A Broken Election System Becomes a Teenager

By Associate Professor Justin Levitt

This op-ed originally appeared on Pacific Standard.

Precisely 13 years ago, five Supreme Court justices cast the final and most important vote of the 2000 election, ending a Florida recount and effectively installing George W. Bush as the 43rd President of the United States.

Today, Bush v. Gore hits adolescence. We should be paying far more attention to this troubled teen.

The chaos of the winter of 2000 has slipped from the national consciousness. My students have no idea what a "hanging chad" is, or that such a thing was ever meaningful. More recent constitutional crises have left the combat in Tallahassee stale and distant. Much of America has, it seems, finally taken Justice Scalia's frequently quoted advice on the election: "Get over it."

But ignoring the Bush v. Gore bar mitzvah would be a grave mistake. In some ways, the need to remember--and to let that memory spur us to action--is greater now than ever before.

Read the complete piece.