# The "I Told You Gore Won!" Thread **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 12, 2001, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-told-you-gore-won-thread/92905 "2001-11-12T12:45:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2001, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-told-you-gore-won-thread/92905/61 "2001-11-13T03:40:05Z")
I was just about to say the same thing. John Lott’s research into concealed carry laws has probably been scrutinized more heavily than any statistical analysis I can remember, and by people who had an axe to grind and desperately wanted him to be wrong. And yet, I don’t know of anyone who has proven that he ‘cooked’ his numbers. The research has stood up amazingly well. Even some of his political opponents have conceded that the quality of his scholarship is very high, but they dispute things like whether he captured all the possible dependent variables. Certainly I know of no ‘slam dunk’ refutations of his work. The anti-gun folks, on the other hand, managed to rally around Michael Bellesiles, who’s book “Arming America” was used to try to deconstruct the 2nd amendment by claiming that firearms ownership was rare in the early United States. That work has now been so thoroughly discredited that the man is in danger of severe disciplinary action from his own University. It turns out that the book is full of lies (one quick example: Some of the records that he claimed to have studied thoroughly to support his case turned out to have been destroyed in the 1906 San Fransisco fire). ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2001, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-told-you-gore-won-thread/92905/62 "2001-11-13T04:10:20Z")
My take on the situation: (a) fundamentally, it doesn’t matter. Bush is now the president of the United States, and if a suitcase with 500,000 uncounted Gore votes suddenly turns up in Florida with a handwritten note from Katherine Harris admitting that she deliberately stole them, it’s not going to change that fact. Nor could it somehow stop Bush from legitimately exercising the powers of his office. (b) But that doesn’t mean that it’s not an issue that should be discussed. It’s one of the most fascinating events in recent political memory (probably the most fascinating), and as such, it is perfectly reasonable for media sources to count uncounted ballots, make speculations, and so forth. © both Gore and Bush acted, imho, extremely poorly in the days following the election. There is only one reasonable thing that either of them could have done, which is to immediately request that a nonpartisan organization of some sort quickly decide on the most accurate possible means of recounting all votes, and strongly urge the legislative and judicial branches of Florida’s government to implement that solution. Neither of them did anything approaching that. Much has been made of the laws that were already in place in Florida to govern a situation of this sort, but to be blunt, those laws were (a) more than slightly confusing, and (b) never intended to decide an issue of this relevance and magnitude. In an ideal world, there would have been an immediate bipartisan move to count all the votes in the state as accurately as possible, even if that meant missing some fundamentally irrelevant deadlines. For instance, would it have really mattered to the country if the election results, or even the inauguration, had been delayed a month or two? Would we rather have people 100 years from now remember the election of 2000 as that weird election where it took 3 extra months to count every last damn vote so the duly elected president didn’t get sworn in until April, or the black mark on American history where the course of the free world was decided by a mishmash of butterfly ballots, supreme court rulings, etc.? (Note: as others have said, I’m not saying that Gore should have won and the election was stolen from him. I’m saying that no one knows who really _should_ have won, and the precedent that that sets is a very very bad one.) (d) while both candidates were basically just acting like weaselly self-interested politicians, when you strip away all the hyperbole, and ignore a bunch of side issues (many of which reflect quite badly on Gore’s campaign), the fact is that an effort to count the votes more accurately was STOPPED. That’s a pretty profound occurrence, and one that should not be overlooked. Who cares if there had already been two recounts? There was no rush. There should have been no priority higher than insuring that the most accurate possible method was used to find out how many votes each candidate received. There is no process more precious to a democracy than accurately counting votes, and **the Bush camp stopped that from taking place.** (e) The real villains in this issue, however, are the justices of the US Supreme Court. Not only were they issuing a ruling that **stopped votes from being counted** , they did so on unbelievably flimsy grounds. So flimsy, in fact, that they stated in their ruling that it should never be used as precedent. I’m not a lawyer, but as I understand it, their reasoning is as follows: -Gore requested hand recounts in some counties, but not all -Therefore, the votes of some people in Florida are being processed in a different fashion than the votes of other people in Florida -Therefore, there are some people in Florida, in the non-recount states, whose votes are not being counted well enough -This violates equal protection Let’s count the inconsistencies in this: (1) By this argument, no voting should ever be allowed anywhere, because every county has different voting machines, etc., than every other county (2) Was there anyone in Florida who lived in one of the non-recounted counties who brought suit claiming that their rights had been violated? Because by the SC argument, _they_ were the victims, not Bush, whose lawyers were the ones bringing the case (3) So you have some parts of the state where the vote counting will be better than other parts. Is the correct response to this to: (a) count the entire state in the better fashion or (b) count the entire state in the worse fashion? I strongly recommend _The Betrayal of America_ by Vincent Bugliosi for an absolutely scathing, but incredibly convincing, indictment of the Supreme Court decision ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2001, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-told-you-gore-won-thread/92905/63 "2001-11-13T04:23:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tejota \* > Of course, Bush believed (wrongly as it turned out) that there _was no other place_ that would favor him. Or, to put it another way, that the more accurate the count, the more of a loser he would be. > \*\* Much as I’d like to bash Bush, I don’t believe this is accurate. I think it’s much much more likely that Bush simply opposed any and all recounts because he was currently ahead. There was no reason for him to need to guess which counties would or would not benefit him if recounted repeatedly. All he had to do was fillibuster and stall for time. Which he did. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2001, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-told-you-gore-won-thread/92905/64 "2001-11-13T04:27:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tejota \* > Until the election I thought that Bush and Gore were both about the same. I learned from the way that they handled the recount that when the chips are down Gore will do what is right, and Bush will do what is best for Bush. > \*\* (sorry for the repeated posts… I forgot to respond to this paragraph last post.) This is an unsupportable conclusion. Gore happened to be in a situation where the fundamentally right thing to do (recount as accurately as possible) aligned with his personal goal. Bush didn’t. Thus, Gore acted “better” than Bush. There’s no reason to think that, had the situations been reversed, they wouldn’t have each acted in a precisely opposite fashion. ---
**Author:** ![Tejota](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@Tejota](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tejota)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2001, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-told-you-gore-won-thread/92905/65 "2001-11-13T04:30:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by december \* > ( **Tejota** , if you’d care to present some specific examples where you believe Lott cooked numbers, I’d be happy to debate the topic with you on a new thread.) \*\* We already had this debate **december**. I’ll pass on a reprise. ---
**Author:** ![Milossarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Milossarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Milossarian)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2001, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-told-you-gore-won-thread/92905/66 "2001-11-13T04:37:07Z")
I post this every time this subject comes up. It’s ignored every time, by people for whom it’s convenient to ignore it. But I’ll try, again. > [@](#): > > \*\*TreeGrumpy is touching on my historical pet peeve of the whole deal: If the court had not intervened, then Congress would had to render a decision, but here is IMO one of the unmentioned reasons why the gang of five intervened. \*\* Actually, according to federal law (3 USC Section 2): > [@](#): > > Whenever any state has held an election for the purpose of choosing electors, and has failed to make a choice on the day prescribed by law, the electors may be appointed on a subsequent day in such a manner as the legislature of such state may direct. Additionally, Article II, Sec. I of the U.S. Constitution states, and I’m surprised if you don’t know it by heart by now,(_bolding mine_): > [@](#): > > Each State shall appoint, **in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct** , a Number of Electors … Guess what the Florida Legislature was _vigorously_ in the process of assuring, before SCOTUS rendered the point moot? That the state’s electors would go to Bush. [Cite](http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2000/11/22/fp2s1-csm.shtml) [Cite](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/election/july-dec00/fl_11-29.html) [Cite](http://www.aiada.org/pubs/fup/2000/fu113000.htm) And, if you need dozens more, let me know. ---
**Author:** ![Tejota](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@Tejota](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tejota)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2001, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-told-you-gore-won-thread/92905/67 "2001-11-13T04:47:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by MaxTheVool \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by Tejota \* > > Until the election I thought that Bush and Gore were both about the same. I learned from the way that they handled the recount that when the chips are down Gore will do what is right, and Bush will do what is best for Bush. > > \*\* > > (sorry for the repeated posts… I forgot to respond to this paragraph last post.) > This is an unsupportable conclusion. Gore happened to be in a situation where the fundamentally right thing to do (recount as accurately as possible) aligned with his personal goal. Bush didn’t. Thus, Gore acted “better” than Bush. > > There’s no reason to think that, had the situations been reversed, they wouldn’t have each acted in a precisely opposite fashion. \*\* Granted, I’ll agree the incident gives us more insight into Bush’s lack of character than proof of Gore’s character. However, there were some situations where Gore could have acted in his interest, but choose not to because it would have been wrong. For example, he choose not to support a lawsuit concerning the absentee ballots that were sent to republicans illegally, because the votes that resulted were illegal though no fault of the voters. It could be argued that he choose not support this suit for political rather than moral reasons, If he had gotten involved, then this would have been a clear indication of bad faith, that he didn’t get involved is equivocal. ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2001, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-told-you-gore-won-thread/92905/68 "2001-11-13T04:58:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sam Stone \* > BTW, for those of you who think that only the Democrats suffered from voting irregularities in Florida, there is this disturbing article: [http://www.techcentralstation.com/NewsDesk.asp?FormMode=MainTerminalArticles&ID=112](http://www.techcentralstation.com/NewsDesk.asp?FormMode=MainTerminalArticles&ID=112) > > This article describes a statistical analysis which suggests that Black _Republicans_ may have been screwed by Democrats. Until this study gets some peer review I’ll take it with a grain of salt, but if it’s true it suggests vote fraud by Democrats that is much worse than anything the Republicans were accused of. Here are some more quotes from the article cited by **Sam Stone** > [@](#): > > The new findings show that African American Republicans who voted in Florida were in excess of 50 times more likely than the average African American to have had a ballot declared invalid because it was spoiled… > > This conclusion conforms with another fact that the new data reveal: Among white voters, Republicans were much more likely than Democrats to have spoiled ballots. > > In addition, we found that the overall rate of spoiled ballots was 14% higher when the county election supervisor was a Democrat, and 31% higher when the supervisor was an African American Democrat… > > In the end, if there were intentional victims in Florida, they were targeted not because of race but because of party. My comments. Assuming this study is correct: [list][_]It’s hard to believe a ratio of over 50 to 1 happened by accident.[_]Note that white Republican ballots were spoiled much more than white Democratic ballots, despite the Republicans’ greater wealth and education. **This might explain why Gore didn’t gain votes in the Democratic districts in which he requested recounts. The Democrats who controlled those districts may have already taken steps to eliminate questionable Republican ballots during the original count.** ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2001, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-told-you-gore-won-thread/92905/69 "2001-11-13T05:33:40Z")
Well… trusting James K Glassman would have mean that you lost your shirt in the stock market even before the attacks: [http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/99sep/9909dow.html](http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/99sep/9909dow.html) As for John R. Lott he also has some explaining to do on his methods: [http://www.gunfree.org/content/resources/resc\_research\_lott.html](http://www.gunfree.org/content/resources/resc_research_lott.html) [http://www.pcvp.org/pcvp/firearms/pubs/hopkins3.shtml](http://www.pcvp.org/pcvp/firearms/pubs/hopkins3.shtml) But Lott is the one that furnishes his own rebuttal: look how he changes on his early opinions regarding the vote irregularities in Florida: [http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/final\_dissent.htm](http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/final_dissent.htm) > [@](#): > > Furthermore, when Dr. Lott analyzed the data using a specification that implied that the share of African American voters in a county was significantly related to the level of ballot spoilage, he found that it explained hardly any of the overall variance. Removing race from the equation but leaving in all the other explanatory variables only reduced the amount of ballot spoilage explained by his regression from 73.4 percent to 69.1 percent, only a mere 4.3 percentage point reduction (see Lott’s Table 2 in the attachment). > > Indeed, in none of the other specifications provided in his Table 2 did taking racial information out of the analysis but leaving in other variables reduce by more than 3 percent the amount of variance in the spoiled ballot rate that is explained. Consequently, it simply is not true that the best indicator of whether or not a particular county had a high or low rate of ballot spoilage is its racial composition. One can predict that with a much higher degree of confidence by looking at other, non-racial information. Until I see the data, I will doubt their conclusions, but if we use Lott’s early conclusion as a base, I would say the effect he is describing now is almost negligible for the final result. I guess it is how you read data that allows some partisans to throw red herrings to confuse and keep people away from the obvious: The prince of serendipity is in the white house. > **[MSNBC News - Breaking News and News Today | Latest News](https://www.msnbc.com/)** > > MSNBC breaking news and the latest news for today. Get daily news from local news reporters and world news updates with live audio & video from our team. > [@](#): > > (The award for most egregious misrepresentation goes to [CNN.com](http://CNN.com) for its headline that the results “showed George Bush winning even with a statewide recount.” It showed nothing of the sort.) > …… > Obviously, those worries were for naught. The horrific crash of the American Airlines jetliner in Queens today ensures that even this study will receive next to no attention. But the ultimate price will not be insignificant. As recently as last week, according to the Gallup Organization, nearly half of Americans surveyed remain convinced that President Bush either “won on a technicality” or “stole the election.” Even so, during the past year, the U.S. political system has produced virtually nothing to repair an antiquated election system that spends billions for advertising and almost nothing for accuracy. And in the election of 2000, it put the wrong man in the White House. And **Millosarian** this is from one of your cites: [http://www.aiada.org/pubs/fup/2000/fu113000.htm](http://www.aiada.org/pubs/fup/2000/fu113000.htm) > [@](#): > > Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) said he would sign a bill naming the state’s 25 electors “if it was the appropriate thing to do.” Republican lawmakers who had previously been reluctant to take the politically explosive step of choosing the electors have reached a consensus that they are duty-bound to act, they said. The development came despite testimony today from experts brought in by Democrats that such an action would be unconstitutional My impression was that the democrats would had thrown many obstacles and in the end congress would still had to decide like they did in 1876, so maybe the court acted mostly to prevent any compromises those meddling democrats would demand. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2001, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-told-you-gore-won-thread/92905/70 "2001-11-13T05:38:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sam Stone \* > BTW, for those of you who think that only the Democrats suffered from voting irregularities in Florida, there is this disturbing article: [http://www.techcentralstation.com/NewsDesk.asp?FormMode=MainTerminalArticles&ID=112](http://www.techcentralstation.com/NewsDesk.asp?FormMode=MainTerminalArticles&ID=112) > > This article describes a statistical analysis which suggests that Black _Republicans_ may have been screwed by Democrats. Until this study gets some peer review I’ll take it with a grain of salt, but if it’s true it suggests vote fraud by Democrats that is much worse than anything the Republicans were accused of. Oh, please. The article has no trouble making very precise claims about who did and didn’t get their votes counted in Florida, but they don’t even try to explain what methods they used to get those results. When counting ballots by hand, there is no way to know whether the voter is Deomcrat or Republican, white or black. The claims made by Jackson and others concerning the high rate of ballots from black voters being scrapped were based on comparing rates of spoiled ballots in districts that were mostly black and districts that were mostly white. Since there is obviously no district with a majority of black Republicans, there is no way to measure what percentage of their ballots got thrown out. Furthermore, that website that the article is on seems to contain mostly paranoid, conspiracy-oriented articles about evil government beaurecrats. It’s not exactly what I would call an unbiased source. Maybe some people here need to learn that not everybody who’s able to cobble together a website and publish a few articles deserves to be taken seriously. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2001, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-told-you-gore-won-thread/92905/71 "2001-11-13T05:48:57Z")
Whoa. That’s why I said, “Until I see a peer review of this, I remain suspicious.” I agree with you completely. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2001, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-told-you-gore-won-thread/92905/72 "2001-11-13T06:23:56Z")
What impresses me? Post after post of the right-wing Usual Suspects, and not **one** of them ever said “recount after recount after…” Progress is slow. You take what you can get. (You’ll have to excuse me, I’m the host of this thread. Tea? Jack Daniels? Soma? Oh, could you smoke that outside? And could you wait till I get there?) ---
**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:** [November 13, 2001, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-told-you-gore-won-thread/92905/73 "2001-11-13T07:22:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by elucidator \* > \*\* > > (You’ll have to excuse me, I’m the host of this thread. Tea? Jack Daniels? Soma? Oh, could you smoke that outside? And could you wait till I get there?) \*\* I’m completely parched…have you some Paradise Tea? Oh wait, it’s too late for that. How about a Tom Collins? And really, I’ve been very impressed as well. [sub]no bogarting![/sub] ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2001, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-told-you-gore-won-thread/92905/74 "2001-11-13T08:23:57Z")
Tea for me, thanks. Oops, the James K. Glassman correct link is: > **[Dow 36,000](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1999/09/dow-36-000/306249/)** > > Has the long-running bull market been a contemporary version of tulipmania? In explaining their new theory of stock valuation, the authors argue that in fact stock prices are much too low and are destined to rise dramatically in the coming years ---
**Author:** ![Rmat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85e7bf/32.png) [@Rmat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rmat)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2001, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-told-you-gore-won-thread/92905/75 "2001-11-13T14:36:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by elucidator \* > **Post after post of the right-wing Usual Suspects** I hadn’t noticed any “right wing” expressions at all. There are, of course, a large number of posters who don’t agree with your every word, but I thought they expressed their views quite moderately. Your opponents’ only “strident” expressions were requests for proof and substantiation, hardly an unreasonable position. Just who are you referring to? And do you really think it advances the dialogue to employ such characterizations. I, for one, resent it mightily when others call me “leftist.” ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2001, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-told-you-gore-won-thread/92905/76 "2001-11-13T15:08:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tejota \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by bordelond \* > > There were already at least two state-wide recounts done shortly after the election. Bush was ahead after both. Why should he have called for MORE recounts statewide? > > Nope. This the the first state wide full count. The others only looked at the counties that gore asked to have counted. Why is is that Republican’s have such a hard time telling the difference between a full count and a partial one?\*\* Unless you’re discounting machine recounts, nope. Read on(my bolding): [http://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/11/08/election.president/](http://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/11/08/election.president/) > [@](#): > > Nov. 9, 2000 - Florida on Wednesday began a judicious process of recounting **every presidential ballot cast statewide** , as Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush cautiously predicted the recount would bring him the victory he tasted for just a few short moments on Election Night. > … > > Bush, the Texas governor, was thought to hold a narrow lead over Gore in Florida. Because the vote count was so close, Florida’s election officials, **by law, enacted a mandatory recount Wednesday**. That was the first statewide recount. The second statewide recount is cited below. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tejota \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by bordelond \* > > I don’t blame Bush’s team for fighting off legal challenges. At no point was Bush behind in any recount between Election Day and the day the Supreme Court ended Gore’s legal challenges. Why should Bush have capitulated? Gore’s team’s challenges looked pretty contrived to me after a while. > > Well no wonder it looked contived to you. You don’t actually know what happened. The first lawsuit was filed by Bush not by Gore. It hardly qualifies as a “defending” if you start the fight.\*\* Gore started the “fight”, in my book, by asking for selective hand recounts instead of asking for a state-wide hand recount. Bush’s team _had_ to answer that. I really don’t fault Gore much, though. He was just trying to win the Presidency after an exhausting, expensive campaign – as was Bush. Understandably, neither candidate wanted to lose out to a statistical blip if they could help it. IMHO, it would have been inappropriate for either candidate to bow out too early or too easily. The following quote, spoken by Bush attorney Ted Olson to Jim Lehrer, also establishes that the Florida-law-mandated second statewide recount took place. BTW, this is a great brush-up page, in its entirety, for those who want to revisit some of the details (my bolding): [http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/election/july-dec00/olson\_11-13.html](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/election/july-dec00/olson_11-13.html) > [@](#): > > (from Nov 13) > > _THEODORE OLSON:_ Well, he wasn’t at the hearing. I don’t know who he was talking to. The judge said that the concerns that we expressed in this litigation were very, very serious. And he was concerned that since it was probably going to have to be decided by a higher court that he didn’t want to give an injunctive relief at this time, and he thought that those decisions should be made by a higher court, but he said the concerns that you’ve expressed about this process are very, very serious. Now, let me tell you why he said that and why we have brought the case that we did: The process that we have here is a selective hand manual recount **after** the votes in Florida have been **counted not just once but twice by a process that’s objective and fair and reasonable by machines** that have no interest in the outcome of the case. > > The process that we’re seeing now involves selective counties, selected by Democrats, for recount according to unreviewable and inconsistent standards. We have one set of rules in one county, another set of rules in another county. In Palm Beach on Saturday, many Americans saw the rules being changed during the process itself, and the ultimate decision as to whether to count a vote or how to count it is being made under that system by Democrat officials. So, if your vote is going to be evaluated by an official who has an interest in the outcome opposite yours, you are going to be concerned about that. All Americans are entitled to have their votes measured equally by a consistent process, and that’s the exact opposite of what is happening in Florida. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tejota \* > \*\*… it sort of weakens your argument that both of the “facts” you mention above are actually wrong. > If you are going to base your view of the election on bad facts, then it isn’t going to be very surprising that you disagree with those who base their views on actual facts. \*\* I’ve laid out in this post some of the “actual facts” I’ve based my opinion on. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2001, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-told-you-gore-won-thread/92905/77 "2001-11-13T15:16:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by elucidator \* > \*\*What impresses me? Post after post of the right-wing Usual Suspects, and not **one** of them ever said “recount after recount after…” > > Progress is slow. You take what you can get. > \*\* But wait, there’s more (er, less). We have also not yet been treated to indignant assertions that the Supreme Court acted nobly and was doing us a favor by “preventing chaos”. We also have not yet been treated to claims that _Gore_ was trying to subvert democracy by going to court to get all the votes to be counted, while Bush was acting honorably by trying to prevent votes from being counted. Or, for that matter, there has been precious little “Nyah nyah, our guy won, get over it, you losers.” I’m actually starting to think there’s hope. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2001, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-told-you-gore-won-thread/92905/78 "2001-11-13T15:18:12Z")
Oh, and **Milo** , you seem to have missed this in earlier threads. Florida, like all states, further delegates the choice of electors to its voters as part of its own state constitution. Let’s see an explanation from you as to how any state legislature can choose a slate of electors on its own without violating its own state constitution. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2001, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-told-you-gore-won-thread/92905/79 "2001-11-13T15:28:52Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Rmat \* > As for your suggestion { **DPWhite** ’s - Ed.} that Ari Fleishcher issues at least one whopper per day, I’d invite you to identify just one \* ever_, but I’ll resist. At this point I know what passes for “proof” in your mind, and how recklessly you hurl accusations. \*\* [Here’s](http://slate.msn.com/?querytext=whopper+fleischer&id=3944&action=fulltext) an index to a constantly-growing list compiled by Slate, in their “Whopper of the Week” feature. ---
**Author:** ![Ned](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/848f3c/32.png) [@Ned](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ned)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2001, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-told-you-gore-won-thread/92905/80 "2001-11-13T17:54:39Z")
> [@](#): > > Let’s see an explanation from you as to how any state legislature can choose a slate of electors on its own without violating its own state constitution. Scalia would be all over your ass for mentioning on the state constitution in a presidential election 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-told-you-gore-won-thread/92905.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-i-told-you-gore-won-thread/92905.md?page=5)