# Bush won fair and square...quit yer bitch'n **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 7, 2003, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-won-fair-and-square-quit-yer-bitchn/167184 "2003-04-07T23:32:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Tejota](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@Tejota](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tejota)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2003, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-won-fair-and-square-quit-yer-bitchn/167184/41 "2003-04-08T01:46:18Z")
[http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11900](http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11900) > [@](#): > > - Despite imprecise data and differing interpretations of dozens of possible results, there was broad agreement on one of the least noted realities of the Florida recount: **Had election officials and the courts sought to identify the choice of the electorate, rather than to satisfy the demands of partisans, Gore would have emerged as the winner.** As The Associated Press noted, “Under any standard that tabulated all disputed ballots statewide, however, Gore erased Bush’s advantage and emerged with a tiny lead that ranged from 42 to 171 votes.” The Washington Post was even more blunt, stating that, “If there had been some way last fall to recount every vote – undervotes and overvotes alike, in all 67 Florida counties – former vice president Al Gore would be the White House.” Ultimately, It’s the choice of the electorate that makes a legitimate election. Legal strategems are for election thieves. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2003, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-won-fair-and-square-quit-yer-bitchn/167184/42 "2003-04-08T01:46:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by kanicbird \* > \*\* > Do the words time zone, panhandle, media calling the FL vote for Gore before the poles have closed in mainly conservative areas of the state mean anything to you? \*\* What’s your point? That Republican voters base their decision to vote on what the news tells them, and that the only thing they intended to vote for or cared about voting for was Bush for Prez? And maybe you are further making the point that not one single Gore voter stayed away from the polls based on the same information? Or is this some kind of wacky geography quiz? > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SPOOFE \* > \*\*And that’s a bit dishonest of YOU, Tejota, to claim that Bush prevented a recount that would have cost him the election, when in actuality no such recount was requested… and, as such, it would have been physically impossible for Bush to prevent it even if he could or wanted to. > \*\* Now Spoofikins, let’s not muddy things up too much…who was the first person to go whining to the courts that recounts just weren’t fair? Why, I believe it was Georgie Peorgie. You wouldn’t be trying to make it seem like he didn’t attempt to move heaven and earth to stop \* any and every possible recount ever suggested by anybody ever \*, are ya? Cuz it just ain’t so, and you know it. It certainly wasn’t his gentlemanly restraint and sense of fair play at work, that’s for damn sure. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2003, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-won-fair-and-square-quit-yer-bitchn/167184/43 "2003-04-08T01:51:07Z")
Tejota: Interesting cite. By what method did they tabulate the “disputed” votes? ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2003, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-won-fair-and-square-quit-yer-bitchn/167184/44 "2003-04-08T01:55:05Z")
> [@](#): > > What’s your point? - Voting irrigularities swing both ways, This is planet earth, we are humans, we try to make a fair system and we do the best we can but sometimes mistakes are made (Bucannan votes, discouraged voters, ect.), learn and move on, don’t try to change the past. > [@](#): > > 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, The mandate came in the '02 elections, A historic event where in a off year election the Pres’s party takes/holds both houses. ---
**Author:** ![Tejota](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@Tejota](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tejota)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2003, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-won-fair-and-square-quit-yer-bitchn/167184/45 "2003-04-08T02:03:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tjblack \* > I don’t see how anything wrong or illegal was done. At any rate, the [recounts would have been for Bush anyways](http://www.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/04/04/florida.recount.01/index.html). \*\* Wrong. Jeeze, will you people frigging **read** your cites rather than just go by the misleading headline?? > [@](#): > > The Miami Herald and USA Today conducted a comprehensive review of 64,248 “undercounted” ballots in Florida’s 67 counties that ended last month > … > but there are still lessons to be learned from the efforts of the Miami Herald and USA Today, and other ongoing recount endeavors, including a consortium recount of both undervotes and “overvotes.” > > “Overvotes” are ballots that displayed more than one mark that might be interpreted as a vote for president. CNN is one of many news organizations participating in that ballot count. The article you refer to isn’t a full count, but only a count of undervotes. A definitive count has to look at both undervotes **and overvotes**. The partial counts are interesting, but they don’t tell us who really won. It says right in your article that the full count of over and undervotes was still pending at the time that it was written. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2003, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-won-fair-and-square-quit-yer-bitchn/167184/46 "2003-04-08T02:06:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by kanicbird \* > \*\*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. The problem with this approach is that it suggests that the _political parties_ are the only affected parties to this dispute, and we, the people, have nothing to do with it. Neither you nor I got to sign off on that ballot, and just because some county-level party functionaries did so, doesn’t exactly make me whole here. > [@](#): > > 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. I’ve got some papers presented at the American Statistical Association’s annual meeting in 2001 that show pretty clearly just how many Buchanan votes we _can_ assume were intended to be Gore votes. No doubt: that butterfly ballot put Bush in the White House. Frankly, if we can look at a single ballot and determine on the basis of pregnant or hanging chads that, even though it was originally counted for candidate X, it really represented a vote for candidate Y, we can’t do the same for a group of several thousand ballots on the much more sturdy basis of statistical inference. ---
**Author:** ![Pencil\_Pusher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b38774/32.png) [@Pencil\_Pusher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pencil_Pusher)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2003, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-won-fair-and-square-quit-yer-bitchn/167184/47 "2003-04-08T02:08:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by newcrasher \* > \*\*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. > \*\* In order: (1) is a red-herring. Most of the people who have problems with the election have a problem based on the fact that the citizens of the state of Florida elected Gore. (2) do a couple of Internet searches. The “rioters” in Miami-Dade county were mostly Washintonians who were bussed down to Florida in order to interfere with the election. Probably illegal. (3) This is mostly accurate. Bush did win under the rules. The problem was that, given the time limit imposed by the rules, it was impossible to know what the state of Florida wanted. So various people made various suggestions in order to guess what the will of the people was. Keep in mind that they were all guesses. A partial recount of these counties. A partial recount of those counties. Including only X but not Y, etc. etc. However, once all the disputed ballots were examined by a media consortiam, it was determined that Gore won every standard that included counting all of the disputed ballots from all of the counties (i.e., the entire state of florida). It did not matter whether you are talking about “clean punch only” (commonly called a “correct vote”) or “dimpled chads,” Gore won every single standard. It is only when you take convoluted scenarios (only undervotes and not overvotes + ignoring certain counties, or only counting votes from four counties) that Bush won. So, to recap, Bush won various scenarios that attempted to estimate who the winner was. Gore, however, had the most votes in the state of Florida. Bush won under the rules of the game, but those rules did not accurately represent the will of the Florida people. ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2003, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-won-fair-and-square-quit-yer-bitchn/167184/48 "2003-04-08T02:10:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tjblack \* > \*\*There’s one question I’d like to ask anyone who says that Bush “stole” the election: > Imagine the entire situation was reversed. Bush has more of the poular vote (there’s no such thing as “winning” the popular vote), but Gore wins the electoral vote because a controversal recount is stopped by a Democrat-laddened Supreme Court. Would the same people still be crying and screaming and protesting that Gore “stole” the election? If you can’t honestly answer that question “yes,” then it’s not about the principle. It’s sour grapes. > \*\* Me, I’d be equally outraged. The main difference I see between the Republican and Democratic parties is that Democrats seem more willing to criticize their own people, whereas Republicans seem to have a untied front, right-or-wrong-he’s-still-our-guy mentality. I really do think that if the situation was reversed you’d see even more criticism of Gore than you do of Bush currently, and from both sides. Before you get the wrong idea, I think that self-criticism within a party is very healthy. I \* want \* to see our leaders aguing over every policy decision, rather than just being a rubber stamp for the administration in power. ---
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2003, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-won-fair-and-square-quit-yer-bitchn/167184/49 "2003-04-08T02:11:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Scylla \* > Well then, maybe, you know, in the interests of the nation, you should ummm, you know, offer to perform your patriotic duty. Well the sonofabitch keeps trying to cut my taxes, but he just _refuses_ to buy me a drink. [sub]Rem: I am quite happily straight and male. Just in case the homosexual twist was not intended to be part of the joke.[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Tejota](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@Tejota](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tejota)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2003, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-won-fair-and-square-quit-yer-bitchn/167184/50 "2003-04-08T02:13:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Scylla \* > \*\*Tejota: > > Interesting cite. By what method did they tabulate the “disputed” votes? \*\* Say what? Just keep reading… “disputed” is simply shorthand for **overvotes and undervotes**. > [@](#): > > The Washington Post was even more blunt, stating that, “If there had been some way last fall to recount every vote – undervotes and overvotes alike, in all 67 Florida counties – former vice president Al Gore would be the White House.” By **any** chad counting standard. Gore wins when all of the votes are counted. The only way to get a Bush win is to ignore the overvotes, (which is what all of the recounts until the final consortium count did). It turns out that there were a substantial number of clear Gore votes among the overvotes. In most cases, this was because there was a Gore punch _and also a Gore write-in_. Which is stupid a stupid thing for a voter to do. But perfectly valid even though the machines can’t read it. Interestingly, The bulk of these valid overvotes came from counties that Bush won. ---
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2003, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-won-fair-and-square-quit-yer-bitchn/167184/51 "2003-04-08T02:16:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SPOOFE \* > And you know the precise motivations for the creation of this thread… how? I think it was the repetitive spouting of recycled dittohead lies about state and federal law that clued me in. That and the pejorative use of “liberals” as a pseudo-epithet. Deductive reasoning. A fine and worthwhile contribution to Western civilization. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2003, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-won-fair-and-square-quit-yer-bitchn/167184/52 "2003-04-08T02:19:18Z")
“Well at least our President didn’t get a blowjob from an intern!!!” LOL, that’s the cherry on this sundae of a thread.(colour me shocked on the reply count sprint.) 😉 ---
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2003, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-won-fair-and-square-quit-yer-bitchn/167184/53 "2003-04-08T02:19:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tjblack \* > So is it hypocrisy or irony that whenever Bush is mentioned, in any thread, _somebody_ just _has_ to pop in and mentioned that Bush didn’t really “win” the election, just in case we all forgot or something. Observational humor. It’s funny because it’s true. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2003, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-won-fair-and-square-quit-yer-bitchn/167184/54 "2003-04-08T02:31:01Z")
I won the election, in violation of every single election law on the books. But no one will believe me. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2003, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-won-fair-and-square-quit-yer-bitchn/167184/55 "2003-04-08T02:42:01Z")
Tejota: I’m just wondering by what criteria one decides which of the overvotes and which of the undervotes to count. What your article later goes on to state is the margin by which Gore appears to win if these unnamed criteria are applied. It seems there are many different standards by which these may be counted, and considering that there’s about 100,000 of them, I would guess that a margin of 47-178 or so IIRC correctly falls into the any method’s margin of error. Since by definition over and undervotes are somewhat ambiguous, this is hardly conclusive. Throw into the equation the polls closing early in some Republican areas, and problems with rural voters, and trying to find a valid conclusion gets even tougher. In fact, your cite bears me out on this conclusion: > [@](#): > > As University of Texas government professor Walter Dean Burnham, one of the nation’s foremost experts on electoral politics explained it: “You had the perfect tie. When you’ve got an election this close, the most sensible way to determine the outcome is to flip a coin.” Your cite shows scenarios by which both Gore or Bush won. You have elected to represent only that part of the cite which gives an example of a scenario under which Gore won. Hardly a fair representation. Your cite in fact shows what most people of reasonable judgement have probably already long since concluded. The vote was in fact too close to make a conclusive statement. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2003, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-won-fair-and-square-quit-yer-bitchn/167184/56 "2003-04-08T02:45:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by minty green \* > \*\*Observational humor. It’s funny because it’s true. \*\* No. It’s not true, and you know it. We determine elections by the electoral college. Bush won that. Any reasonable person knows the FL popular vote fell with the margin for error and is indeterminate. ---
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2003, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-won-fair-and-square-quit-yer-bitchn/167184/57 "2003-04-08T02:45:47Z")
So you’re cool with it if I refer to Dubya as the Inconclusive President? ---
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2003, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-won-fair-and-square-quit-yer-bitchn/167184/58 "2003-04-08T02:47:11Z")
Indeterminate President works too. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2003, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-won-fair-and-square-quit-yer-bitchn/167184/59 "2003-04-08T02:48:40Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by minty green \* > \*\*So you’re cool with it if I refer to Dubya as the Inconclusive President? \*\* I’m cool with whatever you want to say. If you wish to be accurate than thing to do is concede that Bush won the election while the popular vote in FL was inconclusive. ---
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2003, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-won-fair-and-square-quit-yer-bitchn/167184/60 "2003-04-08T02:53:22Z")
I readily concede that Bush won the electoral vote, and have never contended otherwise. How 'bout the Guy Who May Or May Not Have Been Elected President, But The Republicans Don’t Care Either Way? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-won-fair-and-square-quit-yer-bitchn/167184.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-won-fair-and-square-quit-yer-bitchn/167184.md?page=4)