Bush v. Gore Presidential Election 2000: Supreme Court Battles!!

Because the Nov 7, 2000 vote in Florida was less than 0.5% margin, with G.W. Bush in the lead, 
the Democrats decided to get the State of Florida court system to help force a manual recount of 
the votes; in selected counties having an extremely high Democratic Voter population (Miami Dade, 
Palm Beach, Broward, and Volusia Counties).   The Election Canvassing Committees for each of these 
Counties were highly Democratic Majority; so their recounting efforts were likely to "divine" votes 
for Gore as follows: Assuming the party chosen on the ballots indicated a choice for the President, 
when the ballots were NOT voted for president (Undervotes); and looking for marks, dimpled chads, 
pregnant chads, and hanging chads to see if they were close enough to a vote to call a vote for Gore.  
None of the other counties were chosen, nor was a consistent standard applied agreeable to both parties.  
This matter became a subject of many lawsuits and subsequent strings of appeals.  The Florida Supreme 
Court had an activist role in giving sway to the Democrats to conduct their manual recounts as they saw 
fit; and this court also provided "fashioned" remedies to aid in "legalizing the efforts".   It was adjudged 
by the United States Supreme Court TWICE that there were significant questions regarding the violations 
of the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution, article II.  There were also concerns regarding the 
legality of the time extension used to authorize the manual recounts, vice the requirements of 3 USC 5, a 
Federal Statute controlling the Presidential Election Laws.  The finality of the litigation nightmares was 
reached when it was decided 7-2 Per Curium by the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn and remand the 
judgment of the the Florida Supreme Court, re U.S.S.C Case #00-949.  When this ruling came down 
late on Tuesday, Dec 12, the next day, Gore was compelled the next day to Concede the Election to 
George W. Bush.  It was determined by the U.S. Supreme Court that there was no longer time for any 
recounts, plus if any more recounts were attempted via a refashioned  remedy under new Florida Supreme 
Court orders, they would likewise be unconstitutional!  Thus, no more options were available to the 
Democrats to count the remaining undervotes (NON votes possibly convertible to Gore Votes).

Ultimately, the election took 36 days to implement, due to the extraordinary judicial orders and 
matching interventions and blocking maneuvers, plus the appeals. It was a legal Free-for-All!  
Citizens, attorneys, and legal teams filed lawsuit after lawsuit.  Many documents regarding these 
legal cases may be found on the web at CNN (via pdf files from the Findlaw web archives!); or 
from C-Span archives. The specific Courts also have webs where their court documents may be viewed! 

CNN in my opinion did an outstanding job in keeping their web http://www.cnn.com up to date, plus 
the special experts on the scene provided excellent background for understanding the aspects of the 
cases.  Several court actions were shown live on T.V., which must have been great for Law students.  
Hearings at the U.S. Supreme Court  were not allowed to be televised.  An audio feed was made 
available, after the hearings, where you could hear the legal arguments and questions from the Justices. 

The proceedings were many and frequent.  Later, I plan to post a summarized timeline as to what
each court case's history consisted of from first filing to final judgment.  A lot was done in parallel,
so it will be a while to gather my notes and post this info.

For now, because my summary will involve the highest court levels, I will not include all litigation.
For a relatively complete list of the election 2000 court documents you can download, visit the
CNN Law Library, or the C-Span Law Library.

For the election cases that went to the U.S. Supreme Court, I have downloaded the petitions for
Certiorari, the Writs of Certiorari granted, the argument briefs of opposing Litigation teams, and
the Orders and Opinions of the Justices. You can also download these at the above cited websites.
These are copies of the actual Legal Documents used throughout the various stages of litigation. 
There were no jury trials. All were handled in courts where the judges or justices therein provided
the sole hearings and judgments.

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