Case: Bush V Gore

Case: Bush V Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000)

Facts: This was a controversial U.S. Supreme Court case that ultimately decided the outcome of the 2000 presidential election between Texas Governor George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore. Gore felt that the ballot's needed a recount due to fraud or inaccuracy.

Issue: The court had to resolve two different issues. The first issue is that was the recounts as they were being conducted constitutional? Secondly if the recounts were unconstitutional and what would be the legal remedy? Bush argued that the recounts in Florida violated the Equal protection Clause of the fourteenth Amendment because there was a statewide standard that each county board could use to determine whether a given ballot was a legal vote. Gore argued that in order to have a fair and equal treatment to both parties that they needed to be hand counted due to margin of error and closeness of the presidential race.

Ruling: A 7-2 ruling majority ruled that the Florida recount was being conducted unconstitutionally, and the majority opinion noted significant problems in the uneven way the votes were being conducted. In a second narrower 5-4 majority ruled that no constitutionally valid recount could be completed by December 12 deadline set in statute effectively ending the recounts.

Effect: The effect of this issue is that we that George W. Bush was voted into office by a slim margin due to the fact of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This was very important to us because this Supreme Court case affected how the country was run through the Bush administration and we can still feel the waves of the effect of this decision today.