HOST: The US presidential election of 2000
was one of the closest and most controversial elections
in American history.
Then-vice president Al Gore ran against Texas
governor George W. Bush, the son of former president George H.W.
Bush.
Both were high-profile figures with opposing political views.
The campaign season was tense.
That tension all came to a head on election
night, leading to one of the most unusual outcomes
in history, a presidency secured by a Supreme
Court ruling in Bush v. Gore.
It was Tuesday, November 7, 2000.
The race was close all night.
Americans were glued to their television sets.
One minute Gore was in the lead.
The next, Bush was set to win.
But soon, one fact became crystal clear.
The election came down to whoever would win the most
votes in the state of Florida.
But why did Florida matter so much?
In the US, presidential elections are not
determined by the popular vote.
Instead, we use a system called the Electoral College.
Each state is designated a set amount
of electoral votes roughly based on their populations.
In the year 2000, a highly populated state like California
had 54 electoral votes and the much less
populated Delaware had three.
The candidate who gets the most votes in each state
gains all of the electoral votes.
There are 538 electoral votes in all and it takes at least 270
to win the presidency.
But in 2000, neither candidate had enough electoral votes
to clinch the presidency.
Gore only had 255.
Bush had 246.
So it all came down to Florida's 25 electoral votes.
Whoever won the state of Florida would take the presidency.
But here's where things get tricky.
When the polls finally closed in Florida,
the results were just too close to call, which automatically
triggered a recount by machine.
When that was finished the day after the election,
Bush had a small lead of about 900 popular votes
out of 6 million ballots cast.
Such a narrow margin allowed Gore
to demand a recount by hand in four crucial counties.
This meant that they count the votes in all those counties
all over again.
The Florida secretary of state, a Republican who had also
worked on Bush's campaign, insisted that this recount
be completed by November 14.
The Gore campaign wanted more time,
so they petitioned the Florida Supreme Court.
The court extended the recount deadline to November 26.
But only two counties made it.
One county gave up trying, and the fourth
finished two hours late and was not
allowed to hand in its tally.
Still, with just two counties' recounts,
Bush's lead had shrunk even further.
It was now just about 500 votes.
So the Florida Supreme Court granted the Gore
campaign's request for a larger recount
of 70,000 questionable ballots.
But then the recount revealed a problem, balloting methods.
In some Florida counties, votes were cast using a hole punch.
But if the hole wasn't punched properly,
the machine wouldn't count it.
In Palm Beach County alone 29,000 ballots
were found spoiled and discarded either
because they were improperly punched
or because multiple candidates were
voted for on the same ticket, presumably by mistake.
Al Gore insisted that ignoring votes
means ignoring democracy itself.
It was now 19 days past election day
and a winner still had not been declared.
At this point, the United States Supreme Court intervened
and halted the recount.
By a 5-4 vote, the US Supreme Court ultimately
ordered the recount be stopped, arguing that a recount of only
some ballots violated the equal protection
clause of the 14th Amendment in the Constitution.
Of course, given the variety of balloting systems,
counting all votes by the same standard was impossible.
Technically, the US Supreme Court
led Florida's supreme court still have the final say.
But there was little left for that court
to do but dismiss the case.
Gore conceding and Bush was awarded the electoral votes
and declared president.
However, the Supreme Court's ruling did
not appease Gore supporters.
Many Americans saw the narrow majority
vote in the Supreme Court as being
split along partisan lines--
five justices favoring the Republican, four the Democrat.
Critics would later claim bitterly
that Al Gore lost the election by a margin of just one vote
in the Supreme Court.
Gore was the first presidential candidate in 112 years
to lose the electoral vote but win
the popular vote with a total of almost 550,000
more votes over Bush.
It would be 16 years before this happened
again in the 2016 presidential election of Donald Trump.
Trump won the electoral vote but lost
the popular vote to Hillary Clinton
by a margin of 2.9 million votes.
In the end, Bush became president and served two terms.
Gore continued his political life as an advocate for action
against climate change.
Meanwhile, Americans continue to debate
the efficacy of the US electoral system
and voting procedures across each state.