FrontPage

Nation

World

Media

Culture

Technology

Commentary

Gore Concedes Presidential Election

December 19, 2000

America's long national nightmare finally came to an end on December 12 as Vice President Al Gore conceded the 2000 presidential election to Texas Governor George W. Bush. Gore's concession ended his legal challenges to an election that was held five weeks earlier on November 7. "Tonight, for the sake of our unity of the people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession," Gore said in televised address. Gore's concession came after more than a month of legal challenges failed to overturn Bush's victory in the Nov. 7 election.

Gore's belated concession came on the heels of a ruling by the United States Supreme Court which halted an order by the Florida Supreme Court mandating a second statewide recount. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that since the Florida court's order to conduct a second state-wide recount could not be completed by the state's deadline of December 12, it violated the U.S. Constitution's requirement that the legislature (not the court) provide for the means of choosing electors. By a 5-4 margin, the U.S. Supreme Court also ruled that the Florida court's decision violated the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution since it required canvassing boards to subjectively determine from marred ballots what the voter's intent was.

The initial election results from the November 7 election showed Bush leading Gore by 926 votes in Florida. With Florida's 25 electoral votes, Bush has 271 electoral votes, one more than the 270 required to win. However, Bush's narrow margin of victory in Florida required a mandatory recount under state law. The recount, conducted over the next two days, narrowed Bush's lead to 300 votes. On November 9, Gore asked for a hand recount of the ballots cast in Palm Beach, Miami-Dade, and Broward counties. The three counties are Democratic strongholds. Insisting that "every vote must count," Gore asked that the county canvassing boards divine by visual inspection the "intent of the voter." By hand counting in only Democratic counties, Gore expected to find more uncounted Gore votes than uncounted Bush votes.

However, this second recount failed to give Gore enough votes to overtake Bush's lead, which with the inclusion of overseas absentee ballots had widened to 537 votes by the time the vote count was certified by the Florida Secretary of State on November 26th. Gore then filed an election contest to force a third recount. Florida Circuit Court Judge N. Sanders Saul, after hearing arguments, rejected Gore's request on December 4. However, Florida Supreme Court ruled on December 8 by a vote of 4-3 to overturn Saul's ruling, and ordered another state-wide recount. By the time the U.S. Supreme Court ruled soon became apparent that the recount could not be completed by the December 12 deadline for selecting electors.

The Electors met in the state capitols on December 18 to cast their votes. Although there had been some move by Gore supporters to try to get Bush electors to switch their votes to Gore, all 271 Bush electors cast their votes for Bush, giving him one more vote than necessary to be elected. One District of Columbia elector who left her ballot blank as a protest against the district's lack of congressional representation, so the final tally was Bush 271 to Gore's 266.

Search the Web.

Spin Cycle
Inside the Clinton Propaganda Machine
Howard Kurtz
In Spin Cycle Howard Kurtz reveals the inside workings of Clinton's well-oiled propaganda machine - arguably the most successful team of White House spin doctors in history.