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Biographical/Historical:
In the Florida vote count of the 2000 presidential election, which Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris certified on November 26th, only 537 votes separated candidates Al Gore and George W. Bush out of more than 5.8 million votes cast. The issue of tallying additional votes from manual recounts went through the courts until December 12 when the United States Supreme Court ruled that manual recounts could not continue on constitutional grounds because the lack of uniform standards for the recounting violated the 14th Amendment's equal protection guarantees.
The Palm Beach County Canvassing Board received particular attention due to charges that a confusing ballot design, the butterfly ballot, mistakenly led Gore supporters to vote for Pat Buchanan or to punch their ballots twice for president/vice president. Problems also arose among two major groups of constituents: the elderly and Blacks. Large numbers of Florida voters experienced frustration and anger on Election Day as they endured excessive delays, misinformation, and confusion, which they claimed resulted in the denial of their right to vote or to have their vote counted. Other factors alleged to have contributed to voter disenfranchisement in Florida during the 2000 presidential election are:
1) Media outlets announcing the closure of Florida's polls, exit poll outcomes, and/or the predicted results of the presidential and Florida senate races at 6 p.m. Central Standard Time (7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time) on the evening of November 7, 2000, although polls in the western Florida panhandle did not officially close until 7 p.m. Central Time;
2) The validity of Florida absentee ballots from overseas military members because of the ballots' late arrival, improper certification, incomplete applications, illegible ballots, improper certification by election officials, or the lack of required postmarks;
3) Allegations that some Florida residents voting in the November 2000 election were not eligible to vote (i.e. convicted felons and illegal immigrants).
Summary:
This collection contains PhD candidate Julian R. Harper's preliminary doctoral dissertation research regarding the controversial 2000 presidential election between George W. Bush and Albert Gore, Jr., involving voting irregularities in the state of Florida; particularly the re-counting of votes, under-votes, absentee votes, over-votes, and spoiled ballots. This research includes online news media reports from several major news reporting agencies such as MSNBC, ABC News, CNN, Netscape, Palm Beach Interactive, and the Washington Post; court documents/briefs from the Second Judicial Circuit Court in Tallahassee, Florida; court documents/briefs from the Florida Supreme Court in Tallahassee, Florida; court documents/briefs from the United States Supreme Court in Washington, D.C.; e-mail transmissions; news bulletins; press releases; and videotapes. Harper never completed the doctoral dissertation that he gathered these materials to support.
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Bush, George W. 1946- (George Walker), Gore, Albert, 1948- Harris, Katherine, 1957-
Democratic Party (Fla.) Florida. Circuit Court (2nd Circuit : Leon County) Florida. Dept. of State. Florida. Division of Elections. Florida. Elections Canvassing Board. Florida. Elections Commission. Florida. Supreme Court. Republican Party (Fla.) United States. Supreme Court.
Courts Florida Courts, Circuit. Elections Florida Elections United States Presidents Election 2000 United States Supreme courts.
Constitutions. aat Electronic mail. aat Letters. aat Machine-readable artifacts. aat Press releases. aat Reports. aat Transcripts. aat Videocassettes. aat Voting records.
Florida. Martin County (Fla.) Miami-Dade County (Fla.) Palm Beach County (Fla.) Tallahassee (Fla.) Volusia County (Fla.) Washington (D.C.)
for detailed listing.