ABSTRACT
The exploding interest in election law is traceable directly to Bush v. Gore, the controversial United States (US) Supreme Court decision that handed the presidency to George W. Bush. In Bush v. Gore, logically tortured five-to-four opinion along ideological lines concluded that Florida's method of counting votes violated the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of equal protection of law because different counties allegedly employed different ways of counting the votes. The chaos and irregularities surrounding the Florida presidential recount prompted Congress in 2002 to pass the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), legislation designed to raise election standards. HAVA was a compromise between congressional Democrats who want to increase voter access and Republicans who want to combat voter fraud. A post-2012 election report by the Palm Beach Post quoted several prominent Florida Republicans admitting that election law changes in their state were geared toward suppressing minority and Democratic votes.
