% | 58,023 | 44.86% | 49,226 | 2.27% | 2,491 | 0% | 0 |
| Marion Marion County, Florida Marion County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. The U.S. Census Bureau 2006 estimate for the county is 316,183. Its county seat is Ocala.... |
54.26% | 55,146 | 43.96% | 44,674 | 1.78% | 1,809 | 0% | 0 |
| Martin Martin County, Florida Martin County is a county in the U.S. state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 126,731. The U.S. Census Bureau 2008 estimate for the county is 138,660. Its county seat is Stuart, Florida.- History :... |
55.05% | 33,972 | 43.14% | 26,621 | 1.81% | 1,118 | 0% | 0 |
| Miami-Dade Miami-Dade County, Florida Miami-Dade County is a county located in the southeastern part of the state of Florida. As of 2010 U.S. Census, the county had a population of 2,496,435, making it the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States... |
46.42% | 289,574 | 52.72% | 328,867 | 0.86% | 5,352 | 0% | 0 |
| Monroe Monroe County, Florida Monroe County is a county located in the state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 79,589. The U.S. Census Bureau 2006 estimate for the county was 74,737.... |
47.75% | 16,063 | 49.01% | 16,487 | 3.24% | 1,090 | 0% | 0 |
| Nassau Nassau County, Florida Nassau County is a county located in the state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 57,663. The U.S. Census Bureau 2008 estimate for the county was 69,835. Its county seat is Fernandina Beach, Florida.... |
69.47% | 16,408 | 29.45% | 6,955 | 1.08% | 255 | 0% | 0 |
| Okaloosa Okaloosa County, Florida Okaloosa County is a county located in the state of Florida. Located in northwest Florida, it extends from the Gulf of Mexico to the Alabama state line. As of the 2000 census, the population was 170,498. The U.S. Census Bureau 2005 estimate for the county is 182,172. The 2009 estimate for the... |
74.38% | 52,186 | 24.21% | 16,989 | 1.4% | 985 | 0% | 0 |
| Okeechobee Okeechobee County, Florida Okeechobee County is a county located in the state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 35,910. According to 2005 U.S. Census estimates, its population had grown to 39,836. The county seat is Okeechobee, Florida. The county comprises the Okeechobee, Florida Micropolitan Statistical Area.-... |
51.72% | 5,057 | 46.94% | 4,589 | 1.34% | 131 | 0% | 0 |
| Orange Orange County, Florida Orange County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida and is part of the Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford Metropolitan Statistical Area . As of 2010 U.S. Census, the county had a population of 1,145,956.... |
48.28% | 134,531 | 50.33% | 140,236 | 1.39% | 3,879 | 0% | 0 |
| Osceola Osceola County, Florida Osceola County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 172,493. The U.S. Census Bureau 2006 estimate for the county is 244,045, making it the 17th fastest-growing county in the United States. Its county seat is Kissimmee.- History :Osceola County was... |
47.57% | 26,237 | 51.1% | 28,187 | 1.33% | 732 | 0% | 0 |
| Palm Beach Palm Beach County, Florida Palm Beach County is the largest county in the state of Florida in total area, and third in population. As of 2010, the county's estimated population was 1,320,134, making it the twenty-eighth most populous in the United States... |
35.72% | 152,964 | 62.99% | 269,754 | 1.3% | 5,564 | 0% | 0 |
| Pasco Pasco County, Florida Pasco County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 344,765. The July 1, 2007 census estimate according to the U.S. Census Bureau for the county is 462,715. Its county seat is Dade City, Florida which is in the northeast part of the county - somewhat... |
48.46% | 68,607 | 49.14% | 69,576 | 2.4% | 3,393 | 0% | 0 |
| Pinellas Pinellas County, Florida Pinellas County is a county located in the state of Florida. Its county seat is Clearwater, Florida, and its largest city is St. Petersburg. This county is contained entirely within the telephone area code 727, except for some sections of Oldsmar, which have the area code 813... |
46.73% | 184,849 | 50.73% | 200,657 | 2.53% | 10,022 | 0% | 0 |
| Polk Polk County, Florida Polk County is located in central Florida between the Tampa Bay and Greater Orlando metropolitan areas. The county was established by the state government in 1861 on the eve of the American Civil War and named after former United States president James K. Polk. The county seat is Bartow and its... |
53.89% | 90,310 | 44.88% | 75,207 | 1.23% | 2,060 | 0% | 0 |
| Putnam Putnam County, Florida Putnam County is a county located in the state of Florida. The entire county makes up the Palatka Micropolitan Statistical Area. As of 2000, the population was 70,423. The U.S. Census Bureau 2009 estimate for the county was 72,893 . Its county seat is Palatka, Florida. The county is centrally... |
51.88% | 13,457 | 46.67% | 12,107 | 1.45% | 377 | 0% | 0 |
| Santa Rosa Santa Rosa County, Florida Santa Rosa County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, the population was 117,743, while a July 1, 2005, estimate placed the population at 143,105, an 18% increase making it the 84th fastest growing county in the United States between 2000 and 2005. ... |
72.85% | 36,339 | 25.7% | 12,818 | 1.45% | 724 | 0% | 0 |
| Sarasota Sarasota County, Florida Sarasota County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. The U.S. Census Bureau 2008 estimate for the county was 372,057. Its county seat is Sarasota, Florida.... |
51.93% | 83,117 | 45.53% | 72,869 | 2.54% | 4,069 | 0% | 0 |
| Seminole Seminole County, Florida Seminole County is a county in the U.S. state of Florida. Located between Orlando to the south and Deland and Daytona Beach to the north, it is part of the Greater Orlando metropolitan area. Its county seat and largest city is Sanford... |
55.34% | 75,790 | 43.24% | 59,227 | 1.42% | 1,940 | 0% | 0 |
| St. Johns St. Johns County, Florida St. Johns County is a county located in northeastern Florida. As of the 2010 census, the population was 190,039. The county seat is St. Augustine. Due to the inclusion of Ponte Vedra Beach, it is one of the highest-income counties in the United States.... |
65.62% | 39,564 | 32.36% | 19,509 | 2.02% | 1,217 | 0% | 0 |
| St. Lucie St. Lucie County, Florida St. Lucie County is a county located in the state of Florida. The county seat is the city of Fort Pierce. In the year 2000, the population was 192,695. As of the year 2010, the United States Census Bureau sets the population at 277,789.- History :... |
44.7% | 34,705 | 53.53% | 41,560 | 1.76% | 1,368 | 0% | 0 |
| Sumter Sumter County, Florida Sumter County is a county located in the state of Florida, United States. As of the 2000 Census, the population was 53,345. The 2006 Census estimate puts its population at 68,768 . Its county seat is Bushnell, Florida and the largest incorporated municipality is Wildwood, Florida. The Villages,... |
54.95% | 12,127 | 43.67% | 9,637 | 1.39% | 306 | 0% | 0 |
| Suwannee Suwannee County, Florida Suwannee County is a county located in the state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 34,844. The U.S. Census Bureau 2005 estimate for the county was 38,624 . Its county seat is Live Oak, Florida. Suwannee County was a dry county until August, 2011..... |
65.3% | 8,009 | 33.23% | 4,075 | 1.47% | 180 | 0% | 0 |
| Taylor Taylor County, Florida Taylor County is a county located in the state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 19,256. The U.S. Census Bureau 2005 estimate for the county was 19,622 . Its county seat is Perry, Florida.- History :Taylor County was created in 1856... |
59.98% | 4,058 | 39.15% | 2,649 | 0.87% | 59 | 0% | 0 |
| Union Union County, Florida Union County is a county located in the state of Florida. The U.S. Census Bureau 2005 estimate for the county was 14,916. The county seat is Lake Butler.- History :... |
61.76% | 2,332 | 37.26% | 1,407 | 0% | 0 | 0.98% | 37 |
| Volusia Volusia County, Florida Volusia County is a county located in the state of Florida. The U.S. Census Bureau 2010 official county's population was 494,593 . Its county seat is DeLand, and its most populous city is currently Deltona.... |
45.11% | 82,368 | 53.3% | 97,313 | 1.59% | 2,903 | 0% | 0 |
| Wakulla Wakulla County, Florida Wakulla County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 22,863. The U.S. Census Bureau 2005 estimate for the county was 28,212 people... |
53.09% | 4,512 | 45.16% | 3,838 | 1.75% | 149 | 0% | 0 |
| Walton Walton County, Florida Walton County is a county located in the state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 40,601. The U.S. Census Bureau 2005 estimate for the county is 50,324. Its county seat is DeFuniak Springs, Florida. The county is home to the highest natural point in Florida: Britton Hill, at .- History... |
67.35% | 12,186 | 31.19% | 5,643 | 1.46% | 265 | 0% | 0 |
| Washington Washington County, Florida Washington County is a county located in the state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 20,973. The U.S. Census Bureau 2005 estimate for the county was 22,299. Its county seat is Chipley, Florida... |
63.34% | 4,995 | 35.48% | 2,798 | 1.18% | 93 | 0% | 0 |
By congressional district
Bush won 15 of 23 congressional districts.| District | Bush | Gore | Representative |
|---|---|---|---|
| 69% | 31% | Joe Scarborough Joe Scarborough Charles Joseph "Joe" Scarborough is an American cable news and talk radio host, lawyer, author, and former politician. He is currently the host of Morning Joe on MSNBC, and previously hosted Scarborough Country on the same channel... |
|
| 53% | 47% | Allen Boyd Allen Boyd Fred Allen Boyd Jr. is the former U.S. Representative for , serving from 1997 until 2011. He is a member of the Democratic Party. He currently works for a lobbying firm, the Twenty-First Century Group.-Early life, education and career:... |
|
| 35% | 65% | Corrine Brown Corrine Brown Corrine Brown is an U.S. Representative for , serving since 1993. She is a member of the Democratic Party.The district includes parts of Duval, Clay, Putnam, Alachua, Volusia, Marion, Lake, Seminole, and Orange Counties.... |
|
| 66% | 34% | Tillie K. Fowler | |
| Ander Crenshaw Ander Crenshaw Ander Crenshaw is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 2001. He is a member of the Republican Party.-Early life, education and career:... |
|||
| 54% | 46% | Karen Thurman Karen Thurman Karen L. Thurman is a former U.S. Representative from Florida. She is a Democrat.She was born on January 12, 1951 in Rapid City, South Dakota, but has spent most of her life in Florida. She received her Associate's Degree from Santa Fe Community College in Gainesville in 1970 and her Bachelor's... |
|
| 58% | 42% | Cliff Stearns Cliff Stearns Clifford Bundy "Cliff" Stearns, Sr. is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1989. He is a member of the Republican Party.-Early life, education and career:According to his official biography, Stearns was born in Washington, D.C... |
|
| 54% | 46% | John Mica John Mica John L. Mica is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1993. He is a member of the Republican Party. He is the chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, starting January 3, 2011.... |
|
| 54% | 46% | Bill McCollum Bill McCollum Ira William "Bill" McCollum, Jr. is a former Florida Attorney General. A Republican, he was Florida's 36th attorney general, taking office in 2007... |
|
| Ric Keller Ric Keller Richard Anthony "Ric" Keller is an American politician, and was a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives, representing .Keller was defeated in his bid for a fifth term by Democrat Alan Grayson.... |
|||
| 54% | 46% | Michael Bilirakis Michael Bilirakis Michael Bilirakis , American politician, was a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives since 1983 until 2007, representing the 9th District of Florida.... |
|
| 49% | 51% | Bill Young Bill Young Charles William "Bill" Young is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1971. He is a member of the Republican Party, and is currently the longest-serving Republican member of Congress... |
|
| 39% | 61% | Jim Davis Jim Davis (politician) James Oscar "Jim" Davis III is an American politician from the U.S. state of Florida. He is a Democrat and served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1997 to 2007, representing Florida's 11th congressional district... |
|
| 55% | 45% | Charles Canady | |
| Adam Putnam Adam Putnam Adam H. Putnam is the current Florida Commissioner of Agriculture and the former U.S. Representative for , serving from 2001 until 2011. He is a member of the Republican Party.-Early life, education and career:... |
|||
| 56% | 44% | Dan Miller Dan Miller (U.S. politician) Daniel Miller is an American Republican politician from the state of Florida. He represented the state and its 13th district in the House of Representatives for ten years... |
|
| 61% | 39% | Porter Goss | |
| 57% | 43% | Dave Weldon Dave Weldon David Joseph Weldon, is an American politician and physician. He was a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives, representing .-Early life:... |
|
| 53% | 47% | Mark Foley Mark Foley Mark Adam Foley is a former member of the United States House of Representatives. He served from 1995 until 2006, representing the 16th District of Florida as a member of the Republican Party.... |
|
| 15% | 85% | Carrie Meek | |
| 57% | 43% | Ileana Ros-Lehtinen Ileana Ros-Lehtinen Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1989. She is a member of the Republican Party.... |
|
| 27% | 73% | Robert Wexler Robert Wexler Robert Wexler is the president of the Washington-based S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace.Wexler was a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives, representing , from 1997 until his resignation on January 3, 2010.-Early life:Wexler was born in Queens, New York to Sonny and... |
|
| 31% | 69% | Peter Deutsch Peter Deutsch Peter R. Deutsch is an American politician from the U.S. state of Florida. Deutsch was a Democratic Representative from Florida's 20th congressional district from 1993 until 2005.- Background :... |
|
| 58% | 42% | Lincoln Diaz-Balart Lincoln Diaz-Balart Lincoln Rafael Díaz-Balart was the U.S. Representative for from 1993 to 2011. He is a member of the Republican Party. He previously served in the Florida House of Representatives and the Florida Senate... |
|
| 48% | 52% | E. Clay Shaw Jr. E. Clay Shaw Jr. Eugene Clay Shaw, Jr. is a former American politician who was a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from 1981 until 2007. He represented the 22nd District of Florida until he was defeated by Ron Klein in the 2006 midterm election.-Early life, education, and legal... |
|
| 20% | 80% | Alcee Hastings Alcee Hastings Alcee Lamar Hastings is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1993. He is a member of the Democratic Party.-Early life, education and career:... |
Florida Ballot Project recounts
The National Opinion Research CenterNational Opinion Research Center
NORC at the University of Chicago, established in 1941 as the National Opinion Research Center, is one of the largest and most highly respected social research organizations in the United States. Its corporate headquarters are located on the University of Chicago campus...
at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
, sponsored by a consortium of major United States news organizations, conducted a Florida Ballot Project comprehensive review of all ballots uncounted (by machine) in the Florida 2000 presidential election, both undervotes and overvotes, with the main research aim being to report how different ballot layouts correlate with voter mistakes. The total number of undervotes and overvotes in Florida amounted to 3% of all votes cast in the state. The findings of the review were reported by the media during the week after November 12, 2001.
The NORC study was not primarily intended as a determination of which candidate "really won". Analysis of the results found that different standards for the hand-counting of machine-uncountable ballots would lead to differing results. The results according to the various standards were reported in the newspapers which funded the recount, such as The Miami Herald
The Miami Herald
The Miami Herald is a daily newspaper owned by The McClatchy Company headquartered on Biscayne Bay in the Omni district of Downtown Miami, Florida, United States...
and the Washington Post.
Media based
Following the election, recounts conducted by various United States news media organizations indicated that Bush would have won if certain recounting methods had been used (including the one favored by Gore at the time of the Supreme Court decision) but that Gore might have won under other scenarios.After the election, USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
, The Miami Herald
The Miami Herald
The Miami Herald is a daily newspaper owned by The McClatchy Company headquartered on Biscayne Bay in the Omni district of Downtown Miami, Florida, United States...
, and Knight Ridder
Knight Ridder
Knight Ridder was an American media company, specializing in newspaper and Internet publishing. Until it was bought by The McClatchy Company on June 27, 2006, it was the second-largest newspaper publisher in the United States, with 32 daily newspapers sold.- History :The corporate ancestors of...
commissioned accounting firm BDO Seidman to count undervotes, that is, ballots which did not register any vote when counted by machine. BDO Seidman's results, reported in USA Today, show that under the strictest standard, where only a cleanly punched ballot with a fully removed chad
Chad (paper)
Chad refers to paper fragments created when holes are made in a paper, card or similar synthetic materials, typically computer punched tape or punched cards. Sometimes chad has been used as a mass noun or as a countable noun, and the plural is commonly either "chad" or "chads"...
was counted, Gore won by three votes. Under all other standards, Bush won, with Bush's margin increasing as looser standards were used. The standards considered by BDO Seidman were:
- Lenient standard. Any alteration in a chad, ranging from a dimple to a full punch, counts as a vote. By this standard, Bush won by 1,665 votes.
- Palm Beach standard. A dimple is counted as a vote if other races on the same ballot show dimples as well. By this standard, Bush won by 884 votes.
- Two-corner standard. A chad with two or more corners removed is counted as a vote. This is the most common standard in use. By this standard, Bush won by 363 votes.
- Strict standard. Only a fully removed chad counts as a vote. By this standard, Gore won by 3 votes.
The study remarks that because of the possibility of mistakes, it is difficult to conclude that Gore was surely the winner under the strict standard. It also remarks that there are variations between examiners, and that election officials often did not provide the same number of undervotes as were counted on Election Day. Furthermore, the study did not consider overvotes, ballots which registered more than one vote when counted by machine.
The study also found that undervotes break down into two distinct types, those coming from punch-card using counties, and those coming from optical-scan using counties. Undervotes from punch-card using counties give new votes to candidates in roughly the same proportion as the county's official vote. Furthermore, the number of undervotes correlates with how well the punch-card machines are maintained, and not with factors such as race or socioeconomic status. Undervotes from optical-scan using counties, however, correlate with Democratic votes more than Republican votes. Optical-scan counties were the only places in the study where Gore gained more votes than Bush, 1,036 to 775.
A larger consortium of news organizations, including the USA Today, the Miami Herald, Knight Ridder, the Tampa Tribune, and five other newspapers next conducted a full recount of all ballots, including both undervotes and overvotes. According to their results, under stricter standards for vote counting, Bush won, and under looser standards, Gore won. However, a Gore win was impossible without a recount of overvotes, which he did not request, but may have occurred, as faxes discovered after the media recount, being sent to and from Judge Terry Lewis to canvassing boards around Florida, who was overseeing the recount effort were discovered by indicated that Judge Lewis clearly intended to have the overvotes counted, in which case Gore emerges the victor.
According to the study, only 3% of the 111,261 overvotes had markings that could be interpreted as a legal vote. According to Anthony Salvado, a political scientist at the University of California, Irvine
University of California, Irvine
The University of California, Irvine , founded in 1965, is one of the ten campuses of the University of California, located in Irvine, California, USA...
, who acted as a consultant on the media recount, most of the errors were caused by ballot design, ballot wording, and efforts by voters to choose both a president and a vice-president. For example, 21,188 of the Florida overvotes, or nearly one-fifth of the total, originated from Duval County, where the presidential race was split across two pages. Voters were instructed to "vote every page". Half of the overvotes in Duval County had one presidential candidate marked on each page, making their vote illegal under Florida law. Salvado says that this error alone cost Gore the election.
Including overvotes in the above totals for undervotes gives different margins of victory:
- Lenient standard. Gore by 332 votes.
- Palm Beach standard. Gore by 242 votes.
- Two-corner standard. Bush by 407 votes.
- Strict standard. Bush by 152 votes.
Opinion polling on recount
A nationwide December 14–21, 2000 Harris pollHarris Interactive
Harris Interactive , headquartered in New York, New York, is a custom market research firm, known for the Harris Poll. Harris works in a wide range of industries...
asked
"If everyone who tried to vote in Florida had their votes counted for the candidate who they thought they were voting for -- with no misleading ballots and infallible voting machines -- who do you think would have won the election, George W. Bush or Al Gore?". The results were 49% for Gore and 40% for Bush with 11% unable to make up their mind or not wishing to respond.
Electors
Technically the voters of Florida cast their ballots for electors: representatives to the Electoral College. In 2000 Florida was allocated 25 electors because it had 23 congressional districts and 2 senators. All candidates who appear on the ballot or qualify to receive write-in votes must submit a list of 25 electors, who pledge to vote for their candidate and his or her running mate. Whoever wins the majority of votes in the state is awarded all 25 electoral votes. Their chosen electors then vote for President and Vice President. Although electors are pledged to their candidate and running mate, they are not obligated to vote for them. An elector who votes for someone other than his or her candidate is known as a faithless electorFaithless elector
In United States presidential elections, a faithless elector is a member of the Electoral College who does not vote for the candidate they have pledged to vote for...
.
The electors of each state and the District of Columbia met on December 18, 2000 to cast their votes for President and Vice President. The Electoral College itself never meets as one body. Instead the electors from each state and the District of Columbia met in their respective capitols.
The following were the members of the Electoral College from the state. All were pledged to and voted for George W. Bush and Dick Cheney:
- Alred S. Austin
- Deborah L. Brooks
- Armando Codina
- Maria De La Milera
- Sandra M. Faulkner
- Thomas C. Feeney IIITom FeeneyThomas Charles "Tom" Feeney III, usually known as Tom Feeney , is an American politician from the state of Florida. He represented . He was defeated in the 2008 election by Democrat Suzanne Kosmas.-Early life:...
- Feliciano M. Foyo
- Jeanne Barber Godwin
- Dawn Guzzetta
- Cynthia M. Handley
- Adam W. Herbert
- Al Hoffman
- Glenda E. Hood
- Carole Jean Jordan
- Charles W. Kane
- Mel MartinezMel MartinezMelquíades Rafael Martínez Ruiz, usually known as Mel Martinez , is a former United States Senator from Florida and served as Chairman of the Republican Party from November 2006 until October 19, 2007, the first Latino to serve as chairman of a major party...
- John M. McKay
- Dorsey C. Miller
- Berta J. Moralejo
- H. Gary Morse (best known as the developer of The VillagesThe Villages, FloridaThe Villages is a master-planned age-restricted retirement community located mainly in Sumter County, Florida, United States, but also includes portions of Lake and Marion counties. The community is controlled by several Community Development Districts , most of which are controlled by H. Gary...
, the large Central Florida retirement community) - Marsha Nippert
- Darryl K. Sharpton
- Tom Slade
- John Thrasher
- Robert L. Woody
Film
- RecountRecount (film)Recount is a 2008 made-for-TV film about the 2000 Presidential election in the United States. The political drama was written by Danny Strong, directed by Jay Roach, and produced by Kevin Spacey, who also stars in the film....
is a made-for-TV political drama about the 2000 US Presidential election. The show was written by Danny StrongDanny StrongDaniel W. Strong is an American actor and writer in film and television.-Early life:Strong was born and raised in Manhattan Beach, California. where he would rent videos from Video Archives, becoming friends with Quentin Tarantino who was then a clerk there...
, directed by Jay RoachJay RoachMatthew Jay Roach is an American film director and producer, best known for directing the Austin Powers films and Meet the Parents.-Life and career:...
, and produced by Kevin SpaceyKevin SpaceyKevin Spacey, CBE is an American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, and crooner. He grew up in California, and began his career as a stage actor during the 1980s, before being cast in supporting roles in film and television...
(who also stars in the film). It premiered on HBO on May 25, 2008, and the DVD was released on August 19, 2008.
- Orwell Rolls in His GraveOrwell Rolls in His GraveOrwell Rolls in His Grave is a 2003 documentary film written and directed by Robert Kane Pappas. Covered topics include the Telecommunications Act of 1996, concentration of media ownership, political corruption, Federal Communications Commission , the controversy over the US presidential election...