Having read the full court opinion, and the oral argument transcript, and a 300 page book on the subject, I believe the outcome was the most correct opinion in light of the unique circumstances.
Mostly agreed. Frankly, the only thing about Bush v. Gore that I am critical of is that it completely stopped the recounting process. Indeed, ideally the best thing to do would have probably been for the U.S. Supreme Court to not only order the Florida Supreme Court to implement a new manual recount of overvotes and undervotes using a uniform standard, but also to have the U.S. Supreme Court demand that the Florida Supreme Court likewise impose uniform standards (indeed, these uniform standards could have been based on the ruling that Judge Lacey Collier made in regards to absentee ballots several days earlier) for counting all of the absentee ballots in Florida.
Indeed, it certainly
wouldn't be very fair to impose uniform standards for ballots that Florida's voting machines threw out but
not for absentee ballots. However, unfortunately neither Al Gore nor
any of the U.S. Supreme Court Justices appear to have raised the issue of equal protection for Florida's absentee ballots during the hearings for Bush v. Gore.
Thus, based on the alternative that the four liberal U.S. Supreme Court Justices actually offered, completely stopping the recounting process was probably the better move.
Yes; correct! Indeed, there is
absolutely no compelling state interest in treating similar ballots differently when it comes to vote-counting.
Didn't only three U.S. Supreme Court Justices make this argument, though? Indeed, I certainly don't remember any mention of Article II of the U.S. Constitution in the (main) Bush v. Gore ruling.
Yes, this appears to be correct.
Completely agreed. Indeed, the fact that Al Gore would have probably made a better U.S. President than George W. Bush would have certainly
doesn't result in me looking at Bush v. Gore through partisan-colored glasses.
Also, though, out of curiosity--had U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy not only voted the other way but also raised the question of equal protection for all of Florida's absentee ballots and thus the Florida Supreme Court would have been ordered to launch a new manual recount with uniform standards for undervotes, overvotes, and absentee ballots, this manual recount would have needed to end sometime before January 6, 2001, correct? Indeed, even if this manual recount
wouldn't have been completed by the time that the Electoral College would have met on December 18, 2000 (and it probably
wouldn't have been completed by this point in time if the slow manual recounting in four Democratic Florida counties in 2000 are any indication of the speed at which this new manual recount would have advanced), Florida's Supreme Court could have ordered that a slate of Gore electors be sent as late as January 5, 2001, correct? In such a scenario, the U.S. Congress could approve this slate of Gore electors if necessary (as in, if Al Gore would have actually won this new manual recount in Florida) while rejecting the slate of Bush electors that the Florida Legislature has previously sent, correct?
In addition to this, though, while this certainly
doesn't affect the actual merits of the Bush v. Gore decision
at all, if you are curious as to what exactly the outcome of a new manual recount in Florida that would have counted undervotes, overvotes, and absentee ballots using uniform standards would have looked like, I suspect--but certainly
cannot prove--that Al Gore would have won this manual recount. Basically, while the 2001 media recount had Al Gore winning by about 100 votes (plus/minus several dozen votes depending on the specific standard involved), the 2001 media recount
doesn't appear to have taken absentee ballots into account. Indeed, on December 8, 2001, Judge Lacey Collier granted Bush a partial victory by mandating seven Florida counties (Bush apparently didn't ask for the other Florida counties--so much for equal protection when it comes to absentee ballots!
) to accept some of the absentee ballots that they previously rejected. This ruling was predicted (by the media) to result in an additional gain of about 100 votes for Bush--which in turn would have made Bush v. Gore about even in the Florida count (after all, 100 votes - 100 votes = 0 votes). However, now we have to apply equal protection for all of Florida's absentee ballots. Indeed, since Florida's unequal treatment of absentee ballots likely benefited Bush (as my link in my original post here indicates), imposing uniform standards for Florida's absentee ballots would have
probably favored Al Gore and would have
probably pushed Al Gore over the top in Florida in 2000 (as in, would have
probably caused Al Gore to win Florida in 2000).
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