2000 United States presidential election in Florida

Initially, Florida had been considered fertile territory for Republicans. It was governed by Jeb Bush, a staunch conservative and George W. Bush's brother. Nonetheless, Republicans put significant advertising resources into the state, and later polls indicated that the state was very much in play as late as September 2000. Some late momentum for Gore and his Jewish running mate Joe Lieberman may have come from southern Florida's significant Jewish population. Voters from reliably Democratic states in the Northeast had also been migrating to Florida since the 1950s. The state's electorate was becoming more diverse in general, with growing Asian and Hispanic immigrant populations. Meanwhile, there was a heavy backlash in the Cuban-American population against Democrats during the Elian Gonzalez dispute, during which Janet Reno, President Bill Clinton's Attorney General, ordered the six-year-old Cuban refugee to be returned to Cuba. The Democrats' share of the Cuban-American vote dropped dramatically after 1996. In late October, one poll found that Gore was leading Bush and third parties by 44–42–4 among registered voters and 46–42–4 among likely voters, but that poll had a margin of error of four percentage points, making the race too close to call. On election day itself, the extent of the mix-ups in the electoral rolls was such that "in a number of precincts in Florida's inner cities, the polling locations were heavily fortified with police." ==Results==

Florida was the second of the 50 states (after Louisiana) to report its official results to the federal government (in a Certificate of Ascertainment submitted to the National Archivist, the manner prescribed for presidential elections). Results by county Bush became the first Republican to win the White House without carrying Palm Beach County since the county's founding in 1909. Counties that flipped from Democratic to Republican • Calhoun (Largest city: Blountstown) • Citrus (Largest city: Homosassa Springs) • Dixie (Largest city: Cross City) • Franklin (Largest city: Eastpoint) • Gilchrist (Largest city: Trenton) • Glades (Largest city: Moore Haven) • Gulf (Largest city: Port St. Joe) • Hamilton (Largest city: Jasper) • Hendry (Largest city: Clewiston) • Hillsborough (Largest city: Tampa) • Levy (Largest city: Williston) • Madison (Largest city: Madison) • Okeechobee (Largest city: Okeechobee) • Putnam (Largest city: Palatka) • Sumter (Largest city: The Villages) • Taylor (Largest city: Perry) • Wakulla (Largest city: Sopchoppy) Counties that flipped from Republican to Democratic • Orange (Largest city: Orlando) By congressional district Bush won 13 of 23 congressional districts, including one that elected a Democrat. Gore won ten, including three that elected Republicans. ==Electors==

Technically, the voters of Florida cast their ballots for electors, representatives to the Electoral College. In 2000, Florida was allocated 25 electors because it had 23 congressional districts and 2 senators. All candidates who appear on the ballot or qualify to receive write-in votes must submit a list of 25 electors who pledge to vote for their candidate and his or her running mate. Whoever wins the most votes in the state is awarded all 25 electoral votes. Their chosen electors then vote for president and vice president. Although electors are pledged to their candidate and running mate, they are not obligated to vote for them. An elector who votes for someone other than his or her candidate is known as a faithless elector. The electors of each state and the District of Columbia met on December 18, 2000, to cast their votes for president and vice president. The Electoral College itself never meets as one body. Instead, the electors from each state and the District of Columbia met in their respective capitols. The following were the members of the Electoral College from the state. All were pledged to and voted for George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney: • Alred S. Austin • Deborah L. Brooks • Armando Codina • Maria De La Milera • Sandra M. Faulkner • Thomas C. Feeney III • Feliciano M. Foyo • Jeanne Barber Godwin • Dawn Guzzetta • Cynthia M. Handley • Adam W. Herbert • Al Hoffman • Glenda E. Hood • Carole Jean Jordan • Charles W. Kane • Mel Martinez • John M. McKay • Dorsey C. Miller • Berta J. Moralejo • H. Gary Morse • Marsha Nippert • Darryl K. Sharpton • Tom Slade • John Thrasher • Robert L. Woody ==Westgate voter intimidation controversy==

In 2012, David Siegel, the owner of the Florida-based Westgate Resorts hotel corporation, admitted to surveying his 8,000 Westgate employees, including many in Florida itself, and taking steps to make voting in the election easier for those who favored Bush and harder for those who favored Gore, which may have provided the number of votes needed for Bush, who only won the state by 537 votes, to secure the win in Florida. Siegel said in an interview:"Whenever I saw a negative article about Gore, I put it in with the paychecks of my 8,000 employees. I had my managers do a survey on every employee. If they liked Bush, we made them register to vote. But not if they liked Gore. The week before [the election] we made 80,000 phone calls through my call center—they were robo-calls. On Election Day, we made sure everyone who was voting for Bush got to the polls. I didn't know he would win by 527 votes. Afterward, we did a survey among the employees to find out who voted who wouldn't have otherwise. One thousand of them said so."Shortly before admitting this, Siegel acknowledged beforehand that his role in Bush's 2000 election victory "may not necessarily have been legal." ==Analysis==

Background Election fairness was a major problem that had gained much attention in the 1990s; for example, the 1997 Miami mayoral election was tainted by scandal. According to The Palm Beach Post, "State lawmakers decided to weed out felons and other ineligible voters in 1998 after a Miami mayoral election was overturned because votes had been cast by the convicted and the dead." This initiative occurred without sufficient protection of voting rights. In particular, from summer 1999 to spring 2000, Florida's voter list was subject to an unusually high number of problems. "The state's highest officials responsible for ensuring efficiency, uniformity, and fairness in the election failed to fulfill their responsibilities." The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights found that an "overall lack of leadership in protecting voting rights was largely responsible for the broad array of problems in Florida during the 2000 election." and after an elections supervisor in Madison County was barred from voting; she and others "tried to get the state to rectify the problem, but their pleas fell on deaf ears." Once the closeness of the election in Florida was clear, both the Bush and Gore campaigns organized themselves for the ensuing legal process. On November 9, the Bush campaign announced they had hired George H. W. Bush's former Secretary of State James Baker and Republican political consultant Roger Stone to oversee their legal team, and the Gore campaign hired Bill Clinton's former Secretary of State Warren Christopher. Film • Fahrenheit 9/11 • Recount is a made-for-TV political drama about the 2000 US presidential election. The show was written by Danny Strong, directed by Jay Roach, and produced by Kevin Spacey (who also stars in the film). It premiered on HBO on May 25, 2008, and the DVD was released on August 19, 2008. • Orwell Rolls in His Grave ==Notes==