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Florida

Bush Lawyers Unleash Sweeping Defense Against Gore's Presidential Vote Contest

Strategic Insights

— 2 min read

Florida presidential election and the massive legal efforts by both parties

George W. Bush's lawyers put forward a comprehensive defense against Vice President Al Gore's contest of the Florida presidential vote, citing numerous grounds for dismissal, demanding nearly 2.3 million ballots from three Florida counties, and raising the stakes in the highly contentious legal battle.

Key Takeaways:

  • The Bush legal team has filed a brief with 12 reasons why the lawsuit should be dismissed, arguing that Vice President Gore has no ability to contest the results because he was never really a candidate in the election.
  • The Republicans plan to call 95 witnesses at the trial, while the Democratic lawyers accuse them of using delaying tactics to drag out the lawsuit past the Dec. 12 deadline.
  • The Bush team has announced plans to subpoena nearly 1.17 million ballots from three Florida counties, on top of the 1.16 million that began arriving in the state capital this afternoon.
  • The Republicans claim that manually recounting only part of the ballots is illegal, and that the court cannot simply count a few thousand ballots chosen by the Gore team without performing a much larger recount.
  • The Democrats are placing an enormous amount of hope on the possibility that the Florida Supreme Court may agree to short-circuit the case, while the Republicans have promised to fight any effort to count even a single ballot.
  • The Bush team has also raised several other major issues in their defense, including the claim that the contest suit was prohibited by the "doctrine of laches" and that manually counting ballots from only two counties violated the equal protection clause of the United States Constitution.

Statistics:

  • 2.3 million ballots have been demanded by the Bush team from three Florida counties.
  • 1.16 million ballots have arrived in the state capital in a yellow Ryder truck, with 463,000 from Palm Beach County and 654,000 from Miami-Dade County.
  • Over 1.17 million ballots are being subpoenaed by the Republicans from three Florida counties.
  • The Republicans plan to call 95 witnesses at the trial.
  • The Bush team has accused the Democratic lawyers of running out of time, citing the Dec. 12 deadline for the State Legislature to name Florida's presidential electors.

Sources:

  • "Bush Lawyers Unleash Sweeping Defense Against Gore's Presidential Vote Contest," The New York Times, November 30, 2000.
  • "Gore Team Asks Supreme Court to Intervene," The New York Times, November 30, 2000.
  • "Bush Team to Challenge Election Outcome in Court," The Miami Herald, November 30, 2000.

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