After a grueling 36 days of tough court cases and long days of recounting, George Bush was illegitimately declared the 43rd president of the United States. Whether or not Al Gore actually won the presidential election does not matter, but it is the fact that Bush’s victory was invalid and Gore was not given the fair recount he deserved. With that said, in the court case of Bush v. Gore, even though Bush may have won the case, Gore was the true winner. In terms of the actual recount, since the final votes on election day fell in the range of a .03% difference, an automatic recount in Florida initiated, but by the end of this phase, there were still uncounted votes. On December 12th, 2000, before the courts declared it to stop, Bush was only…show more content… But the point is that all the votes were counted, and every American citizen is guaranteed the right to vote and to be counted. Ignoring these numerous votes violates the fundamentals our country was found on. Additionally, most of the decisions made during the recounting phase had major influence from Republicans, instead of it being neutral. In the recounting phase, Republicans knew that they had a certain deadline, so they did whatever they could to prolong the counting phase, whether it be through dismissing votes or calling void on numerous ballots. Likewise, someone could even argue that Bush’s victory in the court was rigged since his dad, who was also a Republican President, appointed two of the nine Justices that decided Bush v. Gore. Even so, some question the actual validity of the ruling due to this quote that comes from the decision, “Our consideration is limited to the present circumstances” ("Bush v. Gore, US Supreme Court Opinion". 6th paragraph from the end of Part II-B). The legality of this is untenable as the case did not set precedent in any way and could not be used to justify any future court
