I’ve gone from butterfly ballots to butterflies in my stomach as Nov. 3 looms | Opinion

The never-ending deluge of commentary from pundits and columnists, President Trump ‘s diatribes about election fraud, and the deliberate mail-system slowdown have shaken me to the core; all of them bringing back my experience in Miami on Election Day 2000 — the Gore/Bush election.

I was a Gore/Lieberman volunteer. With the election said to be very close in this key state, I voted early to be sure my ballot was in. Vice President Al Gore and his team were scheduled for his last large rally of the campaign on South Beach the night before. Determined to be there, I headed over around 10 p.m., mixing and chatting with the thousands of anxious supporters.

Around 1 a.m., the Gore contingent arrived with its cadre of Hollywood celebrities. Bon Jovi got us rocking to “Living on a Prayer” until Gore appeared on stage, center front. He waved to quiet our cheering crowd and presciently announced, “Florida, this election is in your hands”. Then he was gone, off to final stops in Tampa, then home to vote in Tennessee.

At 9 a.m. Election Day, I was at a board meeting of Donors Forum of South Florida when the first sign of a troubled election came with the ringing phone of a board member from Palm Beach, who excused himself. He returned quickly to explain that his mother had called after voting in Boca Raton; the ballot was confusing, and she’d voted mistakenly for Pat Buchanan, the Reform Party candidate, rather than Gore. Hers was the now infamous butterfly ballot that cost Gore the election.

That night, husband Michael and I listened to the election results, ecstatic when the first projections had Gore winning. That quickly flipped to a toss-up , then too close to call and then George W. Bush winning. Gore called Bush to congratulate him, which he retracted when he learned how close the Florida count was. We went to bed without clarity and woke without clarity.

Bush led the election-night vote in Florida by 1,784 votes which, because of the closeness, meant a required recount. By Nov. 9, both the Gore and Bush teams had hired lawyers, and the court battles began, starting with a statewide machine recount. The Gore campaign also requested a manual recount in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Volusia counties focused on disputed ballots.

As the manual recounts continued, the battle to certify the results intensified. On Nov. 17, Secretary of State Katherine Harris certified the election results without the manual recounts. On Nov. 21, the Florida Supreme Court ruled unanimously that manual counts in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties must be included and set 5 p.m. Nov. 26 as the earliest time for certification. That day Harris certified the statewide vote count with Bush ahead by 537 votes while the recount continued. The Bush campaign appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the recounts. On Dec. 9, the Supreme Court voted to suspend the recount, ending the battle. Three days later, the Supreme Court ruled on the final Electoral College vote. Gore gave his concession speech on and Dec. 13.

There is no question today by those who studied the Florida results that it was the unique butterfly ballot in Palm Beach County that cost Gore the election, which he had won with a national vote of 543,895 more votes than Bush. Buchanan finished with 3,704 votes in staunchly Democratic Palm Beach County, where there were at least 2,000 Democrats who voted by mistake for Buchanan, some of my family members among them. That was more than Bush’s certified margin of victory. The ultimate Electoral College vote was 271 for Bush, one more than Gore had won, the closest election in US political history.

As we approach the 2020 election, I quiver with angst every time I hear President Trump make clear that he will do everything possible to win. I remember — and don’t want to relive — the distress and despair that raged for weeks within so many of us in 2000. This time, however, it isn’t just an election that is at risk; it is also our democracy, laws and fundamental values.

JoAnne Bander is a Coral Gables-based consultant.