2000 United States presidential election

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 131.107.3.84 (talk) at 08:33, 2 March 2003 (U.S. presidential election, 1876). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Winner/Main Opponent George W. Bush Al Gore
Party Republican Democrat
Electoral Votes
(total: 538, majority: 270):
271 266
Popular Votes: 50,456,062 50,996,582
Vice President (electoral votes): Richard Cheney (271) Joseph Lieberman (266)
Other elections1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012
Source: U.S. Office of the Federal Register

The year 2000 election for the President of the United States was one of the closest elections in the history of the United States. The election was extraordinarily close, and the results of the election were not known immediately because Florida's disputed votes swung the election. The counting and recounting of Florida presidential ballots extended for more than a month following the election. In the end, a split decision by the U.S. Supreme Court on January 6, 2001 ended the election, and Texas Governor George W. Bush was elected president. Vice President Al Gore came in second even though he received a higher percentage of the popular vote. This was at least the fourth time that a candidate who did not get the largest share of the popular vote got a majority of the electoral committee vote, the first time probably being in the 1824 elections although popular vote records do not exist for earlier elections.

Republican Primary

The Republican Party primary came down to a race between Bush and Arizona Senator John McCain. McCain's campaign, centered on Campaign finance reform, drew the most press coverage and the greatest popular excitement. Many Republicans complained that Democrats and other non-Republicans enrolled in the party for the express purpose of voting for McCain, thus skewing the results. Bush's campaign focused on compassionate conservatism, including a greater role for the federal government in funding education and large reductions in the income and capital gains tax rates.

McCain won 48% of the vote to Bush's 30% in the New Hampshire primary, the first primary held, giving his campaign a great boost of energy, volunteers, and donations.

Other candidates included: political activist Gary Bauer, businessman Steve Forbes, Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, minister Alan Keyes, former Tennessee Governor Lamar Alexander, former Red Cross director Elizabeth Dole, Ohio Congressman John Kasich, and former Vice President Dan Quayle.

Bauer and Hatch campaigned on a traditional Republican platform of opposition to legalized abortion and reductions in U.S. taxes. Keyes had a far more conservative platform, calling for the elimination of all federal taxes except tariffs. Steve Forbes campaigned on making the federal income tax non-graduated, an idea he called the flat tax.

Democratic Primary

There were two main candidates for the Democrat nomination: Former New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley and Al Gore.

Minor Party Candidates

There were five other candidates on the majority of the 51 ballots (50 states plus the District of Columbia): Harry Browne (Libertarian, 50), Pat Buchanan (Reform, 49), Ralph Nader (Green, 44), Howard Phillips (Constitution, 41), and John Hagelin (Natural Law, 38).

Nader's candidacy was the most successful, drawing 2.74% of the popular vote. His campaign was marked by a travelling tour of "super-rallies"; large rallies held in sports arenas like Madison Square Garden, MC-ed by film-maker Michael Moore. After initially ignoring Nader, the Gore campaign made a big publicity pitch to (potential) Nader supporters in the final weeks of the campaign, downplaying Gore's differences with Nader on the issues and claiming that Gore's ideas were more similar to Nader's than Bush's were, noting that Gore had a better chance of winning than Nader. In the aftermath of the campaign, many Gore supporters blamed Nader for drawing enough would-be Gore votes to push Bush over Gore, labeling Nader a "spoiler" candidate.

Buchanan's primary battle was especially vicious. In the 1996 election, the Reform party had nominated Ross Perot for president, and Buchanan had run for (and lost) the nomination of the Republican Party. Some Reform Party supporters therefore felt that Buchanan was hijacking their party, and tried to nominate Hagelin. The convention ended with the Hagelin supporters walking out and conducting their own parallel convention. Which group was the true Reform Party (and thus entitled to public financing due to their strong showing in the previous election) was decided by lawsuit.

Florida election results

The national television networks called Florida for Gore, then Bush, then announcing it too close to call.

The 2000 Presidential Election

The Electoral College vote was so close that the change in the results of any state would have swung the election (271 Electoral College votes for Bush 266 for Gore). Although Gore got 500,000 more popular votes than Bush, in America only the Electoral College chooses the President, so Bush was declared the winner.

Some have pointed out that if our system were based on the popular vote, rather than the electoral college, then the turnout of voters would have been different. Voter turnout in states that favor one party heavily tends to be lower. Because of this, the popular vote cannot be used to predict who would have won an actual popular vote election.

In Florida, the vote was so close that state law provided for an automatic recount, and there were concerns about the fairness of the voting process there. The Democratic Party lodged a dispute over the state's election results; a decision by the United States Supreme Court ultimately certified Florida's election results, resulting in Bush's victory.

Controversy in Florida

  • There were a number of overseas ballots missing postmarks or filled out in such a way that they were invalid under Florida law. A poll worker filled out the missing information on some hundred of these ballots. The Democrats moved to have all overseas ballots thrown out because of this. These disputes added to the mass of litigation between parties to influence the counting of ballots. The largest group of disputed overseas ballots were military ballots, which the Republicans argued to have accepted.
  • A number of voters were incorrectly missing from ballot lists and were thus unable to vote. These persons were disproportionately African-American and Democratic voters.
  • A number of voters were incorrectly listed as felons and thus their votes were not counted. (In some cases, the alleged felonies were dated several years after the election.) These persons were disproportionately African-American and Democratic voters.
  • The television news media called the state for Al Gore around 9:00pm EST, while voters in the western panhandle (which is in the Central Time Zone) of the state were still voting, potentially depressing the voter turnout. This region of the state is mostly Republican.
  • Due to the narrow margin of the original vote count, Florida law mandated a statewide recount. In addition, the Gore campaign requested that the votes in 3 counties be recounted by hand, which is within their rights under Florida election law. The Bush campaign then sued in federal court to stop the hand recounts. This case eventually reached the United States Supreme Court, which ruled 5-4 to stop the vote count, effectively declaring Bush the winner. The US supreme court also found that the additional recounts requested by Gore to be unconstitutional, in a 7-2 vote. Ultimately, Gore conceded the election and asked that his supporters also acknowledge Bush as the new president.


Ballots

"The result of the 2000 U.S. Presidential race was so close that some Democratic Party officials argue that one Florida county's hard-to-use ballot may have unfairly decided the presidency. Critics argue that some voters in Palm Beach County, Fla. might have accidentally voted for Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan, when they thought they were voting for Al Gore. The Democrats are listed second in the left column; but punching a hole in the second circle actually cast a vote for Buchanan."[1]. In response, others point out that the ballot was designed by a Democrat, Theresa Lapore who was not a political individual but to be elected to here job in her county it was essential to be a Democrat. The ballot was also approved by a representative of both major parties. Fox news reported on an informal study where 74 eight year-olds were asked to vote for their favorite Disney characters, using an similar ballot. All the children were successful[2]. But this study proves very little as the ballots used by the children were far simpler than those in the election as they were made of only one page and did not list anything comparable to Vice Presidential candidates.

In 2003, US citizens living in the state of Florida were asked who they voted for in the 2000 Election as part of the Statistical Abstract Census. The results showed President Bush receiving more than 1000 votes more than former Vice President Gore.

Hanging and pregnant chads.

Overseas votes

Military and non-military.

U.S. Supreme Court

Media post-electoral studies

U.S. presidential election, 2000 (detail)

Detailed chart of election results nationwide


Notes on results

*Write-in Votes.

** 138,216 Miscellaneous write-in, blank and void votes were compiled as one total. This figure is not included in Total Votes Cast.

#Write-in votes for Presidential candidates not permitted.

##The District of Columbia has 3 electoral votes. There was 1 abstention.

Total Electoral Vote = 538

Total Electoral Vote Needed to Elect = 270


Recounts

Resources:

See also: President of the United States, U.S. presidential election, 2000, U.S. presidential election, 1876