WASHINGTON — Following the brutal 2000 Florida recount and the Supreme Court ruling in Bush vs. Gore, when the day came, then-Vice President Al Gore, presiding over the Senate, gaveled through the electoral vote count making his presidential defeat final.
There was never any question that a vice president had the power to change the outcome of a presidential election, even when his own fate was in the balance. Gore could not do it in 2000; nor could then-Vice President Mike Pence in 2020, even under pressure from President Donald Trump, who was being fed spurious legal theories, which, if true, would let Vice President Kamala Harris pick the winner in 2024.
