![]() ![]() when we got our first call about the butterfly ballot. Nick Baldick (Gore operative in Florida): It was, like, 11 a.m. It was just one polling place in Palm Beach. I found Michael Whouley, reported this to him, and then frankly didn’t really think much about it. They thought they might have voted for Pat Buchanan by accident. His daughter, Liz, had called him to say that people were coming out of the polling places in Palm Beach, and they were confused about who they had voted for. Ron Klain (Gore recount committee general counsel): I got a call on Election Day from a lawyer named Lester Hyman, probably at 8 a.m., Nashville time. Norm Ornstein: The November election is going to be a mess Somebody asked about recounts, and I said, “I’ve been doing a lot of recounts over the past 16 years, and there is no way we will ever have a presidential recount. We were in our favorite dive Mexican restaurant in Austin. Campaign operatives stop asking lawyers questions the closer it gets to Election Day-they know what the law is by that point. The punch-card apparatus used elsewhere in the state sometimes failed to punch out a hole completely, meaning that the machine would not record a ballot choice.īen Ginsberg (Bush campaign general counsel): On the Monday before the election, we had the luxury of being able to go out for lunch. Ballots in Duval County also caused confusion some 22,000 votes there were disqualified because voters chose more than one candidate. A confusing ballot-the so-called butterfly ballot-in Palm Beach County prompted thousands of voters to cast their ballot unwittingly for Buchanan. On Election Day, a number of counties in Florida reported problems. Potentially affecting the outcome were two other candidates: Ralph Nader, of the left-wing Green Party, and Pat Buchanan, of the right-wing Reform Party. Leading up to the election, polls had indicated that the race between Bush and Gore would be close, with an especially slim margin in several key states. The election, both campaigns understood, was far from over. By the end of the night, Gore held a lead over Bush in the national popular vote, which he would never lose, but the contest in the Electoral College was tight, and it all came down to Florida. The weather in both cities was chilly and wet. Gore watched the returns at the Loews Vanderbilt Hotel, in Nashville. Election NightĪs votes were counted on the night of November 7, 2000, Bush watched the returns at the governor’s mansion, in Austin. ![]() The account here, drawn from interviews with more than 40 people with firsthand experience of the Florida-recount saga, is both a history and a warning. Read: The postal service can handle the election-if it’s allowed to On August 14, The Washington Post reported that the Postal Service had informed 46 states and the District of Columbia that it could not guarantee that mailed-in ballots could be delivered in time to be counted. On August 13, in an interview on Fox News, President Donald Trump declared his opposition to providing the financially troubled USPS with additional funding, giving as an explicit reason a desire to hamper mail-in voting, which he had previously said “doesn’t work out well for Republicans.” The USPS has already announced plans for cutbacks in service across the board. Postal Service can handle the expected volume and return marked ballots to election officials in time for them to be counted in November’s national elections. ![]() A continuing shift toward widespread voting by mail-accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic-seems likely to provoke lawsuits based on discredited claims that the practice spurs voting fraud.Ī cause for truly legitimate concern is something else entirely: whether the U.S. And in many states, registering to vote has deliberately been made harder, especially for the poor and people of color. In many states, the balloting technology is antiquated. Today, at a time far more polarized than two decades ago, not just one but every state faces potential challenges to the integrity of its electoral process. Constitution gives individual states the responsibility for conducting elections. The story of the 2000 Florida recount offers a reminder of just how chaotic the electoral process can become-and of how disarray in a single state can undermine faith in the democratic process nationwide. Bush, the Republican candidate, was declared the victor, edging out Vice President Al Gore, the Democrat. In the end, after start-and-stop recounts and the intervention of courts at every level, Texas Governor George W. Whoever won the state would win the presidency. T wenty years ago this fall, the United States was plunged into 36 days of turmoil as lawyers, judges, political operatives, and election workers grappled with the uncertain result of the presidential contest in Florida. ![]()
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