Voting Techniques Controversy of 2000

On November 7, 2000, voters went to the polls to choose between the Republican candidate Texas governor George W. Bush (1946–; served 2001–), and the Democratic candidate, Vice President Al Gore (1948–), in an election expected to be very close. Problems in voting methods surfaced in Florida that delayed the election results for five weeks, cast doubt on the outcome, and called into question the place of the Supreme Court in electoral politics. The election forced Americans to take a closer look at the way their votes are tallied, especially where voting machines and the time-honored electoral college system were concerned.

The electoral system

Under the U.S. Constitution , presidents are not directly elected by the popular vote (the total number of votes cast nationwide). The president is actually elected by an electoral college made up of 538 electors. Each state has a number of electors equal to its number of representatives and senators in Congress. In all states except Maine and Nebraska , when a candidate wins a majority of the popular vote in the state, he or she gets all of that state's electoral votes. To win an election, a candidate must get 270 or more electoral votes. The electoral college votes in December after the November elections, but in almost all cases the outcome is already set. The electoral college voting system ensures that each state's vote counts. If presidents were elected simply on the popular vote, a candidate would only need to win over the four most populous states, and could virtually ignore the other forty-six states and their interests.

Electoral votes become a key issue when a state's vote is very close, as it was in Florida in the 2000 presidential election. Shortly before 8:00 pm on November 7, the major television networks declared Bush the winner in Florida—meaning he would receive its twenty-five electoral votes. Over the next few hours, each candidate won several key states—that is, ones with large populations and therefore large numbers of electoral

votes. By 2:15 am on November 8, it looked as if Bush had won enough states to have the 270 required electoral votes. Gore was on his way to give a concession speech (recognizing that he had lost the election) when he learned that Bush's lead in Florida was only a few thousand votes. He decided not to concede yet.

Problems with Florida ballots

Meanwhile, more than nineteen thousand votes were disqualified in Palm Beach County. The county had a system in which the voter used a stylus to punch a hole in a card beside the name of the candidate of his or her choice. The cards had perforations; when punched with a stylus, the punched perforation—or “chad”—was supposed to fall away. The nineteen thousand ballots disqualified either had more than one candidate selected, or the chads were still attached. In either case, vote-counting machines could not tabulate them. Additionally, a candidate not expected to receive many votes in that county—Reform Party nominee Pat Buchanan (1938–)—was credited with 3,407 ballots in his favor. Voters (and Buchanan himself) acknowledged the count must have been a mistake. These votes were probably the result of a so-called “butterfly ballot” that lined up the Democrats in one column with Buchanan in the next column, though they were not connected.

Soon it was clear that Florida's voting irregularities were not confined to Palm Beach County. In nearby Broward County, another 6,686 ballots were disqualified. Similar problems were noted in adjacent Dade County. Gore requested manual (done by hand, rather than machine) recounts of the three counties as well as Volusia County, where some problems were also noted. All four counties had larger numbers of Democratic voters than Republicans. Adding to the anger over inaccurate election processes was the disproportionate exclusion of some African American voters in Florida. A study showed that African American votes were ten times more likely to be rejected due to voting errors than any other group. This was, in part, because the voting districts with predominantly African American populations were generally poorer, and had older voting machines.

Partisan politics

Many believed that partisan politics (based on fervent support of one party) contributed to the turmoil as legal questions about the Florida Votes were brought to court. Under Florida law, recounts must be conducted within seven days. But manual recounts in the four counties with irregularities would take more than seven days, and the legality of conducting manual recounts was challenged in court. On November 13, a federal judge in Miami, Florida, rejected a request by Bush's lawyers to end the hand recounts. Meanwhile, Florida's secretary of state, Republican Katherine Harris (1957–), who had actively campaigned for Bush, called for an end to the manual recounts, though her authority to do so was highly questionable. Bush's brother, Jeb Bush (1953–), was governor of Florida. Though he stepped back from the controversy, many were willing to believe that a Republican conspiracy was in the works. Machine recounts completed on November 15 confirmed Bush as the winner of the state, but only by 327 votes.

Officials in Palm Beach, Broward, and Dade counties decided to go forward with a manual recount. Harris again attempted to block the recount. Republicans were accused of wanting to hurry the process, even if some voters were stripped of their voting power because of mistakes. Democrats were accused of trying to find more votes.

Elections and the courts

On November 20, lawyers for Bush and Gore presented arguments to the Florida Supreme Court in a nationally televised hearing. The Florida justices were concerned that vote counting could drag on to the December 18, 2000, date set for the electoral college vote. If recounts were not completed in time, votes from the state of Florida would be lost. On the other hand, the justices were reluctant to discontinue manual recounts knowing that they were the only way to count votes not tabulated by computers.

The Florida Supreme Court ruled unanimously that manual recounts could continue and Bush's lawyers appealed the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. On December 2, the day before Bush met with Republican congressional leaders to discuss his transition to the White House, Gore demanded a recount of some fourteen thousand “under-votes”—ballots that had not been completely filled out—from Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties. The dispute ended abruptly on December 12, when a bitterly divided Supreme Court ruled 5–4 that the recounts were unconstitutional. It ordered a halt to all further recounts. Gore conceded the election to Bush.

Impact

In the end it was clear that Al Gore had won more popular votes in the 2000 election than George Bush. The electoral college system, and perhaps voting machine error, decided the election. Many felt that the U.S. Supreme Court had overstepped its authority in deciding an election. Some state groups felt it was time to reorganize their electoral college systems. The need for more accurate voting systems was obvious to all. Nationwide measures were taken to ensure that all states installed new electronic, or computerized, voting machines, but problems continued, and in some cases grew worse, with the new systems. The 2000 election cast many new doubts in voters' minds. Though many of the problems that arose were technical, many Americans recognized that when voting is compromised, it poses a threat to the roots of the democratic system.