2000 United States presidential election recount in Florida

The 2000 United States presidential election recount in Florida was a period of vote recounting in Florida that occurred during the weeks after Election Day in the 2000 United States presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore. The Florida vote was ultimately settled in Bush's favor by a margin of 537 votes out of 5,963,110 cast when the U.S. Supreme Court, in Bush v. Gore, stopped a recount that had been initiated upon a ruling by the Florida Supreme Court. Bush's win in Florida gave him a majority of votes in the Electoral College and victory in the presidential election.

Background

The controversy began on election night, November 7, 2000, when the national television networks, using information provided to them by the Voter News Service, an organization formed by the Associated Press to help determine the outcome of the election through early result tallies and exit polling, first called Florida for Gore in the hour after polls closed in the peninsula (in the Eastern time zone) but about ten minutes before they closed in the heavily Republican counties of the panhandle (in the Central time zone). Later in the evening, the networks reversed their call, moving to "too close to call", then later giving it to Bush; then they retracted that call as well, finally indicating the state was "too close to call". Gore phoned Bush the night of the election to concede, then retracted his concession after learning how close the Florida count was.

Bush led the election-night vote count in Florida by 1,784 votes. The small margin produced an automatic recount under Florida state law, which began the day after the election. That first day's results reduced the margin to just over 900 votes.