Jakarta's election, 'golput' and Florida's 537 votes.

Byline: The Jakarta Post,

Anyone familiar with US politics surely knows what happened in Florida in 2000. There was a dispute between Republican candidate George W Bush and his Democratic contender Al Gore concerning vote-counting. Some of the ballots could not be counted by machines, which led to the question of how many votes each candidate actually won.

The dispute was significant as nationally it was then a tie between Bush and Gore. None of them had secured a majority in the electoral college, therefore whoever won Florida won the election.

In response to the controversy, the Florida Supreme Court ordered a recount, but the US Supreme Court overruled the verdict. The Supreme Court insisted that the result should be based only on already-counted votes.

The ruling handed Bush the …