Bush and Gore draw in Florida

Either Bush or Gore (or both perhaps) will sue the state of Florida in federal court to prevent the election being decided on a coin toss. If it gets tied up at SCOTUS past the safe harbor deadline you could see the Florida legislature attempt to appoint a slate of electors, or the state could fail to submit an electoral vote entirely.
 
It's actually a bit more plausible (though still extremely unlikely) to have Bush and Gore tied in a smaller state like New Hampshire. (Remember that if Gore had won New Hampshire with its four electoral votes, he would have won the election even without Florida. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2000) NH was of course not quite as close as FL, but if Gore had mounted a better campaign there, he could have made it a virtual tie, and there is a better chance in a small state than in a large one for a virtual tie to be an *actual* tie.

A reminder of how close NH elections can be:
New Hampshire United States Senate Election, 1974: Second Recount
Party Candidate Votes %
Republican Louis Wyman 110,926 49.6618
Democratic John A. Durkin 110,924 49.6609
American Independent Carmen C. Chimento 1,513 0.68
Plurality 2 0.0009
Turnout 223,363

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_election_in_New_Hampshire,_1974
 

jahenders

Banned
Either Bush or Gore (or both perhaps) will sue the state of Florida in federal court to prevent the election being decided on a coin toss. If it gets tied up at SCOTUS past the safe harbor deadline you could see the Florida legislature attempt to appoint a slate of electors, or the state could fail to submit an electoral vote entirely.

While possible, I think SCOTUS would soon declare that the coin toss was the method decreed in Florida law and that no other method could be put in place in time, so the coin toss was it. That's essentially what they decided in 2000 -- that having every county do their own thing as far as recounting was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause (7-2), they then decided (5-4) that the time remaining made it impossible for the legislature to create and implement any other mechanism so the results stood.
 
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