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2000 United States presidential election in Florida

Main article: 2000 United States presidential election

The 2000 United States presidential election in Florida took place on November 7, 2000, as part of the nationwide presidential election. Florida, a swing state, had a major recount dispute that took center stage in the election. The outcome of the 2000 United States presidential election was not known for more than a month after balloting because of the extended process of counting and recounting Florida's presidential ballots. State results tallied on election night gave 246 electoral votes to Republican nominee Texas Governor George W. Bush and 255 to Democratic nominee Vice President Al Gore, with New Mexico (5), Oregon (7), and Florida (25) too close to call that evening. Gore won New Mexico and Oregon over the following few days, but the result in Florida was decisive, regardless of how those two states had voted.

2000 United States presidential election in Florida
← 1996 November 7, 2000 2004 →
Turnout70% Increase[1]
 
Nominee George W. Bush Al Gore
Party Republican Democratic
Home state Texas Tennessee
Running mate Dick Cheney Joe Lieberman
Electoral vote 25 0
Popular vote 2,912,790 2,912,253
Percentage 48.847% 48.838%
President before election

Bill Clinton
Democratic

Elected President

George W. Bush
Republican

After an intense recount process and the United States Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore, Bush won Florida's electoral votes by a margin of only 537 votes out of almost six million cast (0.009%) and, as a result, became the president-elect. The process was extremely divisive and led to calls for electoral reform in Florida. Bush became the first Republican to win the White House without carrying Palm Beach County since the county's founding in 1909. If Gore had won the recount, then he would have won the election with a total of 292 electoral votes, and Bush would have lost with 246 electoral votes. Post-election analysis has found that Palm Beach County's butterfly ballot misdirected over 2,000 votes from Gore to third-party candidate Pat Buchanan, tipping Florida—and the election—to Bush.[2]

The final official Florida count gave the victory to Bush by 537 votes, making it by percentage not only the closest state of the election (New Mexico was decided by 366 votes but has a much smaller population, representing a 0.061% margin), but also the closest of any state in any United States presidential election ever.[a] This was the closest margin in any tipping point state in history, surpassing the record of the 1876 United States presidential election in South Carolina.

As of the 2024 presidential election, this is the last election in which the Democratic candidate won Pasco County and Hernando County.[3] It was also the first time the Democratic candidate won Orange County since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944. This county, along with Charles County, Maryland, were the only two Gore flipped from the previous election.[4]

Campaign

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Initially, Florida had been considered fertile territory for Republicans. It was governed by Jeb Bush, a staunch conservative[5] and George W. Bush's brother. Nonetheless, Republicans put significant advertising resources into the state, and later polls indicated that the state was very much in play as late as September 2000.[6] Some late momentum for Gore and his Jewish running mate Joe Lieberman may have come from southern Florida's significant Jewish population.[7] Voters from reliably Democratic states in the Northeast had also been migrating to Florida since the 1950s. The state's electorate was becoming more diverse in general, with growing Asian and Hispanic immigrant populations.

Meanwhile, there was a heavy backlash in the Cuban-American population against Democrats during the Elian Gonzalez dispute, during which Janet Reno, President Bill Clinton's Attorney General, ordered the six-year-old Cuban refugee to be returned to Cuba. The Democrats' share of the Cuban-American vote dropped dramatically after 1996.[8]

In late October, one poll found that Gore was leading Bush and third parties by 44–42–4 among registered voters and 46–42–4 among likely voters, but that poll had a margin of error of four percentage points, making the race too close to call.[9]

On election day itself, the extent of the mix-ups in the electoral rolls was such that "in a number of precincts in Florida's inner cities, the polling locations were heavily fortified with police."[10]

Results

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2000 United States presidential election in Florida[11][12]
Party Candidate Running mate Votes Percentage Electoral votes
Republican George W. Bush Dick Cheney 2,912,790 48.847% 25
Democratic Al Gore Joe Lieberman 2,912,253 48.838% 0
Green Ralph Nader Winona LaDuke 97,488 1.64% 0
Reform Patrick Buchanan Ezola Foster 17,484 0.29% 0
Libertarian Harry Browne Art Olivier 16,415 0.28% 0
Natural Law John Hagelin Nat Goldhaber 2,281 0.04% 0
Workers World Monica Moorehead Gloria La Riva 1,804 0.03% 0
Constitution Howard Phillips Curtis Frazier 1,371 0.02% 0
Socialist David McReynolds Mary Cal Hollis 622 0.01% 0
Socialist Workers James Harris Margaret Trowe 562 0.01% 0
Write-in 36 <0.01% —
Totals 5,963,110 100.00% 25

Florida was the second of the 50 states (after Louisiana) to report its official results to the federal government (in a Certificate of Ascertainment submitted to the National Archivist, the manner prescribed for presidential elections).

Results by county

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County George W. Bush
Republican 		Al Gore
Democratic 		Ralph Nader
Green 		Pat Buchanan
Reform 		Various candidates
Other parties 		Margin Total
# % # % # % # % # % # %
Alachua 34,135 39.80% 47,380 55.25% 3,228 3.76% 263 0.31% 751 0.88% -13,245 -15.45% 85,757
Baker 5,611 68.80% 2,392 29.33% 53 0.65% 73 0.90% 26 0.32% 3,219 39.47% 8,155
Bay 38,682 65.70% 18,873 32.06% 830 1.41% 248 0.42% 243 0.41% 19,809 33.64% 58,876
Bradford 5,416 62.43% 3,075 35.45% 84 0.97% 65 0.75% 35 0.40% 2,341 26.98% 8,675
Brevard 115,253 52.75% 97,341 44.55% 4,471 2.05% 571 0.26% 852 0.39% 17,912 8.20% 218,488
Broward 177,939 30.93% 387,760 67.41% 7,105 1.24% 795 0.14% 1,640 0.29% -209,821 -36.48% 575,239
Calhoun 2,873 55.52% 2,156 41.66% 39 0.75% 90 1.74% 17 0.33% 717 13.86% 5,175
Charlotte 35,428 52.96% 29,646 44.31% 1,462 2.19% 182 0.27% 182 0.27% 5,782 8.65% 66,900
Citrus 29,801 52.06% 25,531 44.60% 1,383 2.42% 270 0.47% 263 0.46% 4,270 7.46% 57,248
Clay 41,903 72.80% 14,668 25.48% 565 0.98% 186 0.32% 237 0.41% 27,235 47.32% 57,559
Collier 60,467 65.58% 29,939 32.47% 1,405 1.52% 122 0.13% 269 0.29% 30,528 33.11% 92,202
Columbia 10,968 59.24% 7,049 38.07% 258 1.39% 89 0.48% 150 0.81% 3,919 21.17% 18,514
DeSoto 4,256 54.48% 3,321 42.51% 157 2.01% 36 0.46% 42 0.54% 935 11.97% 7,812
Dixie 2,697 57.79% 1,827 39.15% 75 1.61% 29 0.62% 39 0.84% 870 18.64% 4,667
Duval 152,460 57.49% 108,039 40.74% 2,762 1.04% 653 0.25% 1,267 0.48% 44,421 16.75% 265,181
Escambia 73,171 62.62% 40,990 35.08% 1,733 1.48% 502 0.43% 460 0.39% 32,181 27.54% 116,856
Flagler 12,618 46.53% 13,897 51.25% 435 1.60% 83 0.31% 83 0.31% -1,279 -4.72% 27,116
Franklin 2,454 52.83% 2,047 44.07% 85 1.83% 33 0.71% 26 0.56% 407 8.76% 4,645
Gadsden 4,770 32.38% 9,736 66.09% 139 0.94% 38 0.26% 48 0.33% -4,966 -33.71% 14,731
Gilchrist 3,300 61.17% 1,910 35.40% 97 1.80% 29 0.54% 59 1.09% 1,390 25.77% 5,395
Glades 1,841 54.71% 1,442 42.85% 56 1.66% 9 0.27% 17 0.51% 399 11.86% 3,365
Gulf 3,553 57.79% 2,398 39.00% 86 1.40% 71 1.15% 40 0.65% 1,155 18.79% 6,148
Hamilton 2,147 54.14% 1,723 43.44% 37 0.93% 23 0.58% 36 0.91% 424 10.70% 3,966
Hardee 3,765 60.38% 2,342 37.56% 75 1.20% 30 0.48% 24 0.38% 1,423 22.82% 6,236
Hendry 4,747 58.32% 3,240 39.81% 104 1.28% 22 0.27% 26 0.32% 1,507 18.51% 8,139
Hernando 30,658 47.00% 32,648 50.05% 1,501 2.30% 243 0.37% 186 0.29% -1,990 -3.05% 65,236
Highlands 20,207 57.48% 14,169 40.31% 545 1.55% 127 0.36% 104 0.30% 6,038 17.17% 35,152
Hillsborough 180,794 50.17% 169,576 47.06% 7,496 2.08% 847 0.24% 1,641 0.46% 11,218 3.11% 360,354
Holmes 5,012 67.77% 2,177 29.43% 94 1.27% 76 1.03% 37 0.50% 2,835 38.34% 7,396
Indian River 28,639 57.71% 19,769 39.84% 950 1.91% 105 0.21% 164 0.33% 8,870 17.87% 49,627
Jackson 9,139 56.06% 6,870 42.14% 138 0.85% 102 0.63% 54 0.33% 2,269 13.92% 16,303
Jefferson 2,478 43.91% 3,041 53.89% 76 1.35% 29 0.51% 19 0.34% -563 -9.98% 5,643
Lafayette 1,670 66.67% 789 31.50% 26 1.04% 10 0.40% 10 0.40% 881 35.17% 2,505
Lake 50,010 56.44% 36,571 41.27% 1,460 1.65% 289 0.33% 281 0.32% 13,439 15.17% 88,611
Lee 106,151 57.57% 73,571 39.90% 3,588 1.95% 305 0.17% 785 0.43% 32,580 17.67% 184,400
Leon 39,073 37.88% 61,444 59.57% 1,934 1.87% 282 0.27% 421 0.41% -22,371 -21.69% 103,154
Levy 6,863 53.91% 5,398 42.40% 285 2.24% 67 0.53% 117 0.92% 1,465 11.51% 12,730
Liberty 1,317 54.65% 1,017 42.20% 19 0.79% 39 1.62% 18 0.75% 300 12.45% 2,410
Madison 3,038 49.29% 3,015 48.92% 54 0.88% 29 0.47% 27 0.44% 23 0.37% 6,163
Manatee 58,023 52.58% 49,226 44.61% 2,494 2.26% 271 0.25% 330 0.30% 8,797 7.97% 110,344
Marion 55,146 53.55% 44,674 43.39% 1,810 1.76% 563 0.55% 778 0.76% 10,472 10.16% 102,971
Martin 33,972 54.78% 26,621 42.93% 1,118 1.80% 112 0.18% 193 0.31% 7,351 11.85% 62,016
Miami-Dade 289,574 46.29% 328,867 52.57% 5,355 0.86% 560 0.09% 1,196 0.19% -39,293 -6.28% 625,552
Monroe 16,063 47.39% 16,487 48.64% 1,090 3.22% 47 0.14% 208 0.61% -424 -1.25% 33,895
Nassau 16,408 68.98% 6,955 29.24% 253 1.06% 90 0.38% 81 0.34% 9,453 39.74% 23,787
Okaloosa 52,186 73.69% 16,989 23.99% 988 1.40% 268 0.38% 388 0.55% 35,197 49.70% 70,819
Okeechobee 5,057 51.32% 4,589 46.57% 131 1.33% 43 0.44% 34 0.35% 468 4.75% 9,854
Orange 134,531 48.02% 140,236 50.06% 3,879 1.38% 446 0.16% 1,063 0.38% -5,705 -2.04% 280,155
Osceola 26,237 47.11% 28,187 50.61% 733 1.32% 145 0.26% 388 0.70% -1,950 -3.50% 55,690
Palm Beach 152,964 35.31% 269,754 62.27% 5,566 1.28% 3,411 0.79% 1,527 0.35% -116,790 -26.96% 433,222
Pasco 68,607 48.05% 69,576 48.73% 3,394 2.38% 570 0.40% 622 0.44% -969 -0.68% 142,769
Pinellas 184,849 46.38% 200,657 50.35% 10,023 2.52% 1,013 0.25% 1,984 0.50% -15,808 -3.97% 398,526
Polk 90,310 53.56% 75,207 44.60% 2,059 1.22% 533 0.32% 520 0.31% 15,103 8.96% 168,629
Putnam 13,457 51.29% 12,107 46.14% 379 1.44% 148 0.56% 148 0.56% 1,350 5.15% 26,239
Santa Rosa 36,339 72.10% 12,818 25.43% 726 1.44% 311 0.62% 208 0.41% 23,521 46.67% 50,402
Sarasota 83,117 51.63% 72,869 45.27% 4,071 2.53% 305 0.19% 615 0.38% 10,248 6.36% 160,977
Seminole 75,790 55.00% 59,227 42.98% 1,949 1.41% 195 0.14% 644 0.47% 16,563 12.02% 137,805
St. Johns 39,564 65.10% 19,509 32.10% 1,217 2.00% 229 0.38% 252 0.41% 20,055 33.00% 60,771
St. Lucie 34,705 44.50% 41,560 53.29% 1,368 1.75% 124 0.16% 233 0.30% -6,855 -8.79% 77,990
Sumter 12,127 54.48% 9,637 43.29% 306 1.37% 114 0.51% 77 0.35% 2,490 11.19% 22,261
Suwannee 8,009 64.27% 4,076 32.71% 180 1.44% 108 0.87% 88 0.71% 3,933 31.56% 12,461
Taylor 4,058 59.59% 2,649 38.90% 59 0.87% 27 0.40% 17 0.25% 1,409 20.69% 6,810
Union 2,332 60.95% 1,407 36.77% 33 0.86% 37 0.97% 17 0.44% 925 24.18% 3,826
Volusia 82,368 44.84% 97,313 52.98% 2,910 1.58% 498 0.27% 585 0.32% -14,945 -8.14% 183,674
Wakulla 4,512 52.54% 3,838 44.70% 149 1.74% 46 0.54% 42 0.49% 674 7.84% 8,587
Walton 12,186 66.51% 5,643 30.80% 265 1.45% 120 0.65% 109 0.59% 6,543 35.71% 18,323
Washington 4,995 62.24% 2,798 34.86% 93 1.16% 88 1.10% 52 0.65% 2,197 27.38% 8,026
Totals 2,912,790 48.85% 2,912,253 48.84% 97,488 1.63% 17,484 0.29% 23,095 0.39% 537 0.01% 5,963,110

Counties that flipped from Democratic to Republican

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Counties that flipped from Republican to Democratic

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By congressional district

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Bush won 13 of 23 congressional districts. Gore won 10, including three that elected Republicans.[13][14]

District Bush Gore Representative
1st 68% 30% Joe Scarborough
2nd 48% 49% Allen Boyd
3rd 37% 62% Corrine Brown
4th 63% 35% Tillie K. Fowler
Ander Crenshaw
5th 46% 50% Karen Thurman
6th 58% 39% Cliff Stearns
7th 50% 48% John Mica
8th 53% 45% Bill McCollum
Ric Keller
9th 52% 45% Michael Bilirakis
10th 44% 53% Bill Young
11th 44% 53% Jim Davis
12th 55% 43% Charles Canady
Adam Putnam
13th 52% 45% Dan Miller
14th 59% 38% Porter Goss
15th 53% 44% Dave Weldon
16th 46% 52% Mark Foley
17th 15% 84% Carrie Meek
18th 61% 38% Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
19th 30% 69% Robert Wexler
20th 36% 63% Peter Deutsch
21st 62% 37% Lincoln Diaz-Balart
22nd 39% 58% E. Clay Shaw Jr.
23rd 19% 79% Alcee Hastings

Electors

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Main article: List of 2000 United States presidential electors

Technically, the voters of Florida cast their ballots for electors, representatives to the Electoral College. In 2000, Florida was allocated 25 electors because it had 23 congressional districts and 2 senators. All candidates who appear on the ballot or qualify to receive write-in votes must submit a list of 25 electors who pledge to vote for their candidate and his or her running mate. Whoever wins the most votes in the state is awarded all 25 electoral votes. Their chosen electors then vote for president and vice president. Although electors are pledged to their candidate and running mate, they are not obligated to vote for them. An elector who votes for someone other than his or her candidate is known as a faithless elector.

The electors of each state and the District of Columbia met on December 18, 2000,[15] to cast their votes for president and vice president. The Electoral College itself never meets as one body. Instead, the electors from each state and the District of Columbia met in their respective capitols.

The following were the members of the Electoral College from the state. All were pledged to and voted for George W. Bush and Dick Cheney:[16]

  1. Alred S. Austin
  2. Deborah L. Brooks
  3. Armando Codina
  4. Maria De La Milera
  5. Sandra M. Faulkner
  6. Thomas C. Feeney III
  7. Feliciano M. Foyo
  8. Jeanne Barber Godwin
  9. Dawn Guzzetta
  10. Cynthia M. Handley
  11. Adam W. Herbert
  12. Al Hoffman
  13. Glenda E. Hood
  14. Carole Jean Jordan
  15. Charles W. Kane
  16. Mel Martinez
  17. John M. McKay
  18. Dorsey C. Miller
  19. Berta J. Moralejo
  20. H. Gary Morse
  21. Marsha Nippert
  22. Darryl K. Sharpton
  23. Tom Slade
  24. John Thrasher
  25. Robert L. Woody

Analysis

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Background

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See also: Florida Central Voter File

Election fairness was a major problem known to Floridians in the 1990s; for example, the 1997 Miami mayoral election was tainted by scandal.[17] According to The Palm Beach Post, "State lawmakers decided to weed out felons and other ineligible voters in 1998 after a Miami mayoral election was overturned because votes had been cast by the convicted and the dead."[18]

This initiative occurred without sufficient protection of voting rights. In particular, from summer 1999 to spring 2000, Florida's voter list was subject to an unusually high number of problems. "The state's highest officials responsible for ensuring efficiency, uniformity, and fairness in the election failed to fulfill their responsibilities."[19] The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights found that an "overall lack of leadership in protecting voting rights was largely responsible for the broad array of problems in Florida during the 2000 election."[19]

Michael Moore in his 2001 book Stupid White Men described allegations of efforts to deny black citizens in Florida the right to vote. As a result of the state's contract with Database Technologies, "173,000 registered voters in Florida were permanently wiped off the voter rolls"[10] and after an elections supervisor in Madison County was barred from voting; she and others "tried to get the state to rectify the problem, but their pleas fell on deaf ears."[10]

Recount

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Main article: 2000 United States presidential election recount in Florida

The Florida election was closely scrutinized after Election Day. Due to the narrow margin of the original vote count, Florida Election Code 102.141 mandated a statewide machine recount, which began the day after the election. It was ostensibly completed on November 10 in the 66 Florida counties that used vote-counting machines and reduced Bush's lead to 327 votes. According to legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, later analysis showed that a total of 18 counties—accounting for a quarter of all votes cast in Florida—did not carry out the legally mandated machine recount, but "No one from the Gore campaign ever challenged this view" that the machine recount had been completed. Once the closeness of the election in Florida was clear, both the Bush and Gore campaigns organized themselves for the ensuing legal process. On November 9, the Bush campaign announced they had hired George H. W. Bush's former Secretary of State James Baker and Republican political consultant Roger Stone to oversee their legal team, and the Gore campaign hired Bill Clinton's former Secretary of State Warren Christopher.

Film

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Notes

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  1. ^ The previous closest statewide presidential elections were two in Maryland, that in 1832 being decided by just four votes or 0.01%, and that of 1904 by just fifty-one votes or 0.023%. Next, closest were two elections in California, that of 1912 being decided by 0.026% or 174 votes, and that of 1892 – which gave Grover Cleveland a second term as president – by 0.055% or 147 votes.

References

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  1. ^ "Voter Turnout". Florida Division of Elections. 2021. Archived from the original on June 2, 2015.
  2. ^ "The Butterfly Did It: The Aberrant Vote for Buchanan in Palm Beach County, Florida". Stanford Graduate School of Business. Retrieved October 23, 2024.
  3. ^ Sullivan, Robert David; 'How the Red and Blue Map Evolved Over the Past Century'; America Magazine in The National Catholic Review; June 29, 2016
  4. ^ Menendez, Albert J.; The Geography of Presidential Elections in the United States, 1868–2004, p. 164-165 ISBN 0786422173
  5. ^ Prokop, Andrew (June 15, 2015). "The Jeb Bush formula: How the staunch conservative learned to talk moderate — and win". Vox. Retrieved October 20, 2020.
  6. ^ Marks, Peter (September 20, 2000). "THE 2000 CAMPAIGN: THE AD CAMPAIGN; In Sign Florida Is Now in Play, Bush Increases Buying There". The New York Times. Retrieved May 26, 2010.
  7. ^ "Did the Jewish Vote Cost Gore the Election?". Mitchellbard.com. Retrieved March 30, 2018.
  8. ^ Schneider, William (May 1, 2001). "Elián González Defeated Al Gore". The Atlantic. Retrieved September 21, 2021.
  9. ^ Rosenbaum, David E. (October 26, 2000). "THE 2000 CAMPAIGN: THE VOTERS; Independents and the Elderly Lift Gore in Florida, Poll Says". The New York Times.
  10. ^ a b c Moore, M. (2001). Stupid White Men. Penguin Books. p. 6.
  11. ^ "2000 Presidential General Election Results". transition.fec.gov. Archived from the original on August 25, 2012. Retrieved October 2, 2019.
  12. ^ Elections, Division of. "November 7, 2000 General Election". results.elections.myflorida.com. Retrieved June 11, 2017.
  13. ^ "Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections – County Data". Retrieved October 2, 2019.
  14. ^ Florida Congressional District 2
  15. ^ "2000 Post-Election Timeline of Events". Uselectionatlas.org. Retrieved March 30, 2018.
  16. ^ "2000". President Elect. November 6, 2012. Archived from the original on February 12, 2012. Retrieved March 30, 2018.
  17. ^ State and Wire Reports, "State voter rolls: Election official finds more than 50,000 felons, 18,000 dead registered", Panama City News Herald, 19 August 1998.
  18. ^ "Felon Purge Sacrificed Innocent Voters". archive.commondreams.org. Archived from the original on November 5, 2020. Retrieved October 2, 2019.
  19. ^ a b U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (June 2001). Voting Irregularities in Florida During the 2000 Presidential Election (Report). Government of the United States.

Bibliography

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