Obama, Romney Legal Teams At The Ready For Voting Disputes As Race Tightens

The Obama and Romney legal teams are on standby for the coming election, ready to battle it out over disputed results in the already hotly contested race.

The Obama and Romney legal teams are (probably like the rest of us) remembering the epic nightmare unleashed on the United States back during the election of 2000, when a disputed state (Florida) held the results of the election in the balance for several weeks as the nation waited for word as to how the vote count in the swing state would be handled.

Ultimately, the Supreme Court stepped in and handed the election to former President Bush over Vice President Al Gore, and despite winning the popular vote for the election, Bush took office.

The intervening eight years were no picnic for most Americans, and by the time Obama took office in 2009, the country had suffered the effects of seemingly endless wars and endless recession, and an economy battered by regressive tax policies that caused income inequality to skyrocket and resemble the financial situation of the 1920s.

Reuters has analyzed the situation that the Obama and Romney legal teams are currently gearing up for, explaining how a neck and neck tie could precipitate a bitter battle for the White House when the polls close:

“With Obama and Romney in a virtual dead heat in the polls, the state-by-state race for president has a range of chaotic possibilities … The mostly likely scenario is that there will be a clear winner on election night, or the next morning. But the closeness of the race raises the possibility of a range of less conclusive, more confusing scenarios … Among them: a disputed result in a state because of voting delays, problems with ballots or vote counting.”

With the expected devastation from Hurricane Sandy emerging as a nightmare polling scenario, the Obama and Romney legal teams may be in for an even bigger fight than anyone has anticipated.

Democratic strategist Tad Devine spoke to the newswire, confirming that Obama and Romney’s legal teams should gear up just in case the dead heat becomes a contested race. Devine said that back in 2000, no one anticipated what Gore faced in the Florida dispute:

“We really weren’t ready for the level of dispute in 2000 … We had a lawyer in every state, but we hadn’t gone out and found the best lawyers in the country to represent our cause.”

As the Obama and Romney teams prepare to battle, both sides say they are confident they will prevail in any legal voting dispute that may arise.