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Ten years ago today, Floridians began a 37 day roller-coaster as they cast ballots in the most disputed election in our nation’s history. As Mike Vasilinda tells us, several key decisions forever changed the outcome of the November 7th, 2000 election.
The infamous Palm Beach butterfly ballot got the initial blame, then chads, hanging pieces of paper sticking to punch card ballots.

“When you put it in the machine, it goes back up and closes,” Democrat activist Jon Ausman said.

I was the first to describe a chad to George Bush’s team.

“You’re the first person to mention that to me and that of course will be the subject of review and taking a close look at it,” James Baker, a Bush Advisor, said.

Little did we know that chads would be center stage as thousands came to protest.

For the next 37 days, the world was fixated on Tallahassee and who would be the new leader of the free world.

Mark Herron represented Al Gore. He wanted to make sure supervisors counted only overseas absentee ballots that were properly postmarked.

“There were laws in place that said they had to be postmarked with postmarks outside of the United States,” Herron said.”

Republicans painted that scenario as disenfranchising military voters. Democratic VP candidate Joe Lieberman said all overseas votes should counted and that probably changed the outcome.

“Lieberman blinked,” Herron said. “That is my view of the world. He understood the rules but he blinked.”

In the end the U.S. Supreme Court brought all vote counting to an end.

What followed were electronic voting machines, later abandoned after 18,000 votes disappeared in a Sarasota congressional race in 2006. Today, all of Florida uses the same style optical scan machines with a paper trail.

The 2000 election is the only time in US history that a president lost the popular vote but won the election. The other was Rutherford B. Hayes 1876 and Florida played a critical role in his election as well.