Talk:Bush v. Gore

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Vandalism a 2003 recount really said Gore won? I think not. Source please?Mlaird1 03:49, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Hope that works. I tried to make it unbiased and discuss both sides by reading them and providing a summary useful for a layperson like me... Please desuckify if if it needs it and let me know how I can improve in the future - Reboot

I would like to see the references to "more liberal justices" removed in favor of "minority" or something that isn't point of view based. Although its a common viewpoint, "liberal" and "conservative" in this context is a point of view. Despite the fact its one I share - Reboot

I don't think there's anything wrong with saying that the more liberal justices were the dissenting ones, and the more conservative ones formed the majority. I suppose we could NPOV it up by attributing this comment to others, rather than to the wikipedia as such, but it's not as though the comment is controversial in any way, so far as I know. The article isn't saying that they are liberal or conservative because of how they ruled in this case. It's saying that the judges who were already known to be more liberal supported Gore, while the justices who were already known to be more conservative supported Bush. john 01:25 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I'm not sure which scale of conservative vs. liberal is being referred to here. Is it one on social spending (conservative = no handouts, liberal = support the poor), or one on fiscal policy (conservative = reduce spending, liberal = raise taxes), or one on foreign policy (conservative = isolationist, I suppose, and liberal = interventionist, I suppose), or one on civil rights (conservative = no changes to laws, liberal = pass laws to guard rights, I guess), or one on traditional marriage (this one I'm sure of, conservative = only allow man+woman marriage, liberal = allow gay/lesbian marriage)? I find US politics very confusing, and am not sure I have all those different liberal vs. conservative scales correct. I think there is an illusion that the US Republical party is conservative, but they appear, at least in this administration, to be interventionist (liberal foriegn?), huge spending (liberal fiscal?), opposed to gay marriage (conservative on marriage), opposed to civil rights legislation (conservative on civil rights), and opposed to social spending (conservative on social spending). As I say, the words "conservative" and "liberal" seem, to me, to be not very meaningful, but probably heavily emotionally laden, without context.

Contents

[edit] Two issues

I have heard (although I haven't Googled-up any supporting documents) that the equal-protection argument of the majority rang quite hollow since many of the justices had, as a rule, rejected equal-protection arguments when they had come up in previous cases. (Worth looking into this and maybe mentioning something about it in the article?)

My second, related, remark concerns the following sentences:

Bush... charged that the recounts in Florida violated the equal protection clause... [because] the votes were being counted unevenly, with standards varying from county to county.... Gore... responded that... requiring all ballots to be treated in the same fashion would require a uniform federal standard for counting votes, something that had never been established.

Perhaps the latter point should be amplified a bit in the article: the idea, as I understand it, is that since there's no federal standard for even collecting and counting votes in the first place (the running of elections being left to the states and/or local authorities), how can there be an equal-protection argument concerning the lack of standards in recounting votes? An interesting argument, to say the least. - dcljr 23:26, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Your first point is correct and merits inclusion if it can be attributed to a critic with acceptable credentials. As to your second point, there's a federal standard to the extent of the Equal Protection Clause in the Constitution. One could make an argument that a state is free to choose whatever standard for a recount it preferred, but must choose one standard that will apply statewide. Otherwise, citizens in some counties are being deprived of equal protection. Of course, the Court had no problem with the differences in the initial count. I think that hard data support the conclusions that precincts using punch-card voting were more likely to be predominantly African-American, that punch cards were more likely to be fouled up than the machines used in other precincts, and that the result was that the use of different voting methods in different areas within Florida meant that African-Americans' votes were more likely to be discarded. The Court could have carried its equal-protection analysis to the logical conclusion and held that no valid voting had occurred and that Florida could not name any presidential electors -- but then, of course, Gore would have had a majority of the electors actually named, and would have become President. JamesMLane 23:49, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Wasn't there a machine recount a day or so after the first official count? I seem to remember that Flordia state law required a machine recount, which left Bush with a slightly smaller margin of victory than the first count. The article, as currently written, doesn't mention the machine recount. If such a recount took place, it should be mentioned in the "Background" section. - Walkiped 00:30, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

One thing that might irk alot of us is the fact that Bush didn't "win" barely or by a little - he was literally appointed president by the supreme court. It is one thing to be elected and to have the court verify that he won, but another thing if the court decides that because there is not sufficent time the votes as contributed will stand. iLuOna

[edit] Include a good book on it?

I read a book by David Boies, "Courting Justice", which had a lot of detail about Bush v. Gore. Do we think it would be appropriate to cite or mention it somewhere, for people who are interested in more detail? Kevin Baastalk 22:55, 2005 Apr 13 (UTC)

[edit] Kronius' Edits

I beefed up the Background a lot. I had no idea it was going to get as long as it did when I started. I thought the article needed a comprehensive, step-by-step account of the recount fiasco, since that was the heart of the litigation.

I also added a section on Relevant Law, and modified "The Decision" section a tad. The article said that the Court held that a voter has no right to vote for electors in a presidential election. This isn't exactly true, so I took it out. What the Court said was simply a restatement of the well-accepted principle that a voter has no constitutional right to vote for electors. The Constitution gives full plenary power to the state legislature to determine how it wants to choose its electors, and the court's opinion even points out that historically, some state legislatures just picked the electors themselves without giving their citizens any say. However, it is also a well-accepted principle under Equal Protection, that once the state legislature gives its citizens the right to vote, it must give every citizen an equal right.

I want to add some information like that and some other stuff to the discussion section, but I'm too tired right now after all the work on the Background. Kronius 03:17, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC) [edited Kronius 03:37, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)]

[edit] Lower Court Rulings

This is a great article but a good understanding of the legal issues of the 2000 Election seems lacking because there are no detailed articles on the several Florida Supreme Court and the various Florida Circuit Court decisions (from both the contest phase and protest phase of the recount). If anyone has an inclination to create these articles, that would be great. The U.S. presidential election, 2000 and related articles just skim over these decisions and don't explain the legal issues involved. This Bush v. Gore article seems to be in a vacuum and out of context as a result. NoSeptember (talk) 16:50, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "I dissent"

To Kevin baas: How do you know that "I dissent" instead of "I respectfully dissent" is significant? No source is cited for this. Can you find one? I can find you many, many dissents, the vast majority of which are very measured in tone, that use the phrase "I dissent" instead of "I respectfully dissent." I'll name you some, in reverse chronological order: United States v. Booker (Thomas, J., dissenting from remedy); Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union (Breyer, J., dissenting); Tennard v. Dretke (Rehnquist, J., dissenting); Pliler v. Ford (Ginsburg, J., dissenting); Colorado General Assembly v. Salazar (Rehnquist, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari); Yarborough v. Alvarado (Breyer, J., dissenting); Groh v. Ramirez (Kennedy, J., dissenting); Demore v. Kim (Souter, J., dissenting). And, I should emphasize, these cases are only those falling within the last couple of terms; nor, for that matter, are these the only cases, even in those terms, where the phrase "I dissent" was used. And in some of these cases (see, e.g., Demore v. Kim), the dissenter in question used "I dissent" in one place and "I respectfully dissent" in another. I can't imagine clearer evidence that "I dissent" is not some pointed remark, instinct with significance. Because of these things, I feel obliged to revert your change. Respectfully, Hydriotaphia 01:16, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

As an aside, I would agree with you if Justice Ginsburg had written something like "I vigorously dissent." Justice Scalia (big surprise there!) has done this at least once. See Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620, 636 (1996) (Scalia, J., dissenting). But since Ginsburg didn't do this, and since, as I think I've shown, "I dissent" is a pretty common phrase, I feel my continuing disagreement is justified. Hydriotaphia 19:19, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

  • I do not have a source for it, but I do remember much was made in the media about the phrase "I dissent" being used instead of "I respectfully dissent." This could have just been some media types trying to gin up the controversy, but it was discussed. NoSeptember talk 19:26, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
  • OK, but can we agree that a memory that some media figures talked about the phrase isn't enough to justify inclusion in an encyclopedia article? Hydriotaphia 20:55, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
We can write that thsi phrase has been said to be relevant whereas it is not:
  • "While Justice Ginsburg's opinion drew considerable notice for its omission of the adverb "respectfully" from the closing "I dissent," that was a choice, it was pointed out, that she frequently made for economy of style rather than to convey a particular level of anger" The New York Times February 20, 2001 Tuesday BUSH V. GORE: A special report.; Election Case a Test and a Trauma for Justices By LINDA GREENHOUSE)
  • "I can only respond in the words of Ruth Bader Ginsburg: I dissent. Which I believe may have been her way of saying that the learned Chief Justice and the rest of the Court's majority were in error, and that the hypocritical, self-deluded lot of them ought to be stuffed in the trunk of a late-model luxury car and driven into the nearest river." Village Voice (New York, NY) February 20, 2001, Tuesday THE W: ELECTORAL GANGSTA

Apokrif 16:15, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Justices use "I dissent" all the time - the assertion is without justification.

[edit] This article is NOT about the Election

Remember that this article is NOT about the Election itself, it is about the BUSH v. GORE decision ONLY. By putting in detailed descriptions of the reasoning of the Harris I and Harris II decisions, the article has essentially become about the election. When I wrote the background originally, I felt it was necessary to go step-by-step through the election procedures in order to provide the factual background necessary to understand the Bush v. Gore decision. That is why I included brief summaries of the Harris I and Harris II holdings -- that is all that one needs to understand where the parties were at when Bush v. Gore was decided. The analysis of those decisions should go into separate articles. --Kronius 16:20, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

To Kronius: I haven't decided whether to revert. But I would argue that, for example, Note 3 is both further removed from the topic of Bush v. Gore and also longer. I am not familiar enough with normal Wikipedia practice but it seems to me that as long as the discussions of the Harris I and Harris II cases were short, they logically go here, because nobody will care about researching either of these cases unless they are researching Bush v. Gore. My guess is that if I looked at other famous court cases there will not be a separate entry for each level of the court system they went through. 199.171.86.185 19:22, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, it might not be a bad idea to make the detail about the other decisions into footnotes as well. I definitely don't think they belong in the main body because all that you need to know is the holding, not the reasoning. As is the case with almost any Supreme Court ruling, the factual/political background is much more important to the Bush v. Gore decision than the lower court rulings leading up to it. --Kronius 18:17, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
Plus, my main problem was that the way they were written, they interrupted the flow of the background. It might be possible to include them in the main body but reword them a little to flow better... --Kronius 19:07, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "Subsequent history" section

This section, recently added, is completely unsourced. I'm pondering whether I should get rid of it. What do people think? Hydriotaphia 07:53, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

I say cut it. The controversy over the electoral college more properly belongs in an article about the 2000 election, and falls outside the rather narrowly drawn scope of this article. (It would be different if the section discussed proposed changes to the rules that the case actually turned on, like the safe harbor deadline.) Morinao 13 January 2006


I disagree with the text in 'Background', paragraph seven. The Fl.S.C. did not order a statewide manual recount by county, it ordered that ... undervotes, not already examined in the 'three counties plus portions of Miami-Dade-county' manual recount, should be examined by the Leon County district court. I think it should be pointed out that, if it was carried out, the court orded wouid subject M-D county ballots to being recounted at different times, with different rules, depending on precinct.

In addition, I disagree with 'Remedy', in so far as it implies that the USSC was under some obligation to provide a constitutionally acceprtable remedy. Not correct, if the state of Florida wished to proceed with a recount, the state's remedy must be constitutuional. Comments?--CorvetteZ51 03:42, 27 January 2006 (UTC)


OK, nobody commented, so I made some changes. I think it is important for Wikipedia readers to be aware that, although lots of people did not like the decision of the USSC, the so called 'statewide' recount, had some legal problems. How do I put my timestamp on the 'list of edits-history'? --CorvetteZ51 01:38, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Feature?

All, this article has turned out pretty well and is suprisingly balanced. What do you say about giving it a once over to make sure it meets the criteria and then submitting it as a front page feature candidate? Reboot 21:30, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Infoxbox

Given this sentence from the decision ("Our consideration is limited to the present circumstances, for the problem of equal protection in election processes generally presents many complexities."), can the infobox really start with the word "any"? I think not. savidan(talk) (e@) 17:03, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] decision section contradicts itself

The first sentence of the section entitled "The Decision" reads:

A 5–4 majority ruled that the Florida recount was unconstitutional.

Yet further down, a summary of the various positions reads:

The finding that using different standards of counting in different areas without a single overseer violated equal protection was approved by 7 to 2.

To reconcile these, I'd suggest a sentence like the following;

A 7-2 majority ruled that the Florida recount was unconstitutional; a narrower 5-4 majority supported the remedy of ceasing all recounts.

Any objections, or better suggestions? --Delirium 05:10, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

It contradicts itself because this article is innaccurate in that respect, in several places and in the colored graph. There was only one majority opinion. The majority's per curium decision was agreed to by 5 justices, there were 4 dissenters, including Breyer and Souter. It was a 5-4 decision. Justice Breyer and Justice Souter did not agree with the majority's per curium opinion - they dissented (not in part). While Justice Breyer agreed that there "may well" have been reason to adopt uniform standards to avoid any Equal Protection problem, he said said he "need not" address the constitional limits on the content of such a standard "in light of the majority's disposition" (i.e. not theirs). Justice Souter in his dissent from the per curium opinion stated that he found the disparity in standards accross jurisdictions raised an equal protection clause problem, he said there was "no justification" for the majority to deny the Florida Supreme Court the opportunity to craft a uniform standard for recount in all counties. This slight agreement on what the dissenters see as a moot point in light of the majority opinion, was then picked up by that 5 justice majority opinion, as quoted in note 19 of the article, in saying "seven justices of this court agree that there are Constitutional problems with the recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court...", but that does not make that per curium decision a 7-2 opinion. Some people believe that the majority did this, and made the highly unusual decision to make such an opinion a per curium one, precisely to exaggerate the extent of concurrence. Regardless, there was only one majority opinion here, 5-4; there were four full dissents. The repeated assertions of a 7-2 majority in this article are innaccurate and render it non-neutral in that this idea makes the decision look not as close and politically divided as it actually was. I know that this confusion has been perpetuated through some uninformed media and/or media promoting a Bush POV, as well as at least one lesser constitutional law casebook, but if one reads and understands the decision properly, there is no valid support for citing Bush v. Gore as 7-2 ruling or decision or the per curium opinion as a 7-2 majority opinion.--JLSWiki 21:25, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Full criteria used by Harris

Can we put this somewhere other than an endnote. Apparently the use of the bullet points inside the blockquote inside a note is confusing Wikipedia and making the endnotes section look ugly. -- SilverStar 09:04, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Never mind, I already put it in its own section in the endnotes. -- SilverStar 04:41, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image of Boies

Moved from User talk:SilverStar -- SilverStar★ 00:50, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I had a look to see what I could find. The only image under free use I could find was [1]. If it was cropped so just Boies was showing, do you think that'd be better than nothing (unfortunately, he's not really facing the camera)? Trebor 21:36, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't think so, the image should be similar in quality to Bush's lawyer's. I think no image is better for the time being. I, too have looked for a picture of him, but can't find any good free ones. -- SilverStar★ 00:50, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Separate References and Notes Section

I understand there are differences of opinion about whether or not to have a separate REFERENCE and NOTE section in an article, I believe in this article separating the two seems essential, especially when someone adds a citation request to every other sentence in a section i.e. 3.3.1 Per currium. Since that section deals specifically with the courts published opinion, which is already referenced, it seems to me that it would be far easier to add a footnote quoting the opinion verbatim so any reader can easily compare that with the paraphrased information and if there is a dispute of interpretation it could be reviewed in discussion and referenced further if necessary. Awotter 09:29, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

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