Opinion of Bush v. Gore (the U.S. Supreme Court decision)?

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

I've always thought it was a poor decision. The Supremes should never have gone anywhere near the actual election results.

What should have happened was that Florida failed to conduct a valid election. Since the election couldn't reasonably be either corrected or done over, it's Electoral Votes cannot be certified and are not valid this time around.

Since Florida's voted would have been decisive, the election goes to the House where Bush would have won. The Supremes can then rule during their normal term on how Florida and other states need to conduct their balloting in the future.

[SamTilden2020]

In terms of the decision itself, seems like a meritable decision. In terms of who it elected, that's another discussion for another time.

That election should have been contested in congress just like 1876

Don't remind me! 1877-Era Flashbacks

[Dereich]

I've always thought it was a poor decision. The Supremes should never have gone anywhere near the actual election results.

What should have happened was that Florida failed to conduct a valid election. Since the election couldn't reasonably be either corrected or done over, it's Electoral Votes cannot be certified and are not valid this time around.

Since Florida's voted would have been decisive, the election goes to the House where Bush would have won. The Supremes can then rule during their normal term on how Florida and other states need to conduct their balloting in the future.

Think of the precedent that proposal would set: comparatively minor electoral disputes (its not like there was some systemic statewide issue with Florida voting that caused the controversy) could disenfranchise a state if challenged in court. We might see every election resolved by the House with that kind of rule.

The second part of what you say is problematic too. Article II, Clause 2 says that "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress..." It doesn't set a requirement for balloting anywhere. The states can still, if they so choose, have the legislature decide how electors are chosen. For the Supreme Court to take away this authority and on top of that to dictate the minutia of how the states conduct something which is clearly within their constitutional authority would be the most startling seizure of power in US history.

Plus, the Supreme Court can't offer advisory opinions. For them to "tell the states how to conduct balloting in the future" a case or controversy (and all that entails, like ripeness and standing) would have to make its way through the court system. It's a recipe for at least a decade of nullified elections and multiple constitutional crises.

As for the decision itself, I think it was fine. No matter how they ruled they would have been seen as "stealing the election." I think that the way they did it, they did the least to expand the Court's influence at the expense of the state governments, so I approve.