Bush The Winner Of Florida's Electoral Votes example essay topic

Michael T. Moreno Poly Sci Final Exam # 6 Aug. 1 2003 The 2000 Presidential Election has been nothing short of a fiasco on many levels. Historical in the sense that this has never happened in the United States before, but a fiasco, nonetheless. The popular vote showed Gore as winning the election, however, the popular vote did not determine the next tenant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. That was the job of the Electoral College. The winner of Florida's electoral votes, and apparently of the election was Bush. Bush had won Florida's 25 electoral votes, however, reports of voting irregularities, problems with the "butterfly ballot" and voters allegedly being turned away from the polls, raised concerns as to who the actual winner of the crucial Florida electoral votes was.

The popular vote was so close that it required a recount, effectively taking the electoral votes, the election and the Presidency away from Bush for a short time. The 2000 Presidential Election has done nothing, but raise serious questions about our election process. Lack of standardization in the voting process, methods of vote tabulation and the media's role in determining the outcome of an election have all come under scrutiny. The question raised most often, however, seems to be about the Electoral College, and it's validity as part of the election process in the 21st Century.

In the short term, however, the entire political system is entering a kind of recovery period after undergoing an extraordinary series of shocks and stresses. As the conflict between the two candidates and their legions of surrogates careened from one battlefront to another, it engulfed virtually every component of that system, first in Florida and then on the national level. The institution that arguably suffered the most tarnish was the judiciary. Called upon to referee a raw contest for political power according to laws that were often ambiguous or flatly contradictory, the courts struggled, stumbled, overruled each other - and ultimately issued divided judgments that many perceived as political acts cloaked in legal attire.

The court with the biggest credibility problem is the nation's highest, the U.S. Supreme Court, which finally settled the conflict with a late-night ruling halting further recounts in Florida and effectively freezing Bush's narrow lead in perpetuity. The bitter division on the court, with five conservative justices combining to stop the recounts and four liberal justices issuing caustic dissents, provoked fury from Gore supporters and dismay among less partisan observers. Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at Washington's American Enterprise Institute, said the roles played by Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Associate Justice Antonin Scalia to galvanize the majority invited comparisons with a long-dead predecessor, Joseph Bradley. After the bitterly contested presidential election of 1876, Bradley served as the supposedly neutral 15th member of a commission charged with sorting out the mess, but he voted with the seven Republican members on every dispute. "When they write the history of the Rehnquist court, prominent and maybe first in that history will be the role Rehnquist played in making a very political decision, with Scalia also playing a very prominent role", Ornstein said. During the Florida debacle, public opinion was sharply divided about the court's ruling.

A survey by pollster John Zogby found that 43 per cent thought the court had ruled objectively and 48 per cent thought its ruling was motivated by political considerations. A Gallup poll found the public somewhat more favorable to the court, with 52 per cent saying they agreed with the decision and 42 percent opposed. What will ultimately allow the U.S. Supreme Court to scrub off the tarnish and again be seen as an impartial arbiter, Ornstein said, is simple necessity; the nation needs that sort of institution too much to allow it to become permanently debased. "The court will move through this to the point where its future decisions are accepted because the country simply has invested too much in the court", he said. Ornstein agreed that the Florida Supreme Court, composed entirely of justices appointed by Democratic governors, also had invited skepticism about its motives through its 4-3 ruling ordering the recounts that the federal high court later halted. And he said the state's Republican-controlled legislature damaged its credibility by announcing its intention to unilaterally declare Bush the winner of Florida's electoral votes if the courts had put the result in doubt.

As for Bush, his presidency unavoidably begins under a cloud of controversy over his legitimacy and doubts about his ability to govern effectively. The Zogby poll, which surveyed 521 voters during the weeks of the controversy, found that only 40 percent thought the vote count in Florida was a fair one, while 58 percent considered it unfair. Some 46 percent of those surveyed thought Bush would be able to accomplish things in office, while 50 percent said he would not. The Zogby poll found that Bush's legitimacy, as president-elect is especially suspect among blacks. Only 6 percent of blacks surveyed called the Florida vote count fair; just 17 percent said they regarded Bush as the legitimate president, with 77 percent saying he was not. Among all voters surveyed, 57 percent called Bush legitimate and 37 percent said he was not.

"For now, at least, this begins as a troubled administration, and Bush has some significant healing to do, which he may not be able to get done", Zogby said. "He will need help from Congress, and it remains to be seen whether they will be of a mind to give it". The acknowledged outcomes of the Florida election includes the following information: Vice President Gore won the nationwide popular vote by more than 540,000, and, every media recount that examined ALL of the disputed Florida ballots reveal a Gore victory. Likewise, Right wing journalist Pat Buchanan received 3407 votes in Palm Beach County, five times more than he received in any other Florida county. In light of this matter, Pat Buchanan admitted on national television two days after the election, that at least 95% of his Palm Beach vote belonged to Al Gore.

Seemingly, Palm Beach officials began to receive complaints about the butterfly ballot by 8: 30 AM on Election Day. Many Palm Beach voters asked for new ballots after realizing their mistake but were refused; consequently, the design of the butterfly ballot in Palm Beach, county was illegal under Florida law. Even more so, Socialist Party candidate David McReynolds received 332 votes in Palm Beach County, and 602 Statewide. On Election Night in Volusia County, a computer glitch showed a Socialist Party candidate had more than 9,000 votes, while Vice President Al Gore had minus 16,000. Those numbers were sent out over the Internet, picked up by local newspapers and subsequently reported by the major networks on Election Night. The socialist eventually ended up with 9 votes in the county.

Incidentally, 680 overseas military ballots were allowed to be counted even though there was NO evidence that they were mailed prior to Election Day. This was yet another clear violation of election Florida law. It can be argued that the Bush campaign worked to disqualify military ballots in counties that might favor Gore. Meanwhile, several thousand absentee ballots that could not be read by machine were "re-created" by Republican precinct workers, based on the "intent" of the voter. Hundreds of absentee ballot applications in Seminole County, Florida, were corrected by Republican Party activists, and again were in violation of Florida election law. Nonetheless, according to the Miami Herald newspaper, had Florida's voting system functioned properly; Al Gore would have won the state by at least 20,000 votes.

Prior to the election the State of Florida hired the firm of Data Based Technologies to purge the Florida voter lists of "felons". It was discovered after the election that the list was 90% incorrect. More than 175,000 Florida ballots were thrown out due to either double punches or under votes. The vast majority of them came from Democratic parts of the state. More than 100,000 optical scan ballots were never recounted the first time. According to the New York Times, hundreds of ballots disappeared between election night and the media recounts.

They have never been accounted for (Page 279 of "Too Close to Call" by Jeffery Too bin). Furthermore, there was clear evidence of Republican inspired voter fraud in the State of Tennessee involving the 2000 presidential vote. The "protesters" that stormed the Dade County elections offices causing the manual recount to be shut down, were in truth Republican activists from Washington. It is believed that they were in Florida on an all expenses paid trip thanks to an organization controlled by right wing Congressman, Tom Delay, of Texas. It is also argued that in spite of Republican denials, there were police road blocks set up near polling places in Democratic, Leon County, Florida, on election day.

The close election disaster that occurred in Florida would have definitely affected either president-elect. George W. Bush's victory caused a great amount of citizens (approximately 537,000) to refuse to accept him as the legitimate President because of his extremely small margin of victory within the Electoral College that may or may not be accurate. If Al Gore had become the eventual President, most Republican supporters would have seen him as the guy who stole the Presidency and would have refused to acknowledge him as the legitimate winner. Either way, the tight election hurt the elected President's credibility, his ability to pass legislation, and his use of informal powers.

President Bush will be recognized as the one who won only after weeks of re-counts, legal battles, and a handful of votes. The "honeymoon period" for President Bush was a time of lower approval because of the extended re-counts and court cases that continued to flood the media and the minds of the voting citizens. It can be argued that the President's relationship with the judicial branch may have suffered from the presence of a resentful attitude of opposing party members regarding his Justice / Judge appointments and the credibility of his achieved authority to do so. Conversely, the country will benefit from a President who will convince citizens that he is fully qualified to take on the job and restores dignity and honor to the office to make Americans proud.