The time is ten o’clock at night on December 12th, 2000, I was asleep because, well I was a year old, but for all other American adults that is time stamp might have been stuck in their heads over the last week. Ten o’clock at night on December 12th, 2000 was the exact time that the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in favor of George W. Bush in the case Bush v Gore to be named president-elect of the country. While I was personally too young to remember this election, these similar fears built up inside many Americans (including myself) for many months and leading up until last Tuesday. However, what is forgotten is just what was the super specific situation that culminated in the Bush v Gore Supreme Court case. How this election was different to the 2020 presidential election was the issue brought up in Andrew Rice’s article for the New York Magazine The 2000 Election Never Ended.
For anyone who either, was too young to know (like me), or just doesn’t remember the situation, here’s a recap. The 2000 election was one of the closest to date, with the final Electoral College count coming out to 271to 266 in favor of George W Bush. However, while some states did have a close margin between the two, specifically New Mexico where the vote came down to a four vote margin in Gores favor, Florida was the most hotly contended state. Prior to the election, Florida had passed a pretty discriminatory law that purged supposed felons from registration rolls but, according to Mr. Rice, the process was “…error-filled” and disenfranchised many thousands of Black voters. In addition, some counties in the state used a confusing ballot so it was hard to tell who they were voting for. On election night, news networks called Florida for Gore but, later in the early hours of the morning, they reversed course and called it for Bush. Once the projection had changed, Gore called and conceded the election to him. Just before he could give a speech announcing this concession however, he was informed of the razor-thin margin between the two, it came down to only 537 votes. Gore and his campaign started to file lawsuits to get two sets of votes thrown out, one that had been manipulated by Republican leaning vote counters who fixed mistakes on the ballots, and a number of military ballots that may not have been postmarked by Election Day. As previously mentioned, the case was eventually decided in the Supreme Court where two days after Florida had been forced to stop counting votes, Bush was declared winner.
This seems like a nightmare scenario that shows just how Donald Trump might steal this election from Joe Biden. However, there are a lot of key differences. The first is that it’s not down to just one state. Currently, Mr. Trump has started lawsuits in five states and is requesting a recount in one. In addition, not one of the states where he is starting these lawsuits has margins anywhere close to that of Mr. Gore and Mr. Bush. As of writing this at 11:30 in the morning on Veterans Day 2020, Mr. Trump’s closest deficit is in Georgia, where he is still down by 11,000 votes (NBC News). If a recount was unlikely to flip Florida for Mr. Gore with only a 537 vote difference, there is no way any recounts would flip any state away from Mr. Biden.
The second key difference is the state of the lawsuits. As of right now, Mr. Trump and his campaign have filed, one lawsuit in Michigan, which was thrown out due to lack of evidence; one lawsuit in Georgia, which was also thrown out for the same reason as the Michigan case; two lawsuits in Nevada, but both were rejected; and two lawsuits in Arizona, one of which was rejected by Arizona officials due to baseless claims, and the second one they have filed has been called a “repackaging” of the first suit (Parks). In addition to these mostly moot lawsuits, Mr. Trump has also called for a recount in Wisconsin, but his deficit in that state is 20,000 votes, a margin that even in the best case scenario for Mr. Trump is an impossible wall to climb. As Mr. Rice pointed out, even if Mr. Gore got the recounts he wanted, the “…best Gore scenario…he won by a margin of just three votes” (Rice). In practice, when having to teach about this election, we should look to the 2000 election for comparison but only to show the differences in how a legitimate claim differs from the so far illegitimate claims Mr. Trump has been making.
Works Cited in this Post:
NBC News. “Presidential Election Results: Live Map of 2020 Electoral Votes.” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, 8 Nov. 2020, www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-elections/president-results?icid=election_nav.
Parks, Miles. “Trump Election Lawsuits Have Mostly Failed. Here’s What They Tried.” NPR, NPR, 10 Nov. 2020, www.npr.org/2020/11/10/933112418/the-trump-campaign-has-had-almost-no-legal-success-this-month-heres-what-they-ve.
Rice, Andrew. “The 2000 Election Never Ended.” Intelligencer, 5 Nov. 2020, nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/11/bush-v-gore-and-the-2000-election-never-ended.html.
Dan,
2020 has definitely been a crazy and eventful year. After reading the blog post about the striking parallel between Biden and Trump’s first debate with Nixon and JFK from decades earlier, it was interesting to read about the similarities in voting concerns between now and 2000. I appreciate how you brought together executive and judicial power and discussed the interconnectedness of these branches, especially in a contested election. This was a really insightful post!
Laura