Not being particularly familiar with the process, I ask the SDMB to enlighten.
Will the vote still go through, or has Al Gore conceding left GWB the winner?
Would it have to go through on the formality that Nader might win? 
If it did go through, and a rogue elector or two voted for Gore, could he still win? After all, he conceded, right? Would they even be allowed to vote for him?
Note these are all policy/law questions, no need to clutter up GD with another election thread. 
As I understand it, a concession speech is a political act meant to unite the opposing sides and carry the country forward to attack the real problems facing us, etc. etc. It carries no weight at all with the constitutional process that elects the president. If Gore didn’t concede, the machinery would still crank along (since Florida’s votes have been certified) and GWB would become the next president when the Electoral College meets later this month.
Of course, there is always the chance that a few Bush electors will change their vote and go for Gore, although that is highly unlikely, to say the least. Since Bush has 271 electoral votes pending, Gore would need three electors to change their votes, giving him 270 to Bush’s 268. If he only got 1, Bush would still win, 270-268. And if he got 2, they would both have 269 votes and the whole matter would go before the House of Representatives, since neither would have the required number of electoral votes. Boy, would that be exciting.
The electorial voting is required by the constitution. All Gore did was basically say that he will not pursue more challenges. He will accept things as the currently stand, which means Bush retains his lead.
If some Bush electors voted for Gore, then Gore could win. That is not likely, and if it happened, Bush could get it overturned in Congress.
So yes, the formal vote occurs Dec 18, but Bush will win.
The electorial college vote will take place. It takes place every presidential election, though usually it’s just a formality.
The electorial college vote has to take place no matter what. Technically, it is what determines who becomes president. From a constitutional standpoint the electorial college vote is necessary, the popular vote isn’t.
Yes. Almost everyone says this is a highly unlikely possibility, since the electors tend to be loyal party functionaries, but it’s not impossible.
Concedeing is just a polite thing to do and it formally acknowldeges that Gore won’t pursue any other challenges. However, it has absolutely no legal weight.
Yes. All of the electors in the states he won will vote for him, after all (persumably, anyways, as it’s not impossible for one of them to go rogue as well). Some states (around 25, I believe) do have laws that require the electors to vote for the winner of that state’s popular vote, but even then I think that rogue votes would stand and the electors would just have to pay fines for violating the state law. But that has nothing to do with him conceding. His concession has no legal effect on the electorial college vote.
How could the electoral college vote be overturned by congress? I thought it was their votes that counted. Would Bush need to demonstrate some form of fraud, or would he simply be saying “Hey! They were supposed to vote for me!”
John
I don’t think they can…
http://www.house.gov/Constitution/Constitution.html
I think Article II, Section 1, Clauses 2 and 3 apply.
Then again, IANAL and I am dead tired right now. Hopefully someone else will reply.
Interesting. According to headshok, Bush has 271 to Gore’s 267. If Bush for some reason lost two, that makes things tied. What happens in the case of a tie? Recount? 
Kyberneticist, you really should read our Constitution of federal government more often. 
A tie would result in the President being selected by the House of Representatives. Each state delegation of representatives gets one vote; presumably that vote is exercised according to what the majority of the members of the state’s delegation want. Currently, that would result in a victory for Mr. Bush, assuming the vote in the House was made strictly along party lines.
For Mr. Gore to win without a House election, there would have to be three electors pledged to vote for Mr. Bush who would vote for Mr. Gore. And in case you are wondering, it isn’t enough for five electors pledged to Mr. Bush to vote for some third person; Mr. Gore must win 270 votes to avoid having the House elect the President.
These facts and all other relevant information on the basic procedure can be found in your handy-dandy United States Constitution Online. Read. Enjoy.
As headshok said before, it would go to the House of Representatives to choose.
I believe this has been discussed previously here, but since I just spent 45 minutes futilily looking for something else here, I’m not going to look.
But the Congress can reject a switched vote, as they have to certify the ELECTORAL (not electorIal) college votes. There have been instances in the past where voters have switched their votes, but since it didn’t have relevance to the outcome, Congress let it slide. But they do have that power.
Um, that’s not an “L”, its an upper case “i”.
Also, it doesn’t just go to the House for a popular vote. Each state gets one vote, and the Reps from each state are supposed to caucus. Bush still has the lead in that case, so its a non-issue. However, the VP vote goes to the Senate, where each Senator has a vote. Currently, its a 50-50 tie, with Gore being the tiebreaker. We could see a Bush/Liebermann White House (although I wouldn’t be surprised if Liebermann abstained, just to make it even more confusing!).
Sorry headshok. I should have read more carefully. Damn caffeine.
Well, I suppose I will have to read that document, since I now have to wonder how the 270 number was developed. Is it 50%+? Or does adding a new state cut down on votes accross the board? If Florida had been disallowed, would it still have been 270?
If anyone wants to save me the time of actually looking it up…
No. Go Look. Now. Or no supper.
So what do you all think of campaigns like the one at http://www.votewithamerica.com/ where they provide mail, phone, and e-mail addresses for Electors?
Could this cause any Electors to flip or perhaps just annoy the Electors and make them more likely to vote party-line?
OK, legal minds, I have a question on Connor’s last comment. What gives the US federal congress the power to refuse the votes from the electoral college if some of the electors don’t vote for the candidate of their party?
http://www.nara.gov/fedreg/elctcoll/provis.html
US Code, Section 15. Upon quick first reading, the state would have to object, and then the house/senate would withdraw to consider. I don’t think congress can out of hand reject the decision, and it appears you need to have some solid reason.
There’s more in there, and you could pull a lot of hanky panky, if you wanted, I suppose. But considering the great masses are sick and tired of this BS, I doubt seriously they’d look upon such usurpery kindly.
Oww my poor head! 
From Saint Zero’s link (thank you S.Z.) I culled the following sentence:
what does “not been so regularly given by electors” mean? Could that mean switching votes?
Kyberneticist
From http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Am12:
Amendment XII: Choosing the President, Vice-President
The person having the greatest Number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed
A candidate requires 50%+1 of the total number of casted electoral votes to become the President.
Arnold Winkelried
From http://www.nara.gov/fedreg/elctcoll/provis.html#last
Code 15: Counting electoral votes in congress
When all objections so made to any vote or paper from a State shall have been received and read, the Senate shall thereupon withdraw, and such objections shall be submitted to the Senate for its decision; and the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall, in like manner, submit such objections to the House of Representatives for its decision; and no electoral vote or votes from any State which shall have been regularly given by electors whose appointment has been lawfully certified to according to section 6 of this title from which but one return has been received shall be rejected, but the two Houses concurrently may reject the vote or votes when they agree that such vote or votes have not been so regularly given by electors whose appointment has been so certified.
Since the electors’ appointments will have been lawfully certified by their respective states by Dec 18, Congress can’t object to the votes of faithless electors on those grounds. However, since many states have laws requiring that electors vote for the candidate who wins the popular vote in that particular state, a “faithless elector’s” vote could be construed as “irregular.” However, to date, no faithless elector has ever been prosecuted under state law. In fact, in 1836, votes cast by faithless electors from Virginia resulted in no clear majority vote for the position of Vice-President, and the Senate had to vote in a Vice-President.
If you read Richard Glennon’s “When No Majority Rules”, he goes into detail about the procedures of counting electoral votes in Congress.
He claims that “not regularly given” isn’t defined at all and has never been challenged, although he had some suggestions as to what it meant. Since Congress adopted the present law on counting electoral votes back in 1887, there has only been one formal challenge to an elector. It was in 1968 and it was in objection to one North Carolina elector who voted for George Wallace, when he was pledged to Richard Nixon. The objection was raised by Democrats, in particular Edmund Muskie.
Ultimately, the vote was counted.
If you want to read the book, you can do so online (it’s all in .pdf format) at http://books.cqpress.com/nomajority/read.html
It’s quite interesting if you’re in to this sort of stuff.
Here’s what Richard Noss, Elector from Kentucky has to say about switching:
From: “Richard Noss” <Rnoss@prodigy.net>
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 21:18:58 -0600
As a Kentucky elector, I will honor the wishes of the people of Kentucky, who overwhelmingly chose George W. Bush as their President. I am not bound by the national popular vote whatsoever. My vote will be for George W. Bush and Dick Cheney on December 18th.
Best holiday regards,
Richard Noss
Kentucky Presidential Elector