The 2000 presidential race between Democratic Al Gore, an android desperately trying to learn what it meant to be human, and Republican George W. Bush, a former drunk who would do anything to win back his daddy’s love, was one of the closest elections in U.S. history. As the night progressed, it became obvious that whoever managed to win Florida was going to win the whole thing. Of course, everyone involved managed to make it one of the biggest cluster fucks in the history of American democracy.
The first big screw up of the night was when all of the major news networks declared that Gore had won Florida even though the polls hadn’t even closed in all parts of the state. Apparently not bright enough to look at a map, these eminent purveyors of information failed to realize that a good chunk of the Florida panhandle, home to a shit ton of Republicans, was in a different time zone. As these votes began to be counted, Gore’s once so-called insurmountable lead dwindled and disappeared. Eventually it got to the point where the talking heads had to admit they completely screwed the pooch, first declaring Florida was back in play, and then eventually in the early hours of the morning declaring instead that actually Bush had definitely won Florida. As you can imagine, the Gore camp did not take this very well. However, this being a time when politicians at least pretended to be classy, Gore called up Bush and congratulated him on his win. Unfortunately, soon after it became apparent that the news media had completely screwed it up again. Votes were still being counted in Florida, and as the night went on, Bush’s lead fell to some 1,800 votes, a level under Florida law which required a recount. Suddenly back in the race, Gore called Bush back and declared his earlier congratulations hadn’t counted because his fingers were crossed, and both sides began sending lawyers galore to Florida.
Now if there was one state where a recount was sure to be a nightmare, it was Florida. For some stupid reason, each of the state’s 67 counties were allowed to choose their own balloting system, meaning the state was a confusing mish-mash of punch cards with exceedingly confusing formats dependent upon the whims of the local county officials. State laws regarding recounts were little better. In the case of a recount, each county first had to verify that all of their vote counting machines were in good working order, and then run all the ballots through again, all while lawyers from both parties watched the whole process to ensure that no shenanigans took place. The Democrats were especially concerned about this given the state’s governor was Jeb Bush, George’s little brother, and most state officials were Republicans. The recount took about a day, and narrowed Bush’s lead to a little over 300 votes, a level which than allowed Gore to request for a hand recount. However, state law did not require a hand recount of the entire state, but rather just whatever counties Gore wanted recounted. He of course just chose the four most Democratic counties in the state.
From the start of the hand recount, both sides started lawsuits, with the Bush side trying to stop the process and the Gore side trying to knit pick on which ballots would be counted and not counted. Due to the shitty quality of many of the punch card ballots used in Florida, some 10,000 ballots in the four counties had only been partially punched and therefore not counted in the machine recount. Due to a ruling by the Florida Supreme Court, these ballots had to be counted if the clerks could ascertain voter intent. This involved the people doing the recount holding up each of the contested ballots so lawyers from both sides could eyeball them and argue over whether or not the card was sufficiently punched to declare voter intent, with the arguments used by both sides flip flopping dependent on who the vote appeared to be for. If the argument was too contentious, then the ballot was brought before a judge for a final decision. The Gore team also tried to sue to block absentee ballots from being counted, mostly from overseas military personnel, and to have a number of votes for the third party candidate Pat Buchanan added to Gore’s total because the ballot setup was so confusing that some Gore voters voted for Buchanan by mistake. Both of these lawsuits were rejected for pretty obvious reasons.
Now originally by Florida law, the recount was supposed to be finished by November 14. However, due to the ongoing legal shenanigans, it soon became obvious that it wasn’t going to be finished, so the Gore side successfully convinced the Florida Supreme Court to extend the deadline, not once, but twice, pushing the recount into December. However, the hand count wasn’t coming out the way the Gore team had hoped, they were closing the gap, but Bush was still ahead, so they started a new lawsuit to get an additional 60,000 partially punched ballots from the other 63 counties in the state reviewed as well. The Florida Supreme Court agreed to this, but this decision was soon after overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court, which declared the whole thing had gotten ridiculous to the point where Florida judges were making up the law rather than interpreting it and selectively enforcing the law on a county by county basis. The court basically ruled that though the rules set in place prior to the election were imperfect, they were the rules in place, and could not be magically changed just because one side didn’t like the results. The recounts were halted and Bush was declared the winner, though controversy and claims of a stolen election continue to this day. A later unofficial statewide recount conducted by a collection of newspapers found that Bush would’ve won even if the partially punched ballots had been counted.