Biden needs to copy tactics from 2000 election battle

13 min readNov 7, 2020

Republicans filed counter lawsuits, ran out the clock on Gore to secure the White House, even though Bush lost the popular vote

The 2020 election may be contested by Donald “Sore Loserman” Trump, but it is not near as close as the one two decades ago.

That battle came down to one state, Florida, where Republican candidate George W. Bush held a razor-slim lead. The deck was stacked against Democrat Al Gore, who led in the national popular vote by about 540,000. Bush’s brother, Jeb, was Florida governor and campaigned hard for his sibling. He also refused to stop Secretary of State Katherine Harris, a Republican partisan who was Bush’s state campaign co-chairman and badly wanted an ambassador position in his administration, from overseeing the work of private data verification company Database Technologies, which later merged into ChoicePoint. That business supplied the state with a list of thousands of voters who allegedly committed felonies and could be purged from the Florida election rolls under a state law. But that list was riddled with errors. Harris even purged those who had served their sentences in other states and had their voting rights restored, an outright violation of a statute that allowed such voters to participate in Florida.

In Martin County, where Bush won absentee balloting by 2,815 votes, former CIA agent Charles Kane reportedly altered Republican absentee ballot applications by filling in voter identification numbers. Many more apparent irregularities occurred. The infamous “butterfly ballot” in Palm Beach County resulted in 19,120 votes being disqualified due to having two or more presidential candidates chosen, with many marking votes for Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan by mistake. Jacksonville’s Duval County employed a “caterpillar” ballot that also confused thousands of voters. In all, some 185,000 ballots in Florida — mostly in strong Democratic counties — were tossed.

After most networks called Florida for Gore based mostly on a huge lead in exit polls, Bush told reporters that his younger brother had “promised to deliver” Florida for him. At around 2 a.m. on the day after the election, Fox News called Florida and the White House for Bush, despite some key Democratic-strong counties not completing their counts. Other media outlets followed suit, and Gore even called Bush to concede before retracting that after the race tightened. A key part of Fox’s decision was the role of Bush cousin John Ellis, who headed the network’s election night decision desk, even though he was just a part-timer. David W. Moore, a former Gallup pollster who was working on the CNN/CBS election desk that night, wrote that Ellis based his key call for Bush on a phone call from Jeb in which the Florida governor assured him Bush won the state.

Under Florida law, an election within 0.5 percent automatically underwent a statewide recount using scanning machines. That recount reduced Bush’s lead to a few hundred votes out of some 6 million votes. The Gore campaign then focused on a Florida law that allowed a candidate to request a hand recount in close counties, asking for that in four largely Democratic ones — Palm Beach, Miami-Dade, Broward, and Volusia.

Jeb publicly claimed not to have an official role in the recount, but six members of his staff volunteered on the recount campaign. Records showed that Jeb’s office made 95 calls to his brother’s campaign during the 36-day recount period.

Bush supporters organize ‘Sore Loserman’ protests, campaign countersues

Bush supporters organized a potent campaign against Gore, referring to him as “Sore Loserman,” creating t-shirts and stickers with that nickname. They staged daily protests in Florida and even outside Gore’s vice presidential home in Washington, D.C. Among the participants in the protests outside Gore’s home was Bush’s sister, Dorothy, who told a friend that “shouting at the Gores took care of a lot of her frustrations.” Social media was in its infancy; Twitter would not be formed until 2006.

The Biden campaign should copy what Republicans did against Gore’s challenge in 2000, essentially run out the clock through counter lawsuits, challenges, protests, and calling Trump “Sore Loserman.” [Kevin Shay photo]

Another part of the campaign was to use the legal process to counter anything the Gore side did — and do it before the other side acted. While the Bush campaign publicly criticized Gore for trying to “steal” the election through a legal recount process, Bush filed the first lawsuit in a Florida federal court to block the hand counts. Then his campaign spent the next few weeks blaming the voting delays on the Gore campaign, when it was the Republicans’ strategy to do whatever they could to delay the counting process.

After a judge ruled against Bush to allow hand counts to proceed, the campaigned appealed to a higher federal court. By that time, Harris ruled she would ignore the results of hand recounts not turned in by a mere week after the election. Harris even used her Florida office to work on Bush campaign ads and had his campaign speeches on her office computer before the election — a violation of state law. She forwarded emails mocking Gore’s challenge. In another document, Harris openly admitted her bias: “After 7 years of Democrat rule in the White House — we need to send the loudest possible message that we are READY TO LEAD!…. I am a bit biased — after all — I co-chair the campaign effort of George W. Bush.”

The Gore campaign petitioned a state court to overturn Harris’ decision on a short deadline. But the Florida judge ruled against Gore. A few days later, Palm Beach County officials voted to extend their hand recounts, which Harris tried to have the Florida Supreme Court block. The Supreme Court denied Harris’ request, and the recounts continued. Harris responded by saying she would not consider any hand recounts when she announced final results on Nov. 18, 2000, the day after overseas absentee ballots were due.

By Nov. 16, there were some 30 legal cases in various courts concerning the election. The ACLU filed one on Nov. 14 that asked a state circuit court for an appropriate remedy, including a Palm Beach County revote. On Nov. 20, a judge dismissed that lawsuit, saying the court did not have the power to order a new election.

On Nov. 17, Gore received a lift when the Florida Supreme Court blocked Harris from announcing results until the hand counts were completed. Another round of good news for Gore came that day when a federal appeals court rejected the Bush campaign’s request to halt hand counts. Republicans kept filing legal cases to attempt to block hand counts, and most were ultimately rejected. But they tied up officials enough to delay the process, a key part of the Bush campaign’s strategy.

Republicans also tried to get negative press against Democrats who lobbied to throw out largely military absentee ballots that weren’t filled out right with the proper postmarks, which was the law. Republicans also campaigned to persuade canvassing boards in strong Bush counties to ignore Florida’s election laws when counting overseas absentee ballots, while discarding questionable ballots in heavily Democratic counties, according to a New York Times investigation. At least 680 of the questionable ballots for Bush did not comply with election laws, the Times reported. That would have been more than enough for Gore to overcome Bush’s 537-vote lead.

More court battles and the Brooks Brothers riot

OnNov. 21, 2000, Gore gained another short-lived victory when the Florida Supreme Court ruled 7–0 that Harris must include the hand counts in the state’s final results. Bush campaign manager Karl Rove called for operatives across the country to descend on Miami-Dade County the following day to stage a demonstration that turned riotous.

The Bush campaign tried to portray the demonstration as being spontaneous, but reports leaked out how key Congressional Washington, D.C., leaders like U.S. House Republican Whip Tom DeLay of Texas lured more than 200 staff members to Florida through promises of all-expenses-paid trips to luxurious, beachfront hotels and an exclusive VIP party in Fort Lauderdale. Among the GOP protesters were Tom Pyle, policy analyst from the office of DeLay; Garry Malphrus, majority chief counsel and staff director of the House Judiciary subcommittee on criminal justice; and Rory Cooper, political division staff member at the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Longtime Nixon and Trump dirty trickster and convicted felon Roger Stone, who was sentenced to 40 months in prison for lying and witness tampering in the Mueller investigation before Trump commuted his sentence this year, was even spotted in the crowd. He told some that he helped organize what became known as the Brooks Brothers riot in reference to their attire of suit jackets and button-up shirts that gave away how they weren’t Miami residents.

The protests were coordinated from a motor home decorated with Bush-Cheney campaign propaganda parked near the county elections offices in Miami. On Nov. 22, protesters charged into the halls just outside the rooms where counters were trying to work. Pumping their fists in the air, they yelled at startled volunteers and employees, some using bullhorns. Sheriff’s deputies tried to stop them and closed the doors leading to the counting area.

Protesters refused to heed the authorities, who were outmanned. Officers could have arrested some — as they did at many anti-Bush protests when a hint of violence surfaced — but they declined to do so. The mob rushed past them and began loudly pounding on the doors and a large window looking in on canvassers. Some reportedly attacked Joe Geller, chairman of the Dade County Democratic Party, as he tried to leave the scene. Some shouted that Geller was trying to steal a ballot, which turned out to be a standard blank sample ballot. The mob chased Geller outside the building, surrounded him, and beat and kicked him as he tried to shield himself with his arms. Finally, police arrived and broke up the assault. Incredibly, no one was arrested.

Back inside, the mob attacked other Democrats. Party spokesman Luis Rosero was shoved, punched, and kicked as protesters cornered him outside the election supervisor’s office. Even U.S. Rep. Peter Deutsch was assaulted. As word came that 1,000 Cuban-Americans were on their way to join the violent mob provoked by a Spanish-language radio station, the canvassing board decided the process would be reopened to the public. A little later, the local election board decided to back down to the Republican thugs and disband the hand counts. Miami-Dade Election Supervisor David Leahy at first admitted that the violent attacks played a role in the decision to stop the counts, then later denied that.

U.S. Rep. Carrie Meek said the mob was trained to stifle opposition through intimidation. “I have been through threatening situations, but this was the worst I’ve seen in a long time,” she said. “Anybody supporting Gore, they wouldn’t let speak. They looked very hostile, and they sounded very hostile and it didn’t make any difference what I had to say. They were trained to shout people down.”

Arthur Buonamia, district chairman of the Miami-Dade County Democratic Executive Committee, told Meria Heller on her Internet radio show that he witnessed the mob attack numerous other people, including women, who were rallying to support counting votes. Several had head injuries and had to go to emergency rooms, he said.

Republicans then moved on to Broward County. With the Miami protests broadcast on CNN, authorities were better prepared in Broward and kept Democrats from being assaulted. Even so, one protester hurled a brick through the county Democratic Party headquarters. Other paid Republican protesters staged demonstrations in Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. At the latter, a mob surrounded some Democrats, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, who exchanged shouts. But no physical violence erupted.

When it was all over, the Republican thugs received their VIP party with singer Wayne Newton providing entertainment. Bush and Dick Cheney called the party-goers to thank them for the violence and crack jokes about Democrats.

U.S. Supreme Court gets involved

Two days after the Miami riot, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Bush’s lawsuit challenging the Florida Supreme Court’s decision to allow hand counts. On Nov. 26, Harris defied the Florida Supreme Court and certified Bush as the winner by a 537-vote margin. Gore contested Harris’ vote certification in a Leon County state court the following day.

On Dec. 1, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments from Republican and Democratic attorneys over the Florida Supreme Court’s decision to allow hand recounts to continue. On the same day, the Florida Supreme Court rejected the Gore campaign’s request for an immediate recount, as well as a request from Palm Beach County residents to grant relief from the butterfly ballot.

The following day, the Miami Herald reported that Gore would have won by a whopping 23,000 votes — much more than the 537-vote margin that Harris gave to her candidate — if every ballot had been counted the way voters intended. But led by the arch-conservative faction on the U.S. Supreme Court, particularly Cheney hunting partner Antonio Scalia, that court set aside the Florida Supreme Court’s ruling, dealing Gore a major blow. On the same day, state Judge Sanders Sauls rejected the Gore campaign’s challenge of Florida’s certified result, and Gore appealed to the Florida Supreme Court.

The state court came through for Gore to order a manual recount of undervotes in all Florida counties that had yet to be counted. The order called for as many as 170,000 ballots in 64 counties to be recounted — all but Palm Beach, Broward, and Volusia counties, where manual recounts had been completed. The decision whittled Bush’s lead to an ever-so-close 154 votes, counting undervotes in Palm Beach and Miami-Dade.

The Bush campaign immediately appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. Only a few hours after some volunteers started counting ballots in Florida, the nation’s highest court struck again. By a 5–4 vote along ideological lines, the court ordered the counts stopped and set a hearing on the case for Dec. 11 in Washington, D.C.

In a signed document, some 673 U.S. law professors stated there was no valid basis in law for the justices to grant the emergency injunction to halt the vote count. Besides being members of the arch-conservative Federalist Society, Scalia and Clarence Thomas had obvious conflicts in the case. Scalia’s two sons were both lawyers working for Bush at the time he heard this case, one of whom later received a high-level position with the Bush administration as a partial payback. Thomas’ wife was also collecting applications for people who wanted to work in the Bush administration at the time he heard the case.

On Dec. 12, the court ruled 7–2 that the Florida Supreme Court’s decision to allow more recounts violated Bush’s right to equal protection under the Constitution. But the justices said nothing about Gore’s right to have votes counted and the disqualified voters’ rights to have their voices heard. And the court ruled 5–4 that new recounts in Florida should not be ordered to remedy the problem since there was no time to do so. In fact, the court hypocritically set a binding deadline to have results in for 10 p.m. on Dec. 12 despite criticizing the Florida Supreme Court for arbitrarily setting a deadline.

Even though the Florida Legislature was set to certify results on Dec. 12, Gore could have kept fighting. The actual deadline for states to certify election results was Jan. 6, 2001, the day Congress was to certify results. But Gore conceded.

What the Supreme Court’s decision did in effect was select Bush as president, despite almost 200,000 votes in the pivotal state of Florida remaining uncounted. Los Angeles attorney Mark Levine noted that the five justices who supported the federal government getting involved in a state issue in the Gore case had ruled just the opposite in some previous cases. He called the decision “the Gore exception. States have no rights to have their own state elections when it can result in Gore being elected president. This decision is limited to only this situation.”

How Biden can counter Trump’s challenge

Flash forward to 2020. Networks correctly projected Joe Biden as the election winner on Nov. 7. Biden leads in the national popular vote by more than four million votes, a larger margin than the presidents who won in 2016, 2004, 2000, 1976, 1968, and 1960. Biden is winning Pennsylvania by 34,000 votes, Nevada by 26,000, and Georgia by 4,000. Trump would have to win all three states to flip the results.

In 1976, Carter won the popular vote by almost 2 million votes, and his 11,000-vote advantage in Ohio was less than Biden’s in Pennsylvania and Nevada. In 1960, John F. Kennedy only won the popular vote over Richard Nixon by some 118,000. Some states JFK won were closer than Biden’s advantage in Pennsylvania and Nevada, such as a 9,000-vote lead in Illinois. In 1968, Nixon only beat Democrat Hubert Humphrey by about 510,000 votes, and many states he took were closer than Biden’s wins, including Missouri and Delaware.

The Biden campaign should take a page from what the Bush campaign did in 2000. File legal challenges before Trump even moves. Immediately counter Trump’s claims every chance you get. Supporters should organize protests if a court rules in favor of Trump and allows something beyond a standard recount, though they should refrain from the violence committed by Bush’s protesters.

Trump should be labeled Sore Loserman, perhaps Sore Loserman 2.0. Some have created t-shirts, face masks, and stickers with such a logo.

Perhaps with enough public pressure, he will wilt and the partisan U.S. Supreme Court will not want to get involved again in picking a president, especially in making a decision that overturns an even stronger will of the people than in 2000.

Biden needs to copy tactics from 2000 election battle

Bush supporters organize ‘Sore Loserman’ protests, campaign countersues

More court battles and the Brooks Brothers riot

U.S. Supreme Court gets involved

How Biden can counter Trump’s challenge

Written by Ashikur Rahaman Ashikur Rahaman