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The Dispute of Chad
The dispute of chad, not the guy next door

   Presidential races usually heat up the year before the any given presidential election, and this story is no different. The year was 1999; the National Republican Convention had nominated George W. Bush, who was the 46th governor of the state of Texas to be a presidential nominee, and to be up against the Democratic candidate. The National Democratic Convention had nominated Albert Gore Jr. to be a contender for the presidents' seat. Albert Gore is known as Al Gore, the Vice President of the United States, under the Clinton Administration. Everyone knew that this was going to be a close election but no one knew just how close it would be.
   Election Day 2000 happened to fall on November 7th. As time zones neared 8 o'clock, and election precincts closed, ballots were still continuing to be counted, Al Gore had received electoral votes from 20 states and the national capital; the states included in this were California, Connecticut, Washington D.C., Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Minnesota, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin (Encyclopedia: U.S. presidential election, 2000). On the other hand Republican candidate George W. Bush received electoral votes from 29 states; the states included were Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Al Gore's home state of Tennessee, George W. Bush's home state of Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming (Encyclopedia: U.S. presidential election, 2000). The only state that was still undecided about their electoral votes was the state of Florida.
   Gore had received 266 votes and Bush had received 246 votes. Florida's Electoral College has 25 votes so who ever had the most popular vote in Florida would win the 25 electoral votes and would become the winner of the presidential election, everyone thought by night's end it would be settled. All night long on major news channels such as ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and Fox News Channel, they had been reporting that the votes of Florida had went to Gore but soon they took that back and said that the votes went to Bush and this was continuous through the night (The 2000 Presidential Elections), because no one knew for sure who the votes would go to, it was too close to call. As many time zones neared bedtime, many Americans watched and waited, I myself was one of those people. I would have to wait days for the outcome to be settled. It was not until December 14th 2000, that the Florida Electoral Commission gave their votes to George W. Bush.
   In order to completely understand how Election Day works you need to know some terminology and how the punch hole voting machine works.
  In the poorer slums of Florida they used what is called a punch hole ballot machine, for the 2000 elections. There are five parts to this machine; first there is the stand. The stand is basically a plastic case with wings that unfold to create three sides. The second part of the machine is the votomatic. The votomatic holds the ballot and a book that tells the voter, which, punch hole is for each candidate. The votomatic has corresponding locations on the ballot where the holes can be punched for each candidate. The third thing is the ballot and that is the official voting ballot that you get from the official when you are ready to vote. The fourth piece is the stylus and that is a pen like tool used to punch out a chad, I will explain what a chad is in a minute. The fifth piece is the ballot can, and the voter really has not officially voted until you have placed the ballot in the can (I've Seen Chads).
   A chad is a tiny bit of paper left by the stylus after a hole is punched, kind of like the little round papers that come out of a hole punchers, when you punch a hole in a paper (Encyclopedia: Chad paper).
  There are seven types of chad, which election officials have given names to. There is the punched chad, which is a chad that is completely punched out and free from the ballot, thus making the ballot official that you have voted for that particular candidate. A punch ballot machine can usually hold up to one million of these little chad. A hanging chad is a chad that only one corner remains in tacked to the ballot, there is also a swinging chad in which two corners remain in tacked to the ballot. A tri chad is a chad that is still attached to the ballot in 3 areas, thus calling it a tri. A pregnant and dimpled chad, are basically the same things, they both are chad that only has an indentation slightly and is still fully attached to the ballot; it looks almost like a pinhole (What is a Chad).
  The whole election dispute was based on the idea that in several counties in Florida, mainly the slum regions of the state, the voting machines disenfranchised the voters (The Butterfly Ballots and Chad). The slums of the region had received punch hole ballot machines from the more economically richer areas. The punch hole voting machines have been around since the early 1960's and were created by IBM, thus these richer areas gave their machines to the slums when the wealthier areas updated their systems. This is what caused the election dispute between the presidential candidates. The dispute went to the Florida Supreme Court and eventually the Supreme Court of the United States.
  On November 8th, 2000 the Florida Division of Elections announced that Governor George W. Bush had received 2,909,135 votes and Vice President Al Gore had received 2,907,351 votes, because of the overall difference in the total votes cast for each candidate was less that one half of one percent of the total votes cast for that spot in office an automatic recount was conducted (The 2000 Presidential Elections). Because of the closeness of the election on November 7th, 2000, Al Gore requested a manual hand count of presidential ballots in Volusia, Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties; this was completely legal under the state constitution of Florida (The 2000 Presidential Elections).
  On November 11th, George W. Bush's legal team, headed by Former Secretary of State James Baker, filed a suit in federal court.  The object of this motion was to stop the manual recounting of Florida ballots. Bush's team felt that only ballots with chads clearly punched could be read and thus should be the only ones that counted. Supporters of Gore, however, felt that the style of the ballot confused some voters. Since Al Gore's name was underneath Bush's, and that Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan's punch hole was on the other side of the ballot, there may have been voters who intended to vote for Gore but punched the hole for Buchanan (Election 2000 Legal Dispute Timeline).
  On November 13th, the Florida Secretary of State, Katherine Harris issued a statement that said she would ignore the returns of the manual recounts. Also that same day U.S. District Judge Middlebrooks refused to stop the manual recounts in Florida (Election 2000 Legal Dispute Timeline).
  The next day, November 14th, George W. Bush and his legal team appeal Judge Middlebrooks ruling to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, Georgia. Also that same day the Secretary of State Harris set a deadline for the next day, at 2pm for counties seeking to recount ballots to submit a written justification. On November 15th, the Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to hear George W. Bushs' appeal, thus causing the secretary of state to try to halt the manual recounts, but the Florida Supreme Court denied it (Election 2000 Legal Dispute Timeline).
  On November 16th, Gores' legal team filed papers in state court to stop Secretary of State Katherine Harris from certifying the results until the manual recount had been completed; this bought Gore and his people, time to try to gain back the presidency. The Florida Supreme Court issued that the counties in Florida could proceed with the manual hand counts (Election 2000 Legal Dispute Timeline).
  On November 17th, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied Bushs' request to stop the manual hand counting in Florida, basically that would win the election was going to be based on the hand counting on the ballots, and each candidate knew that (Election 2000 Legal Dispute Timeline).
  Then three days later, on November 20th, the Florida Supreme Court held oral arguments of whether Secretary of State Harris should consider hand recounted ballots before she certified the results (Election 2000 Legal Dispute Timeline). At this time; I think many Americans like myself wanted this to be over, everyone had a feeling that George W. Bush, would be the next president, but Al Gore would just not give up and concede the election.
  The next day, the Florida Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the state election officials must include the results of the manual hand counted ballots, in the finial presidential tally. Thus the next days approached when the idea of "chad" came into play. It was November 22nd, and Palm Beach County Judge LaBraga ruled that election officials must also consider dimpled chad ballots. That same day Miami-Dade counties stopped the recount of the ballots. George W. Bush petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court and asked them to block the Florida Court decision that allowed hand counts. Whoever had the most votes in the hand count would be president. On the next day the Florida Supreme Court ordered the Miami-Dade counties to resume there recounting of the ballots (Election 2000 Legal Dispute Timeline).
  Then on November 24th, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the appeal of George W. Bush. On November 26th, Secretary of State Harris announced that the new certified vote totaled a 537-vote lead for George W. Bush. Al Gore, then the next day contested the election in Leon County Court. If that was not bad enough Gore and his legal team asked a judge in Leon County to have an immediate recount of 14,000 disputed ballots, the majority of these ballots had dimpled and pregnant chad (Election 2000 Legal Dispute Timeline).
  The month of November ended and December began, with no hope in sight. On the first of December the United States Supreme Court heard the first oral argument of the case, that same day the Florida Supreme Court, rejected the request for Democrats to order another hand count of ballots in the Miami-Dade regions (Election 2000 Legal Dispute Timeline).
     On December 4th, in Leon County Judge Sauls, ruled that the vote tally for Nassau County should remain unchanged and that the hand recounts of disputed ballots are not needed in Palm Beach and Miami-Dade Counties (Election 2000 Legal Dispute Timeline).
     On December 6th the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals denied George W. Bush's request for an injunction to stop manual recounts in four Florida counties, thus giving Gore a slightly bigger lead. Then on December 8th the Florida Supreme Court overturned the lower courts decision to reject Gore's request for a recount of the "under" votes in a few Florida counties. The Florida Supreme Court ordered that the recounts had to begin immediately again (Election 2000 Legal Dispute Timeline).
  On December 9th the U.S. Supreme Court stayed the Florida recount. United States Supreme Court Justice Scalia, in a concurring opinion, wrote "the counting of votes that are of questionable legality does in my view threaten irreparable harm to petitioner, and to the country, by casting a cloud upon what he claims to be the legitimacy of his election. Count first, and rule upon legality afterwards, is not a recipe for producing election results that have the public acceptance democratic stability requires (Florida Election Cases-U.S. Supreme Court)." Justice Stevens wrote in his descent: "Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation's confidence in the judges as an impartial guardian of the rule of law (Florida Election Cases-U.S. Supreme Court)."
  Thus the recount was almost over, then on December 12th the Florida Supreme Court rejected two lawsuits that sought to disqualify thousands of absentee ballots in Seminole and Martin Counties. Then the United States Supreme Court reversed the ruling of the Florida Supreme Court in Gore vs. Harris. The recounts were over and George W. Bush became president elect Bush, though it was not finalized until December 14th 2000 (Election 2000 Legal Dispute Timeline).
  I have a little theory about the presidential election of 2000. I personally think that the reason Al Gore and the Democratic Party pushed so hard and kept going back to court is because Al Gore and the Democrats did not trust the authenticity of the Florida's Electoral College because the governor of Florida is none other then George W. Bush's younger brother Jeb Bush. Jeb Bush like his brother George is a great Republican. In George W. Bush's book "A Charge to Keep" written before the presidential election Jeb had promised that the Florida Electoral Votes would go to his brother and help make him president, thus in the end they did. I also believe it ticked off Gore extremely when his home state, of Tennessee voted for George W. Bush and not him. Americans today are more conservative and Bush brings out the best in America and what America really stands for; something Gore could not have done, no matter how hard he tried.
     On December 14th, 2000, Al Gore conceded the election and it was official that George W. Bush had become the next President of the United States. George W. Bush gave a victory speech at the Texas House of Representatives where he said, "I was not elected to serve one party, but to serve one nation. The president of the United States is the president of every single American, of every race and every background. Whether you voted for me or not, I will do my best to serve your interests and I will work to earn your respect. I will be guided by President Jefferson's sense of purpose, to stand for principle, to be reasonable in manner, and above all, to do great good for the cause of freedom and harmony. The presidency is more than an honor. It is more than an office. It is a charge to keep, and I will give it my all (George W. Bush: 2000 Victory Speech)."
     On January 20th 2001, in a gloomy Washington D.C. in front of hundreds of thousands of people, including his family members, George W. Bush took the oath of presidency, swearing on the family bible; he said the following: "I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, so help me God (The Campaign Trail)."