# Bush wins! Again! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 26, 2001, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wins-again/55906 "2001-02-26T08:21:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Bill\_H](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a5b964/32.png) [@Bill\_H](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_H)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2001, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wins-again/55906/1 "2001-02-26T08:21:55Z")
Kinda surprised to see there was no rager going on here, so let me just post the results and stand back. [http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Media-Ballot-Review.html](http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Media-Ballot-Review.html) ---
**Author:** ![TexasSpur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a6a055/32.png) [@TexasSpur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TexasSpur)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2001, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wins-again/55906/2 "2001-02-26T08:25:06Z")
Maybe you could summarize it for those of us who aren’t subscribers to NYTimes online. ---
**Author:** ![SPOOFE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2001, 9:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wins-again/55906/3 "2001-02-26T09:28:26Z")
Sign-up to the NY Times online service is free. Anyway, here’s all you need to know… > [@](#): > > A review of 10,644 uncounted ballots in Miami-Dade County showed Al Gore would not have gained enough votes to overtake George W. Bush > [@](#): > > Gore would have gained no more than 49 votes in Miami-Dade In other words, all the bluster and blather about “Gore WOULD have won” is baseless and false. ---
**Author:** ![yosemite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/3ab097/32.png) [@yosemite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yosemite)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2001, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wins-again/55906/4 "2001-02-26T10:58:28Z")
More from the NY Times (emphasis mine): > [@](#): > > The Herald used **broad liberal standards** , including counting **every dimple, pinprick and hanging chad** identified in the section for presidential votes on the ballots. I thought that was interesting. And yet Gore still lost, huh? ---
**Author:** ![TexasSpur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a6a055/32.png) [@TexasSpur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TexasSpur)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2001, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wins-again/55906/5 "2001-02-26T11:03:18Z")
rather than call them liberal standards, I think it would have been more appropriate if they called them Democrat party standards for the end of year 2000 and beginning of year 2001. ---
**Author:** ![Hazel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e56c9b/32.png) [@Hazel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hazel)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2001, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wins-again/55906/6 "2001-02-26T13:20:27Z")
I still do not understand all the emphisis on counting the votes. 1. Suppose every registered voter in FL who set out to cast a vote had suceeded in doing so. (2) Further, suppose everyone who voted in FL had suceeded in casting that vote for whomever he or she actually intended to vote for. IMO, if #1 and #2 had both happened, Gore would have won. If #2 alone had happened, Gore would have won (the votes he lost to the West Palm Beach screw-up were enough to have made him the winner). If #1 alone had happened, would that have been enough to make Gore the winner? Possibly. IMO, Gore should have demanded a full and complete investigation of all mishaps, irregularities, and allegations of outright cheating. IMO, he should also have called for hand recounts in all counties that used punchcards or anything else where there are actual paper ballots or cards to count, and machine recounts in the high tech counties where there is nothing physical to count. (Another thing I never understood was all the talk about a “statewide hand recount” – how can you have a hand recount when modern voting machines are used? There isn’t anything physical TO count, is there?) IMO, Gore lost in FL because of a combination of honest mistakes (such as the West Palm Beach ballot) and outright cheating (people who were deprived of their right to vote). ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2001, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wins-again/55906/7 "2001-02-26T13:22:48Z")
Remember that the Herald was only counting undervotes in punchcard counties, not the overvotes as well (like filling in a candidate’s oval AND writing in his name on an optical-scan ballot), and not statewide either. Jacob Weisberg at Slate has regular, more thorough discussions about this, including slams of the Herald for their “Rush to Pulitzer” judgment. ---
**Author:** ![Tranquilis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tranquilis/32/3639_2.png) [@Tranquilis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tranquilis)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2001, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wins-again/55906/8 "2001-02-26T14:33:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Hazel \* > \*\*IMO, Gore should have demanded a full and complete investigation of all mishaps, irregularities, and allegations of outright cheating. IMO, he should also have called for hand recounts in all counties that used punchcards or anything else where there are actual paper ballots or cards to count, and machine recounts in the high tech counties where there is nothing physical to count. > \*\* Please note that the diference in the vote was so slender that even hand counts are essentially meaningless: At one point, you’d have to hand count 100’s of thousands of votes without making _any more_ than one mistake in 20,000 to obtain a ‘complete accounting’ of all the votes. I defy any one to achieve that. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2001, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wins-again/55906/9 "2001-02-26T14:45:14Z")
Correction to my previous post: The Miami Herald - USA Today recountcovered **only** Miami-Dade County. This is from this morning’s [url=http://slate.msn.com}Slate: > [@](#): > > USAT describes its Florida vote findings as “a blow to Democratic claims that Gore would have won the election if a hand recount had occurred.” But: 1) the paper waits until the very end of its Page 3 follow-up to report that its study also discovered that in Miami-Dade, “Gore might have lost hundreds of votes” from misaligned ballots caused by voters mistakenly punching ballot chads not assigned to any candidate; 2) Today’s stories do not mention that by limiting its attention to undervotes–ballots where there is, at best, evidence of an attempt to perforate one chad–the study has chosen to ignore another type of disputed ballot that might well have given Gore a big edge in a hand recount: overvotes, ballots where there is evidence of an attempt to perforate more than one chad. Specifically, there is no mention that a post-election study conducted by the Orlando Sentinel of Florida’s Lake County ballots that included overvotes found a net gain for Gore, because the overvotes included ballots where cleanly punched regular votes for Gore were accompanied by cleanly punched write-in votes for him. The thread title of “Bush wins! Again!” is most charitably described as premature. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2001, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wins-again/55906/10 "2001-02-26T14:47:59Z")
Can anyone cite a biblical precident for the “He would have won anyway so stealing is OK” argument the republicans are trying to foist off on us here ? The GOP can no doubt pass a law making the “newspaper recounts” legally binding, have the president sign it and the high court OK it, but that still won’t legitimize the term of a “president” who was appointed not elected. ---
**Author:** ![Tranquilis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tranquilis/32/3639_2.png) [@Tranquilis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tranquilis)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2001, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wins-again/55906/11 "2001-02-26T16:05:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Squink \* > \*\*Can anyone cite a biblical precident for the “He would have won anyway so stealing is OK” argument the republicans are trying to foist off on us here ? > The GOP can no doubt pass a law making the “newspaper recounts” legally binding, have the president sign it and the high court OK it, but that still won’t legitimize the term of a “president” who was appointed not elected. > \*\* How about “Our Thief Lost, So We Must Deny The President Is Legitimate”? That’s an equally valid interpretation, based on: The vote was so close that the margin of error inherant in any voting system (including electronic) renders the vote essentally meaningless. Give it a rest ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2001, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wins-again/55906/12 "2001-02-26T16:42:41Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tranquilis \* > [BThe vote was so close that the margin of error inherant in any voting system (including electronic) renders the vote essentally meaningless. Then you can provide a link to some rigorous statistical analysis to back that assertion, _without_ assuming a number of variations to be random in the face of evidence that they clearly were not. It certainly is odd to see a claim that facts do not deserve investigation on a forum dedicated to “fighting ignorance”. [/quote] Give it a rest \*\* [/QUOTE] There are still some of us in this country who think democracy is important. Perhaps you could respect that. ---
**Author:** ![Satan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Satan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satan)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2001, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wins-again/55906/13 "2001-02-26T16:48:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ElvisL1ves \* > > **The thread title of “Bush wins! Again!” is most charitably described as premature.** Wasn’t the media pretty good at being “premature” about these things though? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Freedom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Freedom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freedom)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2001, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wins-again/55906/14 "2001-02-26T16:54:05Z")
> [@](#): > > IMO, Gore should have demanded a full and complete investigation of all mishaps, irregularities, and allegations of outright cheating. And in IMHO… Gore is the smartest democrat out there right now. He has dropped out of the limelight, he is resting and not stirring up any trouble. He was very tarnished after that bruising court battle. Gore is finally free of clinton. With this Clinton pardon scandal, Gore finally has the chance to seperate himself from it. He is laying low and acting the way you would expect the loser to act. Every day that the Clinton’s slime gets dragged before the country without Gore being connected, is another step towards Gore regaining his national standing. ---
**Author:** ![PeeQueue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8797f3/32.png) [@PeeQueue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PeeQueue)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2001, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wins-again/55906/15 "2001-02-26T17:01:39Z")
I don’t understand how people can continue to say that Bush is a thief and that Gore should have won when there has yet to be any single count ever that showed that Gore won Florida, and countless counts that Bush won. PeeQueue ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2001, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wins-again/55906/16 "2001-02-26T17:06:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Satan \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by ElvisL1ves \* > > > > **The thread title of “Bush wins! Again!” is most charitably described as premature.** > > Wasn’t the media pretty good at being “premature” about these things though? 😃 \*\* I’d like to think we’re a little bit better than that, wouldn’t you? ---
**Author:** ![IzzyR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/2acd7d/32.png) [@IzzyR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IzzyR)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2001, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wins-again/55906/17 "2001-02-26T17:16:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Freedom \* > Gore is the smartest democrat out there right now. He has dropped out of the limelight, he is resting and not stirring up any trouble. He was very tarnished after that bruising court battle. Gore is finally free of clinton. OTOH, Gore would have been helped alot had some recounts showed him to be the winner. He would have an additional moral standing as the “true” winner, and would not be as tarnished with the sore loser label. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2001, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wins-again/55906/18 "2001-02-26T17:20:34Z")
Bush is a thief because he had the supreme court stop the normal vote counting process and declare him the winner. Claiming that “he would have won if he hadn’t cheated” does nothing to change the fact that he cheated. It’d be interesting to see the congress investigating the supreme courts motives in their ruling as closely as they are looking at president Clintons. The evidence of criminal wrongdoing seems much cleaner in the case of the high court. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2001, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wins-again/55906/19 "2001-02-26T17:27:31Z")
> [@](#): > > I don’t understand how people can continue to say that Bush is a thief and that Gore should have won when there has yet to be any single count ever that showed that Gore won Florida, and countless counts that Bush won. Except the Miami Herald’s precinct-by-precinct analysis of the under/overvotes which demonstrated that the expected result, if all those ballots had been tallied for a candidate, was a 23,000-vote win by Gore. (I’d link you there, but the link’s defunct. However, we discussed it [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=46135&pagenumber=3). Or the [Washington Post study](http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53804-2001Jan26.html) of all the punch-card counties for which computer tapes were available, which showed that Gore’s name was punched on 29,000 more ‘overvote’ ballots than Bush’s was in those counties. There are others, but that’ll do for now. ---
**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2001, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wins-again/55906/20 "2001-02-26T17:29:30Z")
Yeah, but Gore would have won if people’s hopes and dreams were measured instead of their votes. It appears that Bush will likely be discovered to be the winner if any acceptable standards are used to recount the votes. Statistical analysis may show that voter error helped Bush, and that it is likely that Gore should be awarded a chunk of the double votes and Buchanen votes, etc. However, there has never been any provision in the law to determine a voter’s intent through any means other than looking at their ballot. What the newspaper poll will show (if it continues to show similar results) is that the Supreme Court was correct that continuing recounts was unlikely to change the result. If Bush is shown to have won the majority of the legally countable ballots, I don’t see how the charge of stealing the election is valid. I do think that democracy is important. I also think the best thing for democracy is to have elections decided in accordance with laws that were made beforehand. And it’s starting to look like Bush would have won by that standard, regardless of whether you agree with the Supreme Court or not. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wins-again/55906.md?page=2)