To Recount or Not to Recount: The U.S. Supreme Court Weighs In (2000)

On December 8, 2000, nearly a month after election day, the Florida Supreme Court ordered a statewide manual recount of all undervotes, the more than 61,000 ballots that the vote tabulation machines allegedly missed. Immediately, the Bush campaign filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court requesting a stay of the decision. The following day, five conservative justices granted the stay, halting the recount. The justices contended that the recounts would cast a “needless and unjustified cloud” over Bush’s legitimacy, constituting "irreparable harm.” In a per curiam decision issued on December 12, 2000, the Court ruled 5-4 that the recounts be stopped on grounds of equal protection. The majority held that the recount relied on different standards of counting in different counties in Florida, which constituted a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution. This ruling allowed the vote certification of Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris (a member of Bush’s Florida campaign staff) to stand, thus giving the state’s 25 electoral votes and the presidency to George W. Bush. In this clip, journalists with The NewsHour briefly summarize the ruling with key highlights from the majority opinion and the stinging dissents from Justices David Hackett Souter, Stephen Gerald Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and John Paul Stevens.

The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer | NewsHour Productions (Television station : Washington, D.C..) | December 13, 2000 This video clip and associated transcript appear from 13:33 - 18:22 in the full record.