2000 Election Of 2000 Case Study

The presidential election in 2000 was between George W. Bush and Al Gore Jr. When Gore lost to Bush in Florida he demanded a hand count. The state of Florida discounted 175,000 ballots that were cast “improperly.” Those ballots mostly came from African- American districts. After Gore discovered that some ballots “were disqualified for ‘over votes,’ selecting too many candidates, while others had incomplete punches,” (108), he went to the Florida State Supreme Court to review the “undercounted” ballots. That led to Bush’s attorneys appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court. The case revolved around voting rights and the Equal Protection Clause because not everyone’s votes were being counted. In the Summary of the 2000 Election it is stated that votes from the African-American districts were not counted. Those votes should have been counted if they were properly casted because

This decision showed that even though African-Americans can vote, their vote was not always counted. This caused people to stand up and fight back for their rights that are stated in the 14th Amendment, and protected by the Equal Protection Clause. Eventually the state of Florida stopped going against the two contracts by not counting votes by making excuses that they are “bad votes.” The states started counting votes from other races, and still do today. No matter who won the election of 2000, Florida should have counted all of the properly submitted votes from the African-Americans. Not counting those votes goes against the 14th Amendment, which states that citizens of the United States shall not be deprived of their rights or of equal protection from the law. It does not follow the Equal Protection Clause either, which implies about the same thing. Even though the African-American votes did not count then, they eventually start to be