Correct. But the FL Court said that a certificate could not be issued at the end of seven days, in direct violation of the law as written…
Argue about “shall” or “may” but the Court ruled it as if it said “may not”.
Bit of an aside but is it not rather incongruent that an unelected body such as the SCOTUS had the final ruling in what was, after all, an election?
IOW, as the OP himself (her?) is asking, was this the right/only way to go about getting a democratic decision? Though I am far from being a lawyer I find the whole process rather counterintuitive to the common meaning of democracy.
Sad truth is everything these days goes through the courts.
Florida was in the middle of conducting a count and the court ordered them to stop. So obviously there is an argument about how complete the count was. There is also an argument on what the law required. I feel that if the court really felt it was defining the intent of the law, it would have declared that its decision was a binding precedent. But it didn’t, which means that in another election it could see the same circumstances occuring and decide to order the count to continue - presumedly so the candidate of their choice would win.
In the past, there have been occasions in which the court has refused to rule on an issue and declares it should be left to the political process.
Nor would it have been the final word. IOW it was not a “deadline” as you said. It was only about Bush’s state campaign chair and brother, d.b.a. the SecState and the Governor, establishing a presumption in the public mind that Bush was the true and rightful winner. That was also the purpose of Fox TV’s declaring him the winner, a decision made by Bush’s cousin, d.b.a. Fox’s election-night coverage director.
RedFury, you’re right; this was a hijack of democracy. It was not necessary except to those whose fear of a Gore presidency mattered even more. That realization on their part clearly underlies the “not a precedent” clause.
I think it’s probably time to move this from General Questions to Great Debates, where it can be discussed until a consensus is reached. 
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
No, but it was about changing the rules. The rules said: election, 7 days to recount, then begin a contest period. The FL Supremes said that 7 days really didn’t mean seven days, changing the rules in the middle, and ultimately not giving enough time for a proper recount at the end. (assuming one was required, which I don’t feel it was)
And the Supreme Court said a recount really didn’t mean a recount. If a recount couldn’t be conducted within the specified time period then you either had to throw out the time limit or throw out the counting of the votes. Most people confronted by this decision would figure that counting the votes is more central to an election result and is the higher priority.
I’m glad to learn this. I really thought that Gore was robbed, but he wasn’t and he should have known now that he wasn’t. I think it is just that the Democrats were not able to successfully use this canard to win the next one.
For me, my not knowing this (and I don’t think I’m in the minority) argues for a pro-Democrat media. I mean, this was a powerful meme (that Gore got robbed) that got around for all these years without much correction from the media.
I think you read too much into Sam’s post. As he writes, there were different possible outcomes depending on which standard was used for recounting ballots. Under some of them, Bush would have won. And under others, Gore would have. Ironically, as Sam notes, the recount standard the Gore campaign was pushing for at the time of the SCOTUS decision would have led to a Bush victory. But it’s pretty safe to assume that if the court hadn’t stopped the recount, the Gore campaign would have seen this standard was going against them and submitted a new suit asking for a wider recount using overvotes, which could have led to a Gore victory. cite
You haven’t. It ain’t so.