Most of the post-electoral controversy revolved around Gore's request for hand recounts in four counties (Broward, Miami Dade, Palm Beach, and
Volusia), as provided under Florida state law.
Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris announced she would reject any revised totals from those counties if they were not turned in by November 14, the statutory deadline for amended returns.
The
Florida Supreme Court extended the deadline to November 26, a decision later
vacated by the
U.S. Supreme Court.
I thought Gore was hypocritical in not asking to recount ALL THE VOTES in Florida. He preached to us on TV intoning like the voice of God, "LET US COUNT EVERY VOTE."
But instead he jerrypicked the counties ran by the Democratic Party, counties where the vote contained mostly Democratic voters. He also tried to throw out the military absentee votes, when he himself has been a big advocate of absentee voting liberally applied to anyone finding it inconvenient to vote on election day.
So a lot of the press and the voters were starting to see that hypocrisy, and so the Florida Supreme Court picked 70000 votes statewide to recount and then saw that was jerrypicking selectively and so decided to recount all the Florida votes all over again.
BUT READ THE SCARIEST PART :
On January 6, 2001, a
joint session of Congress met to certify the
electoral vote. Twenty members of the
House of Representatives, most of them Democratic members of the
Congressional Black Caucus, rose one-by-one to file objections to the electoral votes of Florida. However, according to an
1877 law, any such objection had to be sponsored by both a representative and a
senator. No senator would co-sponsor these objections, deferring to the Supreme Court's ruling. Therefore, Gore, who presided in his capacity as
President of the Senate, ruled each of these objections out of order.
Subsequently, the joint session of Congress certified the electoral votes from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Bush took the oath of office on January 20, 2001
IMAGINE, there are provisions in the constitution whereby the House of Representatives decide the election. What a circus that would have been.
By the way I would have loved every minute of it.
However the court used the SAFE HARBOR deadline that if the vote was not certified in time then the circus would continue forever in the House of Representatives.
If only we could have seen that show !!!!
On December 12, the Supreme Court
ruled in a 5–4 vote that the Florida Supreme Court's ruling requiring a statewide recount of ballots was unconstitutional, and that the Florida recounts could not be completed before a December 12 "safe harbor" deadline, and should therefore cease and the previously certified total should hold.
The Supreme Court's decision was an unsigned or "Per Curiam" ruling; the ruling was “limited to the present circumstances” and could not be cited as precedent
