## Facts

- Following the November 7, 2000 presidential election, Florida certified George W. Bush and Richard Cheney as the winners of the state’s electoral votes by 537 votes.
- After an automatic machine recount, multiple counties undertook or began manual recounts of ballots recorded by machines as “undervotes” (no presidential vote detected).
- Palm Beach County’s manual recount identified additional votes not reflected in the certified statewide totals.
- Miami–Dade County began but did not complete a manual recount, leaving roughly 9,000 undervotes unreviewed.
- Albert Gore, Jr. and Joseph I. Lieberman filed an election contest in Leon County circuit court, alleging the certification excluded legal votes and included illegal votes sufficient to change or place the result in doubt, and seeking judicial correction of the totals and additional recounting.
- The circuit court denied relief after an expedited evidentiary hearing, concluding the contestants failed to meet their burden under Florida’s election-contest statute.
- The case was certified for immediate review and taken directly by the Supreme Court of Florida.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial court used the wrong legal standard by deferring to canvassing boards rather than making an independent determination under Florida’s election-contest statute.
2. Whether manual recount results from Palm Beach County and the completed portion of Miami–Dade’s recount had to be included in the certified statewide totals as additional legal votes.
3. Whether evidence of uncounted legal votes placed the election result “in doubt,” requiring judicial relief, including a statewide manual recount of undervotes under a uniform standard.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Florida reversed the circuit court’s judgment.
- The Court held the trial court applied an incorrect legal standard in the contest proceeding and should have made an independent judicial determination under the contest statute.
- The Court ordered inclusion in the statewide totals of additional votes identified by the Palm Beach manual recount and the completed portion of the Miami–Dade manual recount.
- The Court ordered an immediate statewide manual recount of undervotes under a uniform standard focused on determining voter intent.

## Legal Principles

- In an election contest under Florida law, the court must make an independent judicial determination whether legal votes were rejected or illegal votes were included and whether the irregularities place the result in doubt; the inquiry is not limited to reviewing canvassing boards for abuse of discretion.
- A ballot constitutes a “legal vote” when the voter’s intent can be reasonably determined from the ballot, even if machine tabulation does not register the vote.
- Where evidence shows that legal votes were not counted and the number of such votes is sufficient to place the result in doubt, the contest statute authorizes judicial correction of the returns and recount remedies.
- To ensure equal treatment of similarly situated ballots and to determine the true result in a close election, a statewide manual recount of undervotes may be required under a uniform, court-specified standard.

## Conclusion

The Supreme Court of Florida held that the contest court erred by applying a deferential review and by failing to account for identified uncounted legal votes; it reversed, required inclusion of certain manual recount totals, and ordered a statewide manual recount of undervotes using a uniform voter-intent standard to determine whether the certified outcome should change.


Gore v. Harris, 772 So. 2d 1243 (Fla. 2000)