George W Bush 2000 Election Essay

The dispute between presidential candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election made the American population aware of the legitimacy of elections. Additionally, this event illustrated how deeply divided the nation truly is. The debate focused on the state of Florida where there was conflict regarding Bush’s 2,909,135 votes and Al Gore’s 2,907,351 votes [1]. The difference is a staggering 1,784 or about .03% [1]. Clay Roberts explains that, “Any difference of less than .5 of 1% triggers a mandatory machine recount” [1]. Throughout the whole recount, Bush maintained his lead. In the end, Bush won the election by a mere 537 votes—a far more narrow gap compared to the previous 1,784 [1]. Nevertheless, a total of 175,000 undervotes was never counted …show more content…
Perhaps the strongest evidence that the election is illegitimate is the fact that the Supreme Court has ruled the decision regarding the cessation of the Florida recount to be “limited to the present circumstances.” [1]. The Supreme Court’s reasoning is, “we can claim the recount violates the equal protection clause because all ballots aren't being evaluated with the same standard” [1]. However, this reasoning is inconsistent because the court practically surrendered legal votes that could have been counted towards the election. By ruling the recount as unconstitutional, the Supreme Court essentially rendered the votes useless, thus violating the equal protection rights that the Supreme Court wanted to protect in the first place. Due to the court’s flawed decision, it is no surprise that the Supreme Court wanted to keep the ruling applicable only to Bush v. Gore. In the end, the 5-4 decision clearly demonstrate that the Supreme Court ultimately decided who the president should be and not the American population, thus proving its