On December 9, 2000, American politics slammed to a halt as the nation awaited a Supreme Court decision likely to settle that year's presidential election. Roughly a month earlier, the voters had gone to the polls and produced nearly an even split between Republican George Bush and Democrat Al Gore. Before the long election night was over, three things became apparent. First, more Americans voted for Gore than for Bush. Second, despite Gore's popular victory, the presidency would go to the candidate who carried Florida. Third, the initial Florida count had Bush winning by a narrow margin, but the correctness of the machine-counted tally remained subject to question.

Florida turned out to be key to the presidency because the Constitution provides for the President to be chosen by the “electoral college” rather than the nationwide popular vote. Under the electoral college system, each state has an assigned number of presidential votes, based mostly on its population.