The Presidential Election at the turn of the century saw Republican George W. Bush, son of former President George H.W. Bush, pitted against Democrat Al Gore. Gore won the popular vote by a slim 0.5% (a bit over half a million votes). Gore had Bush beat in the Electoral College as well, by a margin of 255-246. Neither candidate had the 270 votes necessary for victory yet. Florida, with its 25 votes, was the state on which the election's outcome would hinge. The news media had initially declared Gore the winner of Florida, but later declared that Bush had built an insurmountable lead. Gore called Bush to make his concession of the election, but the following morning, it became apparent that the election was far closer than it had seemed before. Only hundreds of votes separated the candidates, and that number was growing smaller quickly. Gore then called Bush again to take back what he had previously conceded. The results in Florida were so close that a mandatory statewide recount by machine was issued. The Gore campaign also requested that ballots in four disputed counties be recounted by hand. The Florida Supreme Court extended the deadline of the recount and ordered a manual recount. The Bush campaign was unhappy with this, and appealed to the US Supreme Court to hear their case.
In the subsequent Supreme Court case "Bush v Gore", the recount was ordered to be halted, and Bush was declared the winner of Florida's electoral votes, and therefore, the president elect. The vote was 5-4. Gore conceded the election to Bush ultimately, but was in disagreement with the Supreme Court ruling of the case. This election was the closest in the history of the Electoral college, and the first to be decided by the Supreme Court.
To this day, supporters of the Democratic Party are unsettled by the outcome of this election, for many different reasons. The Supreme Court decision itself was controversial, as the justices appointed by Republican presidents all ruled in favor of Bush, and those appointed by Democratic presidents all ruled in favor of Gore. Also, Bush's brother Jeb was the governor of Florida at the time of the recount, and although there has been no evidence of wrongdoing, many believe that had something to do with it. There was the issue of the butterfly ballot style used in Palm Beach County in Florida as well. This voting design caused many voters to accidentally cast their vote for third-party candidate Pat Buchanan instead of Gore. Some argue that this was an intentional ploy to make people miscast their votes. Had those people been able to vote for Gore, Gore likely would have been the President. Several other scandals over confusing ballots and numerous court battles happened too. People were mad at Green Party candidate, Ralph Nader, because he was a "spoiler" of the vote for Al Gore. Democrats contend that his voters would have otherwise supported Gore, had Nader dropped out of the election race, which he chose not to do, despite having little voter support.
Lastly, and arguably most importantly, Gore was an environmentalist. It is a widely held view that had Gore been President, much more would have been done about climate change 20 years ago.
A Florida election board member attempts to view a voter's punch card ballot.
Sources:
http://archive.fairvote.org/e_college/controversial.htm#2000
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/modern-us/1990s-america/a/the-election-of-2000
https://www.britannica.com/event/United-States-presidential-election-of-2000
It's crazy to think that such an important decision was supposedly decided by a few hundred people. It's also interesting to see how the media operates in these kinds of situations, as they declared Gore the winner in Florida before it was concluded. This reminds me of the 1948 election, when the Chicago Daily Tribune infamously printed "Dewey Defeats Truman" on hundreds of thousands of newspapers, but Truman in fact won.
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