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Bush v. Gore | 531 U.S. 98 (2000)
Voting in the 2000 presidential race between Vice President Al Gore and Governor George W. Bush took place on November 7, 2000. As of November 8, 2000, the results for all states, except Florida, had been determined. The electoral map was such that, without Florida’s 25 electoral votes, neither candidate could attain the 270 electoral votes needed to secure the presidency. Thus, whoever won the Florida election would also win the national election.
On the morning of November 8, the preliminary tally in Florida had Bush ahead of Gore by 1,784 votes. The difference was less than one half of one percent of the total number of votes cast. Under Florida’s election law, this triggered an automatic recount by machine.
Problems arose because, at the time, the Florida voter was to use a stylus to punch a hole in the ballot next to the name of the voter’s preferred candidate. The counting machines would reflexively reject, that is, not include in the final count, any ballots that they couldn’t read, or that otherwise failed to conform to applicable rules. Such rejected ballots were referred to as undervotes. For example, hanging or dimpled chads made it impossible for the machine to read the ballot. The machines also rejected so-called overvotes—ballots where more than one hole was punched under the heading for the same office, thus indicating a selection of multiple candidates for one position. Such problems caused the machines to reject as many as 170,000 nonconforming ballots.
After the machine recount, Bush was still ahead of Gore, but by a noticeably lesser margin than in the initial calculation. Under Florida election law, this gave Gore the right to seek a manual recount county-by-county, which he did in four counties: Volusia, Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade.
The fundamental task of the canvassers performing the manual recount was to look at each ballot and discern the voter’s intent from the face of the ballot. However, there were no uniform statewide standards in place for determining how the undervotes and overvotes should be interpreted in the manual recount. This led each precinct to develop its own distinct guidelines. The result was wide disparity in the treatment of ballots between precincts.
On November 26, 2000, after the manual recount, Bush was certified as the winner of Florida’s electoral votes. However, Florida election law provided that the loser could challenge the certification in court, but only if the loser could show a sufficient likelihood that so many conforming votes were rejected, or nonconforming votes counted, as to cast genuine doubt on the outcome.
Gore challenged the results of the manual recount. The trial court rejected Gore’s challenge entirely, holding that Gore had failed to meet his burden of proof. The Florida Supreme Court reversed this result in part, holding that Gore had satisfied his burden of proof with respect to the results in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach Counties.
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