Bush v. Gore
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| Decided December 12, 2000 |
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In the present circumstances of the case, any manual recounting of votes within the allotted time violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution . |
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Bush v. Gore (fully George W. Bush and Richard Cheney , Petitioners v. Albert Gore , Jr., et al. ) Was a judicial case heard in the United States Supreme Court . It attracted enormous public attention in the United States because the final court ruling on December 12, 2000 ruled the US presidential election in 2000 in favor of the Republican George W. Bush. It was the first time in the history of the Supreme Court that its verdict immediately decided a presidential election .
The judicially complex judgment met with criticism by the majority and weakened the reputation of the court.
Starting position
On November 8, 2000, the Florida State Electoral Commission announced the results of the 2000 presidential election. It gave Bush such a narrow lead that the Palm Beach County Canvassing Board counted the votes again. It showed an improved result in favor of the Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore. He then demanded that hand counts should be carried out in four other districts. A complaint against this was dismissed by the Federal District Court on November 13th .
The deadline for submitting the repeatedly counted votes was so tight that the Supreme Court of Florida on November 21, 2000 was forced to move the deadline to November 26.
First judgment of the Supreme Court on December 4, 2000
On December 4, 2000, the Supreme Court unexpectedly unanimously approved the appeal that the Supreme Court of Florida ruling violated the constitutional principle that electoral statutes may not be changed during an ongoing election process. He justified his responsibility with the fact that it was about the election of the US president and that the US constitution empowered the legislature of the individual states to regulate the election of electors. Because the judgment of the Supreme Court of Florida could violate the principle of separation of powers , it is to be justified more precisely by the judiciary in this regard. As a result, the Supreme Court overturned the judgment and referred it to the Supreme Court of Florida for reassessment.
Second Supreme Court judgment dated December 9, 2000
Just one day after the Supreme Court of Florida ordered further hand counts on December 8, 2000, the Supreme Court ordered the recount to be suspended. The court justified the provisional stop with the fact that there was a reasonable probability that the pending appeal would be successful. Another count could put an irreparable disadvantage to applicant George W. Bush et al. and the United States, Judge Scalia stated.
Third Supreme Court judgment dated December 12, 2000
In its detailed decision of December 12, 2000, the Supreme Court rejected the decision on the handcounting of controversial votes to the Supreme Court of Florida. At the same time, the court found that the time for hand counts had expired.
With a majority of seven to two, the court found that the handcounts ordered by the Supreme Court of Florida of the more than 60,000 ballot papers that were not automatically recorded were constitutionally problematic. It mainly criticizes that there are no uniform standards in the various districts of the state of Florida for how the disputed votes are to be evaluated. This violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment in an unconstitutional manner.
The court also decided with a narrow five-to-four majority that no constitutionally compliant recounting could be guaranteed within the prescribed period of 12 December 2000. Since it is clear that any recount that cannot be completed by this time is against the constitution, the judgment of the Supreme Court of Florida is not acceptable. It must be redrafted in accordance with the principles set out by the Supreme Court.
Two judges from the minority voted to allow the ordered recount to continue as it had begun. Two judges shared the majority opinion that the ongoing recounting is not running correctly. But they wanted to refer the case back to the Supreme Court of Florida. He should set uniform standards for the recounting, if necessary with an extension of the deadline.
In two separate minority opinions, the other four judges opposed, on the one hand, that the interference by the Federal Supreme Court with the powers of the individual states to design and carry out the electoral process was not supported by sufficiently serious reasons. According to this dissenting opinion, the court should have respected the jurisdiction of the states and should not have accepted the decision of the Supreme Court of Florida for review. On the other hand, the deadline for determining the electorate is interpreted in an unjustified way so that the votes of thousands of voters cannot be taken into account.
The court was divided in its view. The joint per curiam decision of the 7: 2 majority comprised 13 of the 65 pages of the brief. The remaining statements contained the dissenting opinions of the individual judges. The verdict followed the well-known ideological boundary within the court. With the conservative group of William H. Rehnquist (Chief Justice), Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas , Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy voted from the moderate camp . David Souter joined the liberal group that included Stephen Breyer , Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens .
Summary of the criticisms
The decision in the Bush v. Gore has damaged the reputation of the Supreme Court, and comparisons with the Dred Scott v. Sandford got loud. In both cases, a short-sighted judgment was made that ignored the real problems. Although the Supreme Court recognized a problem, it shied away from presenting a solution that would last until clear legal provisions were passed.
In the Palm Beach County, punch cards were used as voting papers; The votes can then be automatically counted with counting machines. A major problem was to clarify how incompletely punched holes (so-called hanging chads ) should be assessed: Counting machines only count correctly punched holes on the ballot papers, while a human counter can easily recognize the actual will of the voter from the punched card .
Because of the tight result in Palm Beach County, they were counted there by hand. Since this district tended to vote for Gore, a manual recount would have resulted in a better result for Gore. George W. Bush sued against this.
In the following, the criticism of the judgment from various sources is summarized.
Eligibility to take legal action
Erin Chemerinsky wrote that Bush was not entitled to sue, because in a democracy, correct counting of votes is not in the interests of a candidate, but that of the voter. He must be able to trust that his decision will be correctly registered as long as it is clearly visible on the voting slip.
In principle, only someone can file a lawsuit if their rights have been violated. Since Bush did not cast his vote in the constituency in question, he can only file a lawsuit under special circumstances - for example, when it seems unlikely that the actual injured party will sue himself. Likewise, Bush could not establish a close relationship with the Palm Beach County electorate.
Due process
The fifth and fourteenth amendments to the American constitution guarantee citizens treatment according to the principles of a constitutional state , such as equal treatment by law.
Bush complained that the manual recount put him at a disadvantage. This question was answered in the affirmative. However, neither he - nor the courts - could explain in a conclusive way to what extent a recount would result in a ballot paper for Bush being counted by a different standard than a ballot paper for Gore.
The Supreme Court correctly stated that a recount would only violate the equality of Florida voters in one district. However, depending on the state (and the district), different methods are used anyway: there is, for example, postal voting , the obligation to appear in person to cast a vote and to carry an ID, the counting of votes by hand and by machine, and finally there is also voting on a computer. The far-reaching consequences of this fact were illustrated in Bush v. Gore not discussed. If this argument were followed strictly, the Supreme Court should have declared the entire presidential election invalid. Furthermore, the use of different counting methods has never been declared unconstitutional by a court.
The majority of the judges recognized that in Florida there is a uniform standard for counting the votes: clear intent of the voter , in German the “clearly recognizable intention of the voter”. At the same time, they stated that this standard did not guarantee a constitutional choice. The court did not explain to what extent the State of Florida could achieve a valid election result despite a lack of a constitutional standard.
A question of federal law?
The Supreme Court ruled that the census should be completed by December 12th. This date could no longer be kept - precisely because of the various lawsuits during which the manual recount was stopped by a judge's order. Therefore, all recounts should be broken off.
In the USA it is ultimately the electors who meet at an electoral college and elect the president. Article 5 of Chapter 3 of the United States Code states that any controversies surrounding the election of electors must be resolved six days prior to their meeting (i.e. on or before December 12, 2000). However, the legislature of each state can decide how such an ambiguity is resolved, for example by the state parliament meeting and appointing the electors by emergency resolution. In federal law, on the other hand, there is no provision stating by when the counting of votes should be completed. The question of which deadline is binding for counting the votes therefore only affects Florida law. The Supreme Court should therefore have referred this sub-question to the Florida courts. According to the critics, it is spicy that the conservative majority of judges support the legal autonomy of the states in other cases.
Precedent effect
"Our consideration is limited to the present circumstances, for the problem of equal protection in election processes generally presents many complexities."
"Our consideration is limited to the present circumstances, since the problem of equal treatment in electoral matters basically raises many difficulties."
The constitutional lawyer Jamie Raskin and others vehemently attacked this remark at the end of the majority opinion, as it amounted to a declaration of bankruptcy under the rule of law: Such a reference that the judgment is not applicable to later cases is unusual, and the judgments of the Supreme Court are guidelines, along which American law is developing. Nor was it explained what these "difficulties" consist of.
The judges were probably aware that their verdict could be disastrous if applied consistently to any unequal treatment in electoral matters. In the Stewart v. Blackwell (2006, 6th Circuit Court of Appeals) was cited with reference to Bush v. Gore decided that the state of Ohio should end the inequality of certain constituencies - while the minority opinion complained that Bush v. Gore could hardly serve as a precedent because of the "lack of analytical seriousness". And in a 2002 case ( Black v. McGuffage , US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois), Bush v. Gore argues that it is not illegal to set up voting machines that are more defective than others in areas where the majority of blacks and Latinos live .
Ripeness doctrine
Ripeness is a doctrine according to which the federal courts of the United States do not rule on a case until the situation to be judged is sufficiently established that the court does not have to make speculative assumptions. So the damage claimed by the plaintiff must be definable and quantifiable.
According to Chemerinsky, without a completed recount there was no way of determining the extent to which Bush was violated in his rights insofar as he claims to have been harmed by a recount.
Political question doctrine
Under the doctrine of the political question in US federal law, federal courts refuse to rule on political issues. Each court can only judge questions that can be identified and decided by legal means. For example, the fact that each district of Florida organized the elections in different ways was due to political (dis) will, and the necessary remedy could only be found in a legislative, but not in a legal process.
Likewise, the presidential election as a political process is already adequately regulated. In the event that a state fails to appoint its electors in a timely manner, the electoral college can act without these electors. If no candidate gets a majority of the electors' votes, namely 270, the House of Representatives meets immediately and elects the President.
literature
- Werner Heun, The Debacle of the American Presidential Elections - A Legal Analysis , JZ 2001, 421ff.
- Hans A. Linde, US Federalism and Election Law (Bush v. Gore) , HFR 2002, p. 56 ff.
Web links
swell
- ^ Decision in Florida. Supreme Court gives Gore another chance. In: Spiegel Online. November 22, 2000, accessed May 3, 2009 .
- ↑ http://openjurist.org/531/us/70/george-bush-v-palm-beach-county-canvassing-board George Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board 531 US 70 121 S.Ct. 471 148 L.Ed.2d 366 GEORGE W. BUSH, PETITIONER v. PALM BEACH COUNTY CANVASSING BOARD et al.No. 00-836 SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES December 4, 2000
- ↑ See W. Heun, JZ 2001, 421, 426f.
- ↑ 531 US (2000) 1 SCALIA, J., concurring SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES No. 00-949 (00A504) GEORGE W. BUSH ET AL. v. ALBERT GORE, JR. ET AL. ON APPLICATION FOR STAY, December 9, 2000 (pdf; 252 kB)
- ^ Peter De Thier: Optimism in the Republican Camp. In: Berliner Zeitung . December 11, 2000, accessed July 10, 2015 .
- ↑ 531 US 98 (2000)
- ^ Judgment of the US Supreme Court. Gore before the end. In: Spiegel Online. December 13, 2000, accessed May 3, 2009 .
- ↑ a b c d e f Erin Chemerinsky (2001): Bush v. Gore Was Not Justiciable. Notre Dame Law Review, vol. 76. eat. 4th
- ↑ Jamie Raskin: Bush vs. Gore's ironic legal legacy. In: Los Angeles Times . December 13, 2015, accessed September 11, 2020 .
