Election Chaos Reaches Week Five

As the excitement, anger, confusion, and disappointment that surround the 2000 presidential election reach a crescendo, two key court rulings should go a long way in determining the endgame.

The first case, which has been heard in Florida's Leon County Circuit Court, will determine whether hand recounts should proceed in the Democratic Florida counties where Gore's legal team has argued that as many as 14,000 ballots were missed in machine counts. That ruling should come today, in the early afternoon, with the decision handed down from Judge N. Sanders Sauls.

The second high profile case is being heard in the U.S. Supreme Court and focuses on the decision by the Florida Supreme Court to extend the vote-counting deadline so that hand-counted votes could be included in the final tally. Bush's attorneys argue that in doing so, the court actually re-wrote Florida law after the election had taken place. A Bush win in the U.S. Supreme Court would raise Bush's margin of victory back to 930 votes in what was an incredibly close election.

Despite the news that will come from the nation's highest court, Florida's legislature has decided to hold a special session to name the state's 25 electors, a move that will ensure that Florida's votes will be counted in the national vote. The state legislature has not yet determined the date of the special session, which has been decried by Democrats who, ironically, have declared that the state legislature is attempting to "hijack the election."