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| [This is the long version. A short version is available here] |
Wednesday, November 8 |
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Many Americans woke up surprised to discover that the 2000 Presidential Election wasn't over. The final margin in Florida, before the machine recount, was reported to be in favor of Governor Bush by 1,784 votes, out of nearly 6 million votes cast. Several early edition newspapers had gone to print after Florida had been called for Bush, resulting in editions that were incorrect. Some of them, like the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, were recalled and a revised edition printed. As of Wednesday, Bush had 246 of the 538 electoral votes and Gore was |
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| just ahead with 260. Twenty-five of the remaining seats were in Florida. Results deciding Oregon's 7 electoral votes were still unannounced. Oregon was the only state that had abolished polling stations (citizens voted by mail-in ballot or took their ballots to drop-off points), and the count was slow in coming. The results of the overall popular vote also showed Gore in the lead, but not by much. Gore was said to have 49 percent of the vote to Bush's 48 percent. Green Party candidate Ralph Nader had the other 3 percent. A full machine recount of the votes in Florida was ordered. Florida law stated that an automatic machine recount would take place if the margin of victory was 0.5 % or less. This amounted to taking the ballots and running them through the machines again. Jeb Bush, Florida's Governor and brother of candidate George W. Bush, officially recused himself from the recount process. |
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| The following day, Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan agreed that most of the 3,400 votes he got in Palm Beach County county, known for its Democratic support, were likely accidentally cast for him due to the ballot confusion, and were meant for Al Gore. Buchanan has consistently confirmed this belief on television ever since (often with a wry smile). |
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Thursday, November 9 |
| Al Gore's team requested hand counts of ballots in four counties in Florida, citing reports of voting irregularities and voter confusion over the ballot layout in Palm Beach. This would turn out to be the most crucial decision of the Gore campaign, though that wouldn't be evident until more than a month later. The four counties were: Volusia, Palm Beach, Miami-Dade, and Broward. These counties leaned heavily toward the Democratic Party, and they all used the older punch card ballot, a design much more likely than others to produce so-called "undervotes"--votes that, when put through the machines, did not register any vote for the Presidential election. The Gore campaign believed that more votes were there for Al Gore than were counted by the machine counting process.The Bush campaign threatened to demand recounts in Wisconsin, Iowa and New Mexico (where Gore narrowly won) if Gore did not withdraw his challenges. Gore returned to Washington from Tennessee, where he would spend most of November. In an effort to look relaxed, Gore was |
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seen jogging with his daughter Karenna.
In an effort to look like a winner, George Bush met with advisors and potential members of a Bush administration. His aides announced that Cabinet appointments could be made within a week. By early evening, 64 of Florida's 67 counties had completed the automatic machine recount, with the result that Bush led Gore by 362 votes (according to an unofficial Associated Press tally). At 5:00 p.m., Florida's Secretary of State, Republican Katharine Harris, said that the official results from the recount might not be completed until the following Tuesday, the 14th. Harris would soon be a central player in the dispute drama. |
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Friday, November 10 |
New Mexico's 5 electoral votes were removed from the Gore column and put into the "too close to call" column. Gore would eventually be declared the winner of the state by some 5,000 votes. Gore was declared the winner in Oregon.
The automatic machine recount of the votes in Florida's 67 counties concluded with Bush unofficially leading Gore by 327 votes. Official numbers wouldn't be announced until after 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, November 14. Bush continued to behave as if the election was now over. Throughout the days ahead, Bush would never trail Gore in the Florida vote-counting, a fact that probably went a long way toward him winning the public relations battle.
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Saturday, November 11 |
George Bush left Austin for Crawford, Texas, where he would spend most of the month.
The Bush legal team sought a federal injunction to stop the hand recounts in the 4 Florida counties requested by Gore. Their main argument was that giving these ballots special scrutiny was a violation of the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause, an argument that would resonate across the nation many weeks later. |
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The Manual Recount Hanging/Dimpled/Pregnant Chad Controversy:
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Punch card ballots that did not register a vote for President when run through the machines were called "undervotes." In some cases, the voter may have not intended to vote for President, but instead showed up to vote for other races and/or ballot issues. However, many of these ballots did not register a vote because the small piece of paperboard covering the hole did not completely detach from the ballot when the stylus was pushed through. These small pieces of paperboard, called "chips" on the instructions attached to the voting machine, came to be known as "chads" in the media. Manual inspection of undervotes revealed chads in different stages of detachment. Chads detached from at least one corner were called hanging chads. Those still attached at 3 or 4 corners but |
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| bulging out from the pressure of the stylus were called pregnant chads, and those with only a slight indentation from the tip of the stylus came to be known as dimpled chads. Manual recounts involved trying to determine the intent of the voter. If the entire ballot was made up of dimpled chads, one might conclude that the voter simply did not not apply enough pressure to punch through the card. |
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Since the punch card is slipped beneath the actual fixed ballot and can't be seen when the voter is pushing the stylus into the hole, one can understand how that might occur. But what if the card contains all cleanly punched holes except for the Presidential election? How could a manual recounter be certain that the voter didn't change his mind at the last moment? What if the card contains a mixture of cleanly punched, hanging, and dimpled chads? What if one county decided that dimpled and pregnant chads don't count as votes, but the next county over decides that they do count? Do you count it as a vote if the chad is detached only at one corner? How about 2, or 3 corners?
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| All of the controversy over hanging, dimpled, and pregnant chads might have been avoided if voters in the counties that used these punch card style voting machines had just followed the instructions attached to the machines, which indicate to the voter to check their punch card after voting for any loose "chips". On the other hand, these instructions were somewhat covered up by the ballot holders themselves. And anyway, the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment applies to registered voters who don't follow instructions, or who are simply confused, or who lack the what society refers to as common sense. Additionally, research done by Douglas W. Jones (Associate Professor, University of Iowa Department of Computer Science) revealed a potential chad blockage/build-up problem in Palm Beach County on some machines when voters tried to punch the card for Al Gore. Rather than |
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| accepting 50,000 pieces of chad as they were designed to hold, these machines may have had enough build-up to allow only for dimples to occur after only a few hundred votes. Finally, although the voting machine instructions clearly stated that voters could get a new ballot if they made a mistake, some voters who realized they had mistakenly voted for Pat Buchanan in Palm Beach were denied a new ballot by election workers there. |
| The punch card ballot recount, the different standards each of the 4 counties ultimately applied to what constituted a vote, and the back-and-forth legal battle surrounding the issue quickly became the focus of the election and of the popular culture surrounding it. The word chad quickly became a part of the national lexicon. |
Cartoon by Bruce Plante, The Chattanooga Times Free Press
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Cartoon by Mike Peters, The Dayton Daily News |
Cartoon by Mike Ritter, Tribune Newspapers, AZ |
Cartoon by Steve Breen, The Asbury Park Press |
Cartoon by Joe Heller, The Green Bay Press-Gazette |
Cartoon by Bob Englehart, The Hartford Courant |
Cartoon by Rex Babin, The Sacramento Bee |
Cartoon by Dick Locher, The Chicago Tribune |
Cartoon by Walt Handelsman, The New Orleans Picayune |
Cartoon by John Trever, The Albuquerque Journal |
Cartoon by Mike Thompson, The Detroit Free Press |
Cartoon by Dick Locher, The Chicago Tribune |
Chads Coffee Mug |
Chad Christmas Present |
Postal Cover |
Postal Cover |
Souvenir Chad Display |
 "Dimpled Chad" by Michael Krieger |
Manual Recount Song by the Electoral College Tabernacle Choir |
"Punch It Twice, It's All Right" by Ross Altman |
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Sunday, November 12 |
The Manual Recount Begins:
Officials in Palm Beach voted to do county-wide manual hand recounts per Gore's request. Volusia County officials began hand recounts of all their 184,000 ballots. Local officials asked the Florida Secretary of State to extend the 5 p.m. Tuesday deadline to complete the task and report their final numbers.
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Monday, November 13 |
Enter: Katherine Harris:
The responsibility of certifying state election results resided with Secretary of State Katherine Harris. who quickly became a household name. She was parodied on Saturday Night Live, was the butt of the late-night comedy monologues, and was vilified in political cartoons across the nation. Although she was a Republican who had campaigned for Bush and her decisions certainly benefited the Governor, at no time did she violate the law or exceed her powers as Florida's Secretary of State. At 9:00 a.m. Harris announced that the 5 p.m. November 14 deadline for submitting vote counts for certification would stand. No extension would be given for time to finish hand recounts (by Florida law, overseas absentee ballots could be counted until November 17). The Democrats said they would fight this decision in court. Shortly thereafter, Volusia County filed a lawsuit requesting the courts to grant an extension of the deadline. |
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Cartoon by David Rowe, Australia's Daily Financial Review (referring the Dirty Harry movie franchise)
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Cartoon by Bruce Beattie, The Daytona Beach News-Journal |
Cartoon by Mike Thompson, The Detroit Free Press |
Cartoon by Bruce Beattie, The Daytona Beach News-Journal |
Cartoon by Jimmy Margulies, The New Jersey Record |
Cartoon by Chris Britt, The State Journal-Register |
Cartoon by Dan Wasserman, The Boston Globe |
Cartoon by David Horsey, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer |
Cartoon by Drexel Dwane Powell, The News Observer |
Cartoon by Mike Peters, The Dayton Daily News |
Cartoon by Kevin Siers, The Charlotte Observer |
Cartoon by Mark Streeter, The Savannah Morning News |
Cartoon by Matt Davies, The Journal News |
Cartoon by Mike Thompson, The Detroit Free Press |
"Larry & the Florida Secretary of State," by Bob & Tom |
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Tuesday, November 14 |
Butterfly Ballot Update: A circuit court judge in Palm Beach agreed to hear legal arguments that the "Butterfly Ballot" design in Palm Beach was poorly designed and resulted in Gore supporters accidentally voting for Pat Buchanan. Five judges had previously recused themselves from the case.
Manual Recount Update: At 8:20 a.m., officials in Palm Beach County voted 2-1 to delay the start of their manual recount until they were able to clarify whether or not they had the authority to proceed.
The canvassing board in Miami-Date County unanimously voted to start an immediate hand recount of ballots in only 3 precincts requested by the Gore team.
Afternoon: In response to the Volusia County legal action, Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis upheld the 5 p.m. deadline. He went on to say that supplemental returns could be filed after the deadline, but also that those returns could be ignored if circumstances so warranted. The Gore legal team appealed this decision to the Florida Supreme Court.
Miami-Dade County decided not to conduct a full hand recount. Instead, the county did a hand recount of one percent of the votes, resulting in little change from the original results.
Volusia County finished its hand recount by the 5 p.m. ET deadline, with Gore gaining 90 votes. |
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4:30 Palm Beach decided it would resume its recount the following day, despite the 5:00 p.m. deadline. Later in the day, US District Judge Donald Middlebrook rejected the Bush plea and refused to stop the manual recounts. Later in the evening, Broward County chose not to go ahead with a full manual recount, citing the unlikelihood of meeting the pending deadline.
Vote-Counting Update: Evening: Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris announced that Bush led Gore by 300 votes based on returns submitted by all 67 counties. |
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Wednesday, November 15 |
Manual Recount Update: Broward County canvassing board reversed an earlier decision and decided to conduct a full manual recount. At 2:00 p.m. a deadline for counties to submit to the state a written justification of a manual recount expired. In the evening, a state judge ruled that the Palm Beach County board could set its own rules on which ballots were valid. Harris said she would not accept results of any hand recounts when it came time to certify final totals on Saturday the 18th.
Manual Recount Legal Challenge: At 9:00 a.m. Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris petitioned the Florida Supreme Court to halt hand recounts in Miami-Date, Broward, and Palm Beach counties, and to consolidate lawsuits in a state court. Palm Beach County officials asked the Florida |
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Supreme Court to decide if the county has the authority to count votes by hand.
12:00 p.m.: The Bush camp said it would join with the petition filed by Secretary of State Katherine Harris to stop all hand recounts. Al Gore suggested a hand recount in all of Florida's 67 counties, something that constitutional experts would later say he should have asked for in the beginning (rather than just certain precincts in 4 counties). Gore said he would forgo any further legal challenges if the Bush team would accept the recounts in the 4 counties he originally named. Gore also proposed a face-to-face meeting with Governor George Bush. |
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In the evening, the Florida Supreme Court denied the motion submitted by Secretary Harris to stop all manual recounts. At 10:15 p.m. George Bush rejected Al Gore's proposal for a statewide manual recount, saying it would be neither fair nor accurate. Bush also rejected Gore's idea for a face-to-face meeting, but said he would be glad to meet with Gore after the election.
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Thursday, November 16 |
Manual Recount Legal Challenge:
Lawyers for Bush submitted written arguments to the US Federal appeals court in Atlanta to end the manual recounts. Democrats also filed papers with the federal court to counter the Bush maneuver.
Attorneys for the Gore campaign then filed an emergency motion in Leon County state court challenging the imminent certification of the results of the Florida presidential election.
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The Florida Supreme Court ruled that Palm Beach County could proceed with a manual recount of ballots. Moments later, Palm Beach County officials announced they would begin their recount.
Overseas Absentee Ballots: At midnight, the deadline passed for receipt of overseas absentee ballots. There were an estimated 2,300 of these ballots for Florida, which were expected to have an impact on the final results. |
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Friday, November 17 |
Manual Recount Legal Challenge: Leon County Circuit Judge Terry Lewis rejected Gore's emergency motion and upheld Secretary of State Katherine Harris' decision to reject late vote tallies from manual recounts.
The Florida Supreme Court blocked Harris from any vote certification "until further order of this court," until it could rule on the Democrats' motion to allow hand recounts to be counted. It set a Monday hearing on the recount dispute. Miami-Dade County then reversed its earlier decision and announced it would conduct a full manual recount. Finally, the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit denied a Bush team request to stop the manual recounts.
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4:30 p.m.: Vice President Al Gore gave a news conference on the Florida Supreme Court's decision to block the vote certification until monday's hearing. Gore said:
That's why I'm very pleased that the hand counts are continuing. They're proceeding, despite efforts to obstruct them. And that is why the decision just announced by the Florida Supreme Court preventing the Florida secretary of state from certifying the election results tomorrow is so important. Butterfly Ballot Update: a court hearing was scheduled to decide if a re-vote in Palm Beach was constitutional. The circuit judge said he would issue a written order next week on whether he had the authority to order a re-vote.
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The Overseas Absentee Ballot Controversy: Overseas absentee ballots often come from wealthy Americans living abroad, or from members of the military. Both of these voting groups tend to favor Republican candidates At this moment in the dispute, Democrats sued Seminole County Canvassing Board for including certain absentee ballots in the vote totals that did not satisfy the legal requirement that the person requesting the absentee ballot provide the elector's registration number on their application. Although the Democrats could make a valid legal argument for challenging these ballots |
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| (and thereby likely stopping Bush from padding his vote lead), this move left the impression among many that Al Gore was a hypocrite. The chant of "count the votes" from supporters of Al Gore, which had resonated with so many as an idealistic cry for democratic values, suddenly seemed a bit tarnished. |
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Saturday, November 18 |
| Overseas Absentee Ballots Update: After counting the overseas absentee ballots, Bush's lead over Gore increased to 930 votes. Bush picked up 1,380 of them and Gore received 750 votes. |
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Sunday, November 19 |
| Manual Recount Update: Miami-Dade County began a manual recount. |
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Monday, November 20 |
| The Florida Supreme Court heard arguments in Palm Beach County Canvassing Board v. Harris, to answer the legal question of whether or not Secretary of State Katherine Harris should have to include hand-recounted ballots in the state's final certification.
The decision was handed down the following day. |
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| Butterfly Ballot Update: Florida Circuit Judge Jorge Labarga in Palm Beach County said that he lacked the authority under the US Constitution to order a new presidential election in Palm Beach County. This wasn't quite the end of the butterfly ballot issue. |
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Tuesday, November 21 |
In their decision in Palm Beach County Canvassing Board v. Harris, the Florida Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the recounts could continue in three Florida counties and that the results of those recounts must be included in the final tally. The court set a deadline of November 26 (or early November 27, since the 26th was a Sunday) to certify the recount vote. Harris set the deadline at 5:00 p.m., November 26. Democratic candidates Al Gore and Joe Lieberman made a brief statement to the press. |
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Wednesday, November 22 |
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Following the Florida Supreme Courts decision in Palm Beach County Canvassing Board v. Harris, lawyers for Bush filed two appeals with the US Supreme Court in an attempt to shut down manual recounts in Florida.
Manual Recount Update: Miami-Dade County decided to stop recounting ballots, believing they couldn't meet the Sunday evening deadline imposed by the court. The decision to stop was upheld by a Florida appeals court after the Democrats tried to get the county to continue the recount. The Democrats said they would take the
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matter to the Florida Supreme Court. Later in the day, a state judge ruled that Palm Beach County election officials must consider "dimpled chad" punch-card ballots but could reject questionable ballots if the voters' intent couldn't be determined.
Republican VP candidate Dick Cheney suffered a mild heart attack and was admitted to the hospital for surgery.
Television networks in the US said they would change the way they covered elections. ABC News said it would never again project the winner of a state during a presidential election until all of the polls had closed, and CNN named an independent advisory panel to evaluate its election coverage. |
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Thursday, November 23 (Thanksgiving) |
Manual Recount Update: The Florida Supreme Court refused to order Miami-Dade County to resume the manual recount.
Americans took a break from the election dispute to celebrate Thanksgiving.
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Friday, November 24 |
Dick Cheney was released from the hospital and gave a brief news conference.
The US Supreme Court, the highest court in the country, agreed to hear Bush's appeal of the Florida Supreme Court's November 21 ruling in Palm Beach County Canvassing Board v. Harris, (that selective manual recounts must be included in the state's final presidential tally). The hearing is set for December 1.
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Saturday, November 25 |
Overseas Absentee Ballots Update: The Bush team dropped its lawsuit intended to force Florida counties to reconsider overseas military ballots that were rejected for technical reasons. Presumably, they wanted to avoid criticisms of hypocrisy similar to those made against Al Gore.
Manual Recount Update: Broward County completed its hand recount. |
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Sunday, November 26 |
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Florida Vote Certification: Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris denied a request by Palm Beach County to extend the 5:00 p.m. deadline for 90 minutes (leaving 1,000 ballots uncounted) and certified the count. Her certified election results showed George W. Bush the winner by 537 votes.
Governor Bush addressed the nation and accepted victory in Florida and in the 2000 Presidential election. Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Joe Lieberman also gave a news conference where he announced that he and Al Gore would officially challenge the Florida vote certification. This case would become known as Gore v. Harris. |
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The Bush team responded by getting its transition team ready. President Bill Clinton's administration had refused to give the Republicans office space and money for transition purposes until the election was finally settled. However, the White House did offer to give Bush national security briefings which Gore, as Vice President, already received, in order to help both men prepare for the presidency while the election was being settled.
Florida Governor Jeb Bush, the candidate's brother, signed the Certificate of Ascertainment designating 25 Florida electors pledged to George W. Bush and transmitted the document to the National Archives as required by US law. |
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Monday, November 27 |
| The Certification Contest:
The Gore team officially contested Florida's certification of George W. Bush as the winner of Florida's election by filing three different challenges. The challenges were to order Miami-Dade County to recount 10,000 disputed ballots, to include the late results of Palm Beach County in the final certified tally, and to require Nassau County to send in its recount results instead of its election night numbers. The case was assigned to Judge Sanders Sauls. Arguments for both sides would begin Friday. In the evening, Al Gore gave a televised address explaining his rationale for contesting the certified election results. |
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Overseas Absentee Ballots Update: Another lawsuit arose. Apparently, Republican volunteers in Seminole County corrected mistakes made by overseas ballot applicants that should have made those ballots invalid. This lawsuit sought to throw out 4,700 of these |
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ballots. This case was moved to the state court in Leon County, which was also hearing Gore's certification challenges.
Butterfly Ballot Update: the case to decide whether the ballot was legal was moved to the Florida Supreme Court. |
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Tuesday, November 28 |
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Vice President Gore made another statement regarding the election contest & the manual recount.
The Certification Contest update: Democrats asked Leon County Circuit Court Judge N. Saunders Sauls to |
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| authorize an immediate recount of about 14,000 disputed ballots. Judge Sauls ordered the disputed ballots, sample voting booths, and voting machines from Miami-Dade and Palm Beach Counties be brought to his courtroom in Tallahassee by Friday. |
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Wednesday, November 29 |
| The deadline expired for briefs to be filed before the US Supreme Court in the Bush appeal of the Florida Supreme Court's ruling in Palm Beach County Canvassing Board v. Harris on manual recounts. The deadline for replies to the brief was the following day. The case would be heard on December 1. |
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Thursday, November 30 |
The Certification Contest update:
A yellow Ryder rental truck carrying ballot boxes with more than 450,000 votes from southern Florida arrived in the state's capital followed by armed police guards and news helicopters.
The Florida Electors: A Florida legislative committee recommended a special session to name the state's 25 electors.
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Manual Recount Update: Democrats filed papers with the Florida Supreme Court asking them to order an immediate hand recount of some 14,000 disputed ballots in two heavily Democratic Florida counties.
Governor Bush met with Dick Cheney and Colin Powell at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. The three made a brief media appearance, where they made it clear they were moving forward with creating an administration. Dick Cheney announced the opening of the Bush transition offices. |
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Friday, December 1 |
The US Supreme Court heard 90 minutes of oral arguments from both sides in Bush's appeal of the Florida Supreme Court decision that authorized manual recounts. The case was now called Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board. This marked the first time the high court had ever intervened in a presidential election. It was also the first time that audio from the Supreme Court was delivered to the media within hours of the actual hearing (no cameras have ever been allowed in the courtroom). People gathered outside the court house to show their support for either Bush or Gore and to wait in line in hopes of getting a glimpse of history-in-the-making. Only the first 50 people were seated throughout the hearing and others were allowed in for three-minute intervals. |
US Supreme Court: Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board
Part 1 | Part 2 |
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Manual Recount Update:The Florida Supreme Court rejected the Gore campaign's request to immediately begin the hand count of 14,000 disputed presidential ballots from Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties.
Butterfly Ballot Update: the Florida Supreme Court affirmed the lower court's decision that the butterfly ballot used in Palm Beach County was not so confusing as to disenfranchise voters. This effectively ended the butterfly ballot issue.
: The 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals in |
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| Atlanta said it would hear two separate but related cases challenging the Florida ballot hand count. The cases, brought by individuals but joined by the Bush campaign, argued that recounts by hand were unfair and unconstitutional. |
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Saturday, December 2 |
| The Certification Contest update: The hearing to consider the Democrats request for a recount of 14,000 disputed ballots in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties was heard by Judge Sauls. Experts testified about problems that sometimes prevent voting machines from properly punching holes in paper ballots. |
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Monday, December 4 |
| The US Supreme Court issued its ruling in Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board. Was it proper for the Florida Supreme Court to extend the certification deadline and order selective hand-counting results be included in those totals? Usually the US Supreme Court will either "affirm" the lower court's decision (agree with it), or "overturn" it (reverse it). This time, however, they did not understand the reasoning behind the decision, so they vacated the Florida Supreme Court's order and sent the case back to that court for clarification. Once the Florida Supreme Court explained why it ruled the way it did, the US Supreme Court would have another look at the ruling's validity. Governor Bush answered questions from the Texas State Capitol about the Supreme Court's verdict. |
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The Certification Contest update: In the Gore v. Harris case, Leon County Circuit Judge Sauls denied Gore's request to recount 14,000 disputed ballots from two Florida counties saying there was no evidence a recount would overturn Republican George W. Bush's lead in Florida. Saunders would not overturn the Florida election certification.
Al
Gore's lawyers then appealed to the Florida Supreme Court. Later in the evening, the Vice President talked with reporters outside the White House. |
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Wednesday, December 6 |
Overseas Absentee Ballots Update: Two state absentee ballot cases took place in Tallahassee. Democrats claimed Republicans tampered with application forms, and removed them from the elections supervisors' office. Judge Nikki Clark heard the Seminole County absentee ballot case, and Judge Terry Lewis presided over the Martin County hearing.
The 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta rejected a Republican request to throw out hand recounts in three Florida counties. Bush had applied for an injunction against them. |
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Thursday, December 7 |
The Certification Contest Update: The Florida Supreme Court: The Florida Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Gore v. Harris, the case involving Florida's certification of the election results. Three days earlier, Judge Sauls had ruled against Gore. The judges of the Florida Supreme Court retired for the day without deciding on Democrat Al Gore's request for a manual recount of 14,000 disputed ballots. A verdict might be announced Friday.
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| The Florida Electors Update: A formal proclamation was issued calling the Florida Legislature for a special session commencing December 8 to consider whether to go ahead with naming the states electors. |
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Friday, December 8 |
The Certification Contest Update: The Florida Supreme Court Verdict:
The Florida Supreme Court issued its ruling in Gore v. Harris, the case involving Gores challenge to Florida's certified election results. They reversed the lower court's ruling that went against Al Gore and ordered that 383 votes be added to Gore's total in Florida ??? 215 from Palm Beach County and 168 from Miami-Dade. This dropped Bush's lead to a mere 154 votes of about six million cast in the state. And this was before any votes were manually recounted. Most importantly, the court ordered a statewide manual recount. Bush's team filed a 41-page appeal to the US Supreme Court asking for a halt to any recounts. In addition, they petitioned the Florida Supreme Court and the 11th Circuit court for a stay of the Florida Supreme Court's ruling.
Two Florida circuit court judges, Terry Lewis and Nikki Clare, ruled that about 25,000 absentee ballots from Martin and Seminole counties should not be thrown out. In Bush v. Hillsborough County Canvassing Board, federal District Jude Lacey Collier ruled that overseas ballots lacking a postmark required by Florida law must still be counted.
The Florida Legislature met in special session, then adjourned with plans to reconvene on December 12. |
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Saturday, December 9 |
Manual Recount Update: Florida began a statewide manual recount of the undervote ballots (ballots that did not register any vote for President when run through the machines).
The Certification Contest Update: The Florida Supreme Court denied Bush's appeal for a stay to its ruling. The 11th Circuit Court also denied Bush's appeal for a stay, but it also ordered Florida officials not to change Bush's certified 537 vote lead. Most importantly, however, by a vote of 5-4, the US Supreme Court granted the Bush request for a stay and ordered a halt to hand |
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counts in Florida while it acted on Bush's appeal of the Florida Supreme Court ruling ordering a statewide manual recount.
Overseas Absentee Ballots Update: District Court Judge Maurice Paul denied a Gore request to throw out overseas absentee ballots not received by Election Day. Gore appealed these rulings to the Florida Supreme Court. |
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Monday, December 11 |
US Supreme Court heard arguments in Bush v. Gore, the case that would decide whether the Florida statewide hand recount, as ordered by the Florida Supreme Court on December 8, should resume. This case would essentially decide the winner of the 2000 Presidential election. If Gore won, the statewide manual recount would resume, and it was likely, though not guaranteed, that he could claim a large enough majority of the undervotes to overtake Bush. If Governor Bush won, the manual recount would be over and Gore would be out of options. Again, audio was made available to the media on the same day.
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Tuesday, December 12 |
Florida Electors Update: as a federal deadline for a state to name its electors loomed, the Florida state House approved a measure naming 25 electors pledged to George W. Bush.
Overseas Absentee Ballots Update:The Florida Supreme Court denied the Gore appeal of the rulings involving the 25,000 overseas absentee ballots. Gore had now lost all cases involving efforts to prevent overseas absentee ballots from being counted.
The US Supreme Court issued a complex ruling in Bush v. Gore:
Ruling on Florida Supreme Court Recount: Overturned 7-2
Justices in the majority: Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas, O???Connor, Kennedy, Breyer, Souter
Justices dissenting: Ginsburg, Stevens
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Justices in the majority: Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas, O???Connor, Kennedy
Justices dissenting: Breyer, Souter (they believed that a constitutional recount could be fashioned, and that time is insubstantial when constitutional rights are at stake.
Justices already having dissented above: Ginsburg, Stevens
Ginsburg and Stevens (writing separately) argued that for reasons of federalism, the Florida Supreme Court's decision ought to be respected. Moreover, the Florida decision was fundamentally right; the Constitution requires that every vote be counted.
Since the conclusion of the election dispute, several studies were performed on the punch card ballots in question. Whether or not Gore would have won in a statewide manual recount depends on what type of standard you want to apply to what constituted a vote (dimpled, hanging, pregnant, etc.). For the results of one study, go to:
http://www.nytimes.com/images/2001/11/12/politics/recount/index.html |
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Wednesday, December 13 |
The Concession: Vice President Al Gore announced in a nationally televised speech that he accepted Bush as the 43 president of the United States. Ironically, the Vice President was lauded for his poise and grace, praise he rarely (if ever) received during the regular campaign.
President-elect Bush also took to the airwaves and pledged to deliver reconciliation and unity to the nation. Finally, five weeks after it began, the election was over. Bush's victory made him just the second son of a president to become president. Gore became the fourth candidate in history to win the popular vote, but lose in the Electoral College. He won the national popular vote by more than 300,000 ballots.
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Monday, December 18 |
| Electoral College: The Electoral College met and cast their votes for the President. |
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Saturday, January 6, 2001 |
| Electoral College Update: Congress met in joint session to to conduct an official tally of the electoral votes, with George W. Bush the winner. |
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Saturday, January 20 |
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The Inauguration:
George W. Bush was inaugurated as the 43rd President of The United States. |
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