Presidential Election Trials: 2000

Friday, November 10

Complete in all but one county, recounts now gave Bush a lead of just 327. The Democrats formally requested manual recounts in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, and Volusia counties, all four of which voted heavily Democratic.

Saturday, November 11

Palm Beach County announced it would manually recount all 462,657 ballots cast there. Bush sued in U.S. District Court in Miami to halt the manual counting. His lawyers argued that voters would not be treated equally (the Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment guarantees everyone equal protection of voting rights) because no uniform standard governs hand counts.

Monday, November 13

Judge Donald Middlebrooks rejected the Bush contention, declaring that election mechanics are a state, not federal, issue. Now Florida election officials announced that they would certify the statewide results, except for overseas absentee ballots, by 5:00 P.M. next day. The Gore campaign, along with Palm Beach and Volusia counties, immediately sued to extend that deadline.

Tuesday, November 14

Leon County Circuit Court judge Terry P. Lewis upheld the official deadline but said Florida's Republican secretary of state Katherine Harris was not to disregard hand recounts that might arrive after the deadline.

Broward County Circuit Court judge John Miller refused to grant an injunction, sought by Republican lawyers, to keep Broward County from conducting a manual recount. A recount of machine votes and of Volusia County's hand ballots put Bush ahead by 300 votes. At 5:00 P.M., the secretary of state certified this result but said it did not include overseas absentee ballots legally entitled to arrive later. She also gave counties doing hand counts until 2:00 P.M. next day to revise their results.