“Well, I would say that in the year 2000 the country failed abysmally in the presidential election process. There’s no doubt in my mind that Al Gore was elected president. He received the most votes nationwide and in my opinion he also received the most votes in Florida. And the decision was made, as you know, by a 5-4 vote on a highly partisan basis by the US Supreme Court. I would say in 2000 there was a failure. The year 2004 is hard to grade. I don’t have any detailed information about what actually went on in Ohio. If Ohio had gone one way or the other it would have changed the outcome of the election. And the only thing that I know about Ohio was that there’s general consensus, that the secretary of state of Ohio, who was responsible for the administration of elections was highly partisan in his public approach and perhaps even in his private administration but I don’t know about that.”

– Former President Jimmy Carter

Venue: Speech at American University, September 19 2005

Reference / Context Source: american.edu