Presidential elections are supposed to be decided by the voters or at least their quaint surrogate, the Electoral College. But for 36 fateful days in 2000, the legal system took over, and the U.S. Supreme Court, not the electorate, cast the decisive votes that put George W. Bush in the White House.
It never would have happened had the election not been so freakishly close. On election night, television networks declared Florida for Democrat Al Gore, but then switched and gave the election to Bush. By the next morning the difference between Bush and Gore in Florida was fewer than 400 votes among nearly 6 million cast.
