Al Gore says 2020 won’t end like 2000. But here's why it might actually be worse

It took a Supreme Court case to decide 2000’s contested election results, but Mr Gore thinks it won’t be so close this time around

Former Vice President Al Gore says things will be different this time. 

Mr Gore lost the razor-thin 2000 presidential election against George W. Bush following an (in)famous Supreme Court decision ending a recount in Florida, but he says that despite 2020’s partisan warfare, that contested result won’t happen again.

“I’m knocking on wood here because I don’t know what the result is going to be, but I have a very strong feeling that the vast majority of Americans, including a significant percentage of Republicans, have watched and listened to Donald Trump for four years, and have concluded that we need somebody better as president,” Mr Gore told CNN on Monday, predicting a decisive win for Joe Biden.

The election in 2000 was anything but decisive. News media initially projected a Democratic win, then reversed. Mr Gore then conceded to President Bush, then took it back. After an initial recount in Florida, the Republican ticket led by just 327 votes, out of six million cast, and roughly 50 individual lawsuits were filed in the state over everything from ballot design to recounting deadlines before the Supreme Court intervened and declared Mr Bush the winner.

The 2020 contest could be even more contentious, combining a pandemic, a last-minute Supreme Court confirmation fight, a Post Office struggling to balance a wave of mail-in voting and potential cuts from the Trump administration, and an incumbent president who has repeatedly tried to undermine confidence in the election.

Voters have waited for hours in long early-voting lines across the country. More than 230 election-related lawsuits have already been filed and it’s not even election day, often with Democrats seeking to expand time to turn in votes due to coronavirus, and Republicans seeking to maintain normal voting deadlines. And many have made it to the US Supreme Court, where the Justices have backed extensions in some states and denied them in others.

And one of the biggest influences on the legitimacy of the election will be the president himself, who has repeatedly spread false claims  about mail-in voting and argued the election should end on November 3, even though states regularly take days or weeks to fully count votes, especially mail-in ballots, which have seen a huge surge due to coronavirus .

The president has also refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if the election is contested, and insinuated he hopes the Supreme Court once again calls the contest.

“Well, we’ll have to see what happens,” he said during a press conference in September. “You know that. I’ve been complaining very strongly about the ballots. And the ballots are a disaster.” He added, “Get rid of the ballots, and you’ll have a very — you’ll have a very peaceful — there won’t be a transfer, frankly, there’ll be a continuation.”

He has also said the election, like in 2000, should end up in the Supreme Court because it’s a Democratic “scam.” (Justice Barrett, as it happens, was a Republican lawyer who helped argue for the Bush campaign in 2000, and Justice Kavanaugh, also a Trump administration appointee, recently became the first to substantively cite Bush v. Gore in decades during a recent case about voting law in Wisconsin).

“I think this scam that the Democrats are pulling — it's a scam — this scam will be before the United States Supreme Court, and I think having a 4-4 situation is not a good situation,” he  said in September.

Appointing numerous judges and three Supreme Court Justices has been one of the signature achievements of the Trump administration and its Republican allies the last four years. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell recently explained that this effort is in part a way to cement Republican priorities even if they end up losing future elections.