So much ink has been spilled over election 2000 that we are loath, at this late date, to add to the ocean. As we noted last month, writing a mere week or so after the November 7 election, the Gore team’s insistence on pushing the election into the courts by challenging the results of the mandatory recount in Florida set an ominous precedent. This was an issue that Chief Justice Wells summed up perfectly in his dissent from the Florida Supreme Court’s decision to overturn a lower court and order a manual recount of “undervotes” throughout the state. “[W]e run a great risk,” he wrote, “that every election will result in judicial testing. Judicial restraint in respect to elections is absolutely necessary because the health of our democracy depends on elections being decided by voters—not by judges.” We must all be grateful, no matter which candidate we supported, that the U.S. Supreme Court finally put ...

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