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As accusations of fraud and voter suppression, calls for recounts and the filing of lawsuits ensued, the terms “hanging chads,” “dimpled chads” and “pregnant chads” became part of the...
The weeks-long battle over "hanging chads" that ultimately landed the fate of the presidency in the U.S. Supreme Court, continues to cast a long shadow over the nation's political psyche.
Palm Beach County changed standards for counting dimpled chads several times during the counting process; Broward County used less restrictive standards than Palm Beach County; Miami-Dade County's recount of rejected ballots did not include all precincts ;
News outlets carried images of Florida election officials staring at hanging, dimpled, and pregnant chads on Florida's punch-card ballots, trying to "discern the intent" of the voters.
From the beginning of the controversy, politicians, litigants and the press focused exclusively on the undervotes, in particular incompletely punched hanging chads. Undervotes (ballots that did not register any vote when counted by machine) were the subject of much media coverage, most of the lawsuits and the Florida Supreme Court ruling. [ 39 ]
CNN — After the grueling 36-day Florida recount battle, Al Gore finally conceded the presidency to George W. Bush on December 13, 2000. But the controversy surrounding this unprecedented election...
Florida’s votes now appeared to depend on manual recounts and the nature of the chads. Counting chads was complicated and controversial, but it was nothing compared to the legal battles about to break. Fearing the recounts might jeopardize Bush’s victory, his supporters sought to stop them through the courts.
Bush v. Gore, legal case, decided on December 12, 2000, in which the Supreme Court of the United States reversed an order by the Florida Supreme Court for a selective manual recount of that state’s U.S. presidential election ballots.
The national spectacle of the Florida recounts, with its disputed ballots, “hanging chads,” and determinative Supreme Court ruling, undermined Bush’s wish to start his presidency with a strongly united nation. While he won an Electoral College victory 271 to 266, Gore won 500,000 more popular votes from the American people than the victor.
On December 8, 2000, the Florida Supreme Court sided with Gore, ordering that all statewide “undervote” ballots, or punch-card ballots that had been cast but not registered because of a problem called a “hanging chad,” needed to be recounted.