You libs have GOT to get over the 2000 election results. I still hear with startling frequency that he was “selected. not elected” or other witicisms aimed at calling into question his victory.
I remember in Government class, as a senior in high school, the teacher telling us how a person could lose the popular vote, but still win the electoral college.
Can anyone provide a credible cite to the effect that Bush and his team broke any law, or any rule was bent in his favor?
Bush won fair and square by the rules that were in place long before the 2000 election was even contemplated.
This is basically a case of sour grapes, and comes across as shrill and bitter. Not to terms that will be endearing to the 2004 electorate.
Nope, the Supreme court voided the election laws of Florida and effectively appointed Bush President of the United States. If you disbelieve that, you are free to look up the text of their decision.
The funny thing is that Bush was asked what would he do if he won the popular vote but not the E.C. as was expected by some. I don’t think his answer was that he would go crying to court but don’t really recall.
Sometime Irony can be pretty ironic
Also the one thing that really bothers me is that anyone would even mention the popular vote in such a context, the rules are to win the EC, this is how you play the game, this is how you set up your campain and you would play a totally different game if you were going for the popular vote. This is like playing golf and getting the low score and about to get the $80 pool then someone says that they hit their ball further on every shot and they should win the pool. Get a life my friend.
But Bush won Fl, so how can the SC void the law and at the same time follow it. IIRC if Fl law was taken to it’s end the Fl legsliation would have appointed electors which would have goon to Bush anyway.
I do not want to address the legal or moral aspect of this thread. But, from a political POV I think the 2002 Florida gubernatorial election demonstrated the truth of the above quote. The National Democratic Party gave a lot of support to the Florida candidate, base on sour grapes, and he got crushed by Jeb Bush.
Bush did not win Fla. He prevented all of the votes from being counted there, which is NOT the same thing in a democracy.
The media recount showed that when ALL of the valid votes were counted (not just those that Gore asked for, but ALL of them) Then Gore won no matter what set of rules you used for counting chads.
If the SCOTUS had not stopped the hand count that was in progress in Fla, a full recount would have shown that Gore won Fla.
So take your lies about Bush winning and stuff them. The facts show otherwise.
That is incorrect. An independent review of the Florida ballots, commissioned by a consortium of newspapers, showed that had the recount gone on exactly as the Fla SC had permitted (meaning, just as Gore’s camp requested), Bush would have won. Whatever your opinion is of SCOTUS’s decision, it was ultimately irrelevant in deciding the election.
SCOTUS could not have stopped a complete recount because there was not one on the table, even ignoring the issue of what “complete” means and how to interpret voter intent given the widely disparate opinions. Gore’s camp never pursued a statewide recount, so Bush never prevented one, nor did SCOTUS. Exactly how was this miracle to have occurred? Were we all supposed to squint and wish really, really hard?
Wrong. The Judge that the Fla SC put in charge of the recount had discretion to order any sort of recount he wanted He was not bound to recount only those counties or types of errors that the Gore camp had requested.
And, in fact, he gave an interview and said that if SCOTUS had not stopped the count, he would have ordered that ALL ballots rejected by the machines be recounted by hand. He also said that based on the progress that they had managed up until that point, he believed that the full hand count could have been managed in less than a week. Which was plenty of time to get the result to congress before they had to count the electoral votes.
A full hand count of all valid ballots is the only valid way to determine the winner. And the media recount determined that such a count would have gone to Gore no matter what standard was used.
It’s a shame that the Gore camp did not request that until late in the process. But in the end, it wouldn’t have mattered because the controlling legal authority in Fla would have ordered a full count in the end. It was just about to when SCOTUS shut the process down, effectively stealing the electiong for Bush.
"The media recount showed that when ALL of the valid votes were counted (not just those that Gore asked for, but ALL of them) "
The irony is that IIRC Gore would have lost the selective recount that he was asking but would have won on a statewide recount which would have been the principled thing to ask for. It might have also been easier to obtain if he had asked for it right from the begining.
Ultimately I don’t think the result was correct or fair but the primary blame lies with the inefficient system which was in place before the electoin which was simply unable to handle such a close result.
So - I think its a given, is it not, that if the people of Florida had effectively voted as they thought they had voted (the famous Jews for Buchanan fiasco) President Elect Gore would be in the Oval Office right now. Anybody want to contend that? Didn’t think so.
So, the will of the people takes second place to the mechanisms, the legalisms of the Electoral College? Explain to me, if you will, the higher principle you are seeking to establish. If the rule of law is nothing more than the opportunity to bend procedures to the desired ends, what good is it?
Remember the Florida Legislature? Remember how they went on record as stating that no matter what the recount, no matter what the courts said, they would vote GeeDubya in anyway?
This is the kind of thing you want us to revere as the “law of the land”?
You remember that speech GeeDubya gave, about how the election was a fluke, and he humbly recognized that he didn’t have anything like a mandate, and would honor the people’s voice and govern from the middle, eschewing any partisan right-wing crap like trying to pack the judiciary?
I’ve heard that Fl law doesn’t have any actual provisions for a popular selection of EC canidates, it is handled by the Fl legsilature, which has given the power to the people but no laws require it. - Any truth to this?
True, although to be fair. You should point out that there wasn’t any way under Fla law for him to ask for a full recount of all counties.
The only provision that Fla law allowed him was to show up in person (or proxy?) in each of the 70 odd counties and request a recount in each one. Then each would have the option of agreeing or not.
It simply was not within his power to cause a full hand count. But I agree it would have been more principled of him to have at least tried.
Both Dems and 'pub’s signed off on the ballot, It really could have gone either way (benifiting either), You have to play by the rules at the time of the election - not change them after the fact. If you find out that you did your side a disservice then you know what to look for next time. You just cant assume that a Buchacan vote was a Gore vote since that would be Gov’t changing peoples individual votes which is a big no-no here.
No, the idea is to have established ruled before the election, Rules both canidates have the opportunity to fully understand way before the election and to be able to run their campain in order to win under those rules. If some flaw is discovered after the election you don’t just apply the new rule to the prevoius election (expostfacto), you go forward witht he ‘better’ rule.
Yes the law says that the Fl Leg. get final say, what’s the problem here?
Sort of. No state is required, either by the Consitution or Federal law to choose electors by popular vote. In each case, it is up to the state legislature to decide how electors will be chosen. All states currently have laws to choose electors by them by popular vote.
Furthermore, it is NOT permitted for any state (including florida) to change the it’s laws governing elections after the election.
It would have been legal for the Fla legislature to change the election law before the election, but once the election was held, it wasn’t legal for them to ignore its result and choose a set of electors of their own.