The 2000 election was settled in court, the first time this has happened in American history.
Before polls closed on November 7, all of the major news networks called the state of Florida, which held critical electoral votes, for presidential candidate Al Gore. But, mere hours later, these networks took back this prediction saying that the state was now too close to call. At 2:30 in the morning the next day, candidate George Bush was the projected winner of Florida and the election. But again the prediction was repealed. Bush was still ahead, but by fewer than two thousand votes. The ballots were recounted and Bush's margin shrunk to less than two hundred. This is when things started getting messy.
Gore requested hand recounts, Bush filed law suites to block hand recounts. The Florida Supreme court stepped in and ruled that the recounts could continue.
Lawsuit after lawsuit was filed.
English: Sonia Sotomayor, U.S. Supreme Court justi...
U.S. Supreme Court building.
English: United States Supreme Court building in W...Finally Bush took the case to the Supreme Court on the grounds that federal law was being broken.
The question arose: Did the United States Supreme Court have jurisdiction in the resent US election in Florida? The first opinion that we will be exploring today states: I. This was a federal issue and therefore the Supreme Court had jurisdiction.
Bush's attorneys argued that federal law was being broken. They stated that the laws governing the counting of ballots were being changed after the election had taken place. He also said that these laws governing ballot counting were not being carried out in an equal fashion from county to county and therefore violating the equal protection clause.
Prior to filling out their ballots, voters are instructed to "ÃÂpunch the chad ALL the way through'. However, there were thousands of "ÃÂunder-votes' in Florida that were being counted if the chad was "ÃÂhanging',