logo
Please note!
This fact brief was originally published as an experiment to test the concepts behind fact briefs.
Readers should be aware that while there is still a lot of useful information in fact briefs like this one, not all of them reflect Gigafact's current methods and standards for fact briefs. If you come across any that you feel are out of date, don't hesitate to contact us at support@gigafact.org.
Brief Publisher Logo
FACT BRIEF

Did overseas absentee ballots play a key role in the disputed 2000 presidential election?

By Esther Tsvayg
Copy link
email
Copy featured image
email
YES

Late-arriving absentee ballots from overseas Florida voters played a key role in the dispute over the 2000 presidential election. Later reporting found that some of the ballots may have been counted illegally amid a dispute between the rival campaigns.

There was a "strikingly" effective "Republican effort to convince local election officials to count invalid ballots in Bush counties and not count them in Gore counties," according to Gary King and Kosuke Imai, political scientists who in 2004 published details of an analysis conducted for a 2001 New York Times article. On Election Day, Democrat Al Gore had been 202 votes ahead of George W. Bush, they wrote. "No partisan, pundit, or academic has publicly disagreed with [the Times] assessment" that 680 of the absentee votes were counted "illegally." Bush won the state, and hence the Presidency, by 537 votes.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Sources
Harvard: Did illegal overseas ballots decide the 2000 US Presidential election?
Harvard: Did illegal overseas ballots decide the 2000 US Presidential election? (Full text)
New York Times: How Bush took Florida, mining the overseas absentee vote (July 15, 2001)
CNN: The military ballots that have divided Democrats for 15 years
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR
Gigafact
Between 2020 and 2022, under close editorial supervision, Gigafact contracted a group of freelance writers and editors to test the concepts for fact briefs and provide inputs to our software development process. We call this effort Gigafact Foundry. Over the course of these two years, Gigafact Foundry writers published over 1500 fact briefs in response to claims they found online. Their important work forms the basis of Gigafact formats and editorial guidelines, and is available to the public on Gigafact.org. Readers should be aware that while there is still a lot of relevant information to be found, not all fact briefs produced by Gigafact Foundry reflect Gigafact's current methods and standards for fact briefs. If you come across any that you feel are out of date and need to be looked at with fresh eyes, don't hesitate to contact us at support@gigafact.org.
FACT BRIEF BY
Brief Publisher Logo
Latest fact briefs
facebook
twitter
email
email
About fact briefs published on Gigafact
Fact briefs are short, credibly sourced summaries that offer “yes/no” answers in response to claims found online. They rely on publicly available, often primary source data and documents. Fact briefs are created by contributors to Gigafact —a nonprofit project looking to expand participation in fact-checking and protect the democratic process. See all fact briefs here.