A Letter from Author Richard L. Hasen
In 2000, the U.S. presidential election went into overtime as just a few hundred votes, out of millions cast, separated Republican George W. Bush from Democrat Al Gore in the state of Florida, whose twenty-five electoral votes determined the nation's next president. For thirty-six days, the country was riveted and divided between Democrats and Republicans as the election went into overtime. Election contests, recounts, and almost two dozen lawsuits culminated in one of the most controversial Supreme Court decisions in U.S. history,
Bush v. Gore. Everything related to the election controversy went under the microscope, from the varieties of election machinery, to the rules for vote-counting, to the poor drafting of Florida's election statutes, to the partisan officials involved in the recount, to the role of the courts in resolving election disputes. Calls for reform came from everywhere, including the Supreme Court.
