The GOP’s Election-Stealing Theatrics
![Supporters for Gore and Bush clash at a ballot recount in Miami, Nov. 13, 2000 [Marc Serota/Reuters]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f21dbb91adde3260d4ba1ef/1603999823793-Z2JFZAV6GUN1LHF8V8F1/george-bush)
Supporters for Gore and Bush clash at a ballot recount in Miami, Nov. 13, 2000 [Marc Serota/Reuters]
Ahead of Election Day, President Donald Trump has cast doubt on the election process, particularly absentee voting, and has all but promised to fight the results in court should he lose. Even more alarming is a recent opinion from Justice Brett Kavanaugh, which cites Bush v. Gore, and limits Wisconsin’s ability to count ballots. Bush v. Gore was the Supreme Court decision that handed George W. Bush the 2000 election by stopping a Florida recount of ballots that had been undercounted by faulty voting machines. One way to interpret this new opinion, wrote Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern, would be that Kavanaugh is “laying the groundwork to reject enough ballots to hand Trump an unearned second term.”
In other words, we may be heading for Bush v. Gore II: another presidential election decided not by voters, but by SCOTUS.
The GOP has long made voter suppression part of its election strategy, but some of its forays into ballot tossing have been cruder than others. The 2000 Florida recount fight featured the “Brooks Brothers Riot,” in which GOP staffers fought to shut down the Miami-Dade County recount of over half a million ballots. The so-called riot occurred on the day before Thanksgiving after canvassers in the elections office decided to close the recount to the public. According to a New York Times report, people were “trampled, punched or kicked” as protesters — self-named for their business attire — rushed the doors into the office of the Miami-Dade supervisor of elections.
Brad Blakeman, a Bush campaign operative who was later on Bush’s senior staff, led the effort to rally support against the recount with the help of 20 paid GOP staffers, including now-Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Roger Stone (see our film recommendation below). Blakeman called the protest just one of three efforts by Republicans to attack the recount: “It was a court battle. It was a recount organization. And it was also a PR effort because, although the voting effort ended, the campaign never did until there was a definitive and defined winner.”
Ultimately, the GOP operatives got what they wanted — the canvassing board announced that it was shutting down its recount, in part because of the protests. And weeks later, Bush v. Gore settled the matter for good.
The 2020 election, rife with voter suppression, represents, in a way, the institutionalization of the Brooks Brothers strategy — cast doubt on the process, distract the public with theatrics, and count on right-leaning judges to take care of the rest. No riots necessary.