Support NeoGAF

[Trojita]

In a 5-4 decision they literally changed the course of American History.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_v._Gore

Noting that the Equal Protection clause guarantees individuals that their ballots cannot be devalued by "later arbitrary and disparate treatment," the per curiam opinion held 7-2 that the Florida Supreme Court's scheme for recounting ballots was unconstitutional. Even if the recount was fair in theory, it was unfair in practice. The record suggested that different standards were applied from ballot to ballot, precinct to precinct, and county to county. Because of those and other procedural difficulties, the court held, 5 to 4, that no constitutional recount could be fashioned in the time remaining (which was short because the Florida legislature wanted to take advantage of the "safe harbor" provided by 3 USC Section 5).

Loathe to make broad precedents, the per curiam opinion limited its holding to the present case. Rehnquist (in a concurring opinion joined by Scalia and Thomas) argued that the recount scheme was also unconstitutional because the Florida Supreme Court's decision made new election law, which only the state legislature may do. Breyer and Souter (writing separately) agreed with the per curiam holding that the Florida Court's recount scheme violated the Equal Protection Clause, but they dissented with respect to the remedy, believing that a constitutional recount could be fashioned. Time is insubstantial when constitutional rights are at stake. Ginsburg and Stevens (writing separately) argued that for reasons of federalism, the Florida Supreme Court's decision ought to be respected. Moreover, the Florida decision was fundamentally right; the Constitution requires that every vote be counted.

They basically ruled by a 7-2 decision that all votes need to be treated equally and then in a 5-4 decision decided "Fuck actually counting them" because there isn't enough time.

Who decided against the recount?
William H. Rehnquist
Sandra Day O'Connor
Antonin Scalia
Anthony M. Kennedy
Clarence Thomas

Who decided for the recount?
John Paul Stevens
David H. Souter
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Stephen G. Breyer

The NORC Consortium Study also found that the actual statewide Florida recount with disputed ballots containing overvotes (where a voter hole-punches multiple candidates but writes out the name of their intended candidate) would have resulted in Gore emerging as the victor by between 60 and 171 votes, if the Supreme Court had not stopped the recount.

That's how terrifying the future of The Supreme Court is.

Need I remind you this doesn't even factor in the people that voted for 1 candidate by accident due to the fuck up of the Butterfly Ballot where no matter what Bush would likely have little to no loss votes while Gore would have plenty that either double voted (which the recount could check but not 100% verify every person's intent if they didn't right down the candidate or the people that voted once thinking they voted Democrat but didn't realize they clicked on (likely) the Reform Party.

Seriously look at these monstrosities if you forgot them

Then you are thinking could it get worse?

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/12/us/examining-vote-method-consortium-organizations-conducted-ballot-review.html

The subsequent analysis revealed that black-majority precincts had three times as many rejected ballots as white precincts. "For minorities, the ballot survey found, a recount would not have redressed the inequities because most ballots were beyond retrieving. But a recount could have restored the votes of thousands of older voters whose dimpled and double-voted ballots were indecipherable to machines but would have been clear in a ballot-by-ballot review." The ballot review later conducted by a consortium of news organization did not have access to these decisive ballots, which in many cases had disappeared and could not be produced.

 

[Maengun1]

Yeah, the court is fucked.

It's totally crazy, because for the last 16 years I never got over this. I've been stewing about the 2000 election fuckery, this SC decision, and Gore winning the popular vote for s i x t e e n y e a r s. I thought it would be *the* political tragedy of my lifetime.

And now it happened again weeeeeeeeeeeeee. I'm still having "....holy fucking shit" moments wash over me several times a day.

 

[Dishwalla]

The fact that something like this has happened twice in the last 20 years is indicative of the system being very flawed. But nothing is going to change, not any time soon.

 

[Yaphett Kotto]

Yeah, the court is fucked.

It's totally crazy, because for the last 16 years I never got over this. I've been stewing about the 2000 election fuckery, this SC decision, and Gore winning the popular vote for s i x t e e n y e a r s. I thought it would be *the* political tragedy of my lifetime.

And now it happened again weeeeeeeeeeeeee. I'm still having "....holy fucking shit" moments wash over me several times a day.

Yea that's my feelings on it ever since I've been looking at past elections.

The worst part is that we will continue to let this happen.

 

[NimbusD]

The fact that something like this has happened twice in the last 20 years is indicative of the system being very flawed. But nothing is going to change, not any time soon.

Elections are going to continue to be stolen. Donald Trump was right about one thing.. shit's rigged. Or at least they do everything in their power to make it that way. Can't even fucking stop gerrymandering, how are we going to stop disenfranchisement laws and counting of ballots where there just haaaaaaaaaappens to be three times as many black ballots thrown out as others? (only to have the fucking voting rights act thrown out a handful of years later...)

All this with the electoral college... we're essentially being held hostage.

 

[Tall4Life]

Numerous researchers concluded that more people in Florida actually voted for Bush. It was a dumb decision by the SC but the end result would've been the same. Gore lost Florida.

 

[jfkgoblue]

Elections are going to continue to be stolen. Donald Trump was right about one thing.. shit's rigged. Or at least they do everything in their power to make it that way. Can't even fucking stop gerrymandering, how are we going to stop disenfranchisement laws and counting of ballots where there just haaaaaaaaaappens to be three times as many black ballots thrown out as others? (only to have the fucking voting rights act thrown out a handful of years later...)

All this with the electoral college... we're essentially being held hostage.

Gerrymandering is not exclusive to Republicans, it was gerrymandered in favor of Dems before 2010, and some states like California are heavily gerrymandered in the Dems favor.

The electoral college is never going away, and these continual posts about it is getting really old, they just make everyone angry all over again about something we can't control.

 

[Crayon]

I was getting very into politics and civics in during that election and these revelation caused me to not vote for years after. I was just heartbroken.

 

[MaulerX]

Not for nothing but people like to ignore (or they're simply not aware) that Gore sort of fucked himself by initially only requesting a hand recount on 4 heavily Democratic counties in Florida. Bush argued that it was a violation of the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause to only do a recount on 4 counties (giving these ballots special scrutiny was not fair to the rest of the state). By the time Gore realized this and asked for a state wide recount, it was too late.

They basically ruled by a 7-2 decision that all votes need to be treated equally

They agreed with Bush.

and then in a 5-4 decision decided "Fuck actually counting them" because there isn't enough time.

This was after Gore realized he fucked up and then asked for a state wide recount.

 

[rec0ded1]

Yeah, the court is fucked.

It's totally crazy, because for the last 16 years I never got over this. I've been stewing about the 2000 election fuckery, this SC decision, and Gore winning the popular vote for s i x t e e n y e a r s. I thought it would be *the* political tragedy of my lifetime.

And now it happened again weeeeeeeeeeeeee. I'm still having "....holy fucking shit" moments wash over me several times a day.

Nice to know I'm not the only one that never got over it.

 

[Aaron Strife]

Yeah, the court is fucked.

It's totally crazy, because for the last 16 years I never got over this. I've been stewing about the 2000 election fuckery, this SC decision, and Gore winning the popular vote for s i x t e e n y e a r s. I thought it would be *the* political tragedy of my lifetime.

And now it happened again weeeeeeeeeeeeee. I'm still having "....holy fucking shit" moments wash over me several times a day.

I feel you man.

I'm going to take bitterness over Trump "winning" while Clinton builds her popular vote lead (1.7 mil currently, over 2.5 mil by Dave Wasserman's estimate once all the votes are in) with me to the fucking grave.

Unless the national popular vote compact passes in the near future or some similar adjustment to the EC.

Actually, no, still then. Fuck this.

 

[Acerac]

Gerrymandering is not exclusive to Republicans, it was gerrymandered in favor of Dems before 2010, and some states like California are heavily gerrymandered in the Dems favor.

The electoral college is never going away, and these continual posts about it is getting really old, they just make everyone angry all over again about something we can't control.

The fact that Democrats also use gerrymandering to their advantage doesn't make it less annoying.

 

[eyeball_kid]

Gore v Bush ranks up there with Citizens United as one of the most unconstitutional decisions in modern times. I still remember that feeling well of being absolutely shit on by the court that was supposed to Do The Right Thing.

Now I'm feeling that feeling every hour.

 

[OrangeGrayBlue]

Yeah, the court is fucked.

It's totally crazy, because for the last 16 years I never got over this. I've been stewing about the 2000 election fuckery, this SC decision, and Gore winning the popular vote for s i x t e e n y e a r s. I thought it would be *the* political tragedy of my lifetime.

And now it happened again weeeeeeeeeeeeee. I'm still having "....holy fucking shit" moments wash over me several times a day.

Except Hillary's lead is close to quadruple what Gore's was.

 

[Aaron Strife]

Gore v Bush ranks up there with Citizens United as one of the most unconstitutional decisions in modern times. I still remember that feeling well of being absolutely shit on by the court that was supposed to Do The Right Thing.

Now I'm feeling that feeling every hour.

I think it says a lot about Bush v Gore that the Court was pretty much like "This doesn't set precedent, don't apply this to anything else"

 

[Eidan]

Elections are going to continue to be stolen. Donald Trump was right about one thing.. shit's rigged. Or at least they do everything in their power to make it that way. Can't even fucking stop gerrymandering, how are we going to stop disenfranchisement laws and counting of ballots where there just haaaaaaaaaappens to be three times as many black ballots thrown out as others? (only to have the fucking voting rights act thrown out a handful of years later...)

All this with the electoral college... we're essentially being held hostage.

Gerrymandering? Ha. The GOP is currently trying to steal the North Carolina gubernatorial vote they legitimately lost, and they'll likely get away with it because they have the legislative numbers to circumvent the will of the people.

 

[StayDead]

Wow, imagine if Gore had actually won. The last 16 years of conflict in the middle east would look vastly different.

The illegal war on Iraq probably wouldn't have happened and ISIS probably wouldn't have come to power in the way they did.

 

[Renekton]

Wow, imagine if Gore had actually won. The last 16 years of conflict in the middle east would look vastly different.

The illegal war on Iraq probably wouldn't have happened and ISIS probably wouldn't have come to power in the way they did.

Climate change less dire too