Double take

The presidential election of 2000 was not the first United States presidential election to end with uncertainty. The contest between George W. Bush and Al Gore was not the first to introduce Americans to disputed vote tallies in crucial swing states, to the possibility of separate and competing slates of potential electors, or even to the notion that one person's vote really might matter after all. History had already born witness to many of those prospects during the 1877 presidential race between Samuel Tilden and Rutherford B. Hayes, which Hayes ultimately won. The 2000 election was novel, however, in the sense that it inspired a series of legal battles that culminated in a landmark United States Supreme Court case. Bush v. Gore (531 U.S. 98) provoked questions concerning the legal meaning of equality, the nature of federalism, and the role the Supreme Court should play in determining how state courts should interpret state laws.