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I know this is ancient history but who do you think really won the 2000 election?

Who do you think really won the 2000 election?

  • Bush

    Votes: 14 46.7%

  • Gore

    Votes: 12 40.0%

  • It was a virtual tie. Constitutionally it should have gone to the Fl (GOP) legislature. Bush

    Votes: 2 6.7%

  • It was a vitual tie. Florida's results should have been thrown out. Gore

    Votes: 1 3.3%

  • The media called Fl for Gore before the polls closed in a GOP area. Bush voters went home. Bush

    Votes: 1 3.3%
  • Total voters
    30
disneydude said:
riiiight....just an "unrelated coincidence" that despite every poll in the months leading up to the election had Gore comfortably leading...but Jeb "promised" that Florida would go for W. Just an unrelated "coincidence".
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Dude, every passionate political type insists their guy is going to win, "you can't trust the polls" and "the only poll that matters is the one on election day." Mostly dishonest efforts to keep the base motivated maybe but not criminal. In fact after 2012 I'm even doubting the dishonest part as it was obvious many Republicans actually thought Romney was going to win. Heck, Romney himself even hadn't prepared a concession speech he was so sure the polls were left-wing lies.

As I recall Florida was in the up-for-grabs category according to most polls in 2000. Maybe slightly in favor of Gore but within the margin or error.
 
Smeagol said:
I think Bush won. The state with confusing unreliable ballots along with the media calling the highly GOP Western Panhandle for Gore while people were still in line at the polls, botched the election. Constitutionally the results should have been thrown out and the legislature should have exercised its duty to speak for the state in such cases. The Florida legislature at the time (and still is I think) is Republican controlled and would have voted for Bush.

Lessons learned:

1. Punch card ballots are a horrible idea
2. Early voting is a great idea

Bonus:

-IMHO I think we can figure out a way to make voting more convenient with the use of electronic voting technology. If we created a national elections board, people could vote in any city in America where any polling place can pull up the ballot for their state, district, precinct and let them vote there.

-I don't like hurdles that make voting more difficult but I do think people busted in voter fraud as well as VOTER REGISTRATION fraud, which some people think is no big deal, should face life altering legal consequences.

-I think the Electoral College is outdated and I seriously doubt the Founding Fathers would put it in the Constitution under today's conditions.
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If I'm not mistaken, a lot of the problem in Florida surrounded voting for Pat Buchanan. It seems a lot of confused seniors voted for Buchanan when they intended to vote for Gore. If you look at the statistics, Buchanan out performed his polls in Florida and received significantly higher support in Florida than anywhere else.

To quote you, lessons learned:

1. There's no way to make sufficient allowances for the utter ignorance/incompetence of some of the voting public
2. There's a certain level of poetic justice in two independent candidates - Buchanan and Ralph Nader - syphoning off support for Gore and potentially costing him the Presidency when an independent candidate - Ross Perot - syphoned off support for President Bush 1 and falsely elected Bill Clinton to the Presidency.
 
earthworm said:
The media has NO business calling any election before the polls close.
This is a traversity....on our system and our people...
A ton of reform/improvement is necessary here..
And that we do not seem capable of designing, nor building, nor using a decent voting machine....
Well, we just have to go to the same place where we buy our motor vehicles.
One would think that our manufacturers would have a red face over this...
Well, they can just junk their machines; maybe in the next century we will be able to vote over the internet..
We can land a man on the moon, but cannot make a good reliable voting manhine....
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I prefer the media not calling any states until Alaska and Hawaii have voted. If your favorite TV network declares a winner early on, there's a potential for even people on the West Coast to just go home and not bother. Then God forbid the networks were wrong as in 2000 and they lost their chance to vote and the whole election outcome and by extension world history can be altered. Of course, you can't stop freedom of the press or technology. Early voting IMHO is our best solution to address all of this, but then you have people wanting to slam the breaks on that.
 
radcen said:
I bet you fall for it every time when a candidate is introduced to an audience as "...the next President of the United States!!!", don'tcha?
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No...but to actually believe that GWB "won" the election, you have to believe that every pollster was wrong....and reject the independent studies that found that if all the votes had been counted Gore would have won. Sorry. Those are just the facts.
 
Smeagol said:
Dude, every passionate political type insists their guy is going to win, "you can't trust the polls" and "the only poll that matters is the one on election day." Mostly dishonest efforts to keep the base motivated maybe but not criminal. In fact after 2012 I'm even doubting the dishonest part as it was obvious many Republicans actually thought Romney was going to win. Heck, Romney himself even hadn't prepared a concession speech he was so sure the polls were left-wing lies.

As I recall Florida was in the up-for-grabs category according to most polls in 2000. Maybe slightly in favor of Gore but within the margin or error.
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No...actually, most every poll had Gore in a fairly comfortable lead for several weeks leading up to the election. You would have to believe that every one of those polls and every exit poll was wrong. Its just not possible. I can understand one or several getting it wrong, but every single pollster? Too much of a coincidence considering that GWB had the governor and the secretary of state in his pocket.
 
CanadaJohn said:
If I'm not mistaken, a lot of the problem in Florida surrounded voting for Pat Buchanan. It seems a lot of confused seniors voted for Buchanan when they intended to vote for Gore. If you look at the statistics, Buchanan out performed his polls in Florida and received significantly higher support in Florida than anywhere else.

To quote you, lessons learned:

1. There's no way to make sufficient allowances for the utter ignorance/incompetence of some of the voting public
2. There's a certain level of poetic justice in two independent candidates - Buchanan and Ralph Nader - syphoning off support for Gore and potentially costing him the Presidency when an independent candidate - Ross Perot - syphoned off support for President Bush 1 and falsely elected Bill Clinton to the Presidency.
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I hear all the time that Perot cost Bush the first or Bush I the election. Clinton received approximately 45 million votes to Bush I 39 million and Perot received close to 20 million votes. Most of the exit polls show Perot drew relative even from both parties. But to make up that 6 million vote difference, Bush I would have had to win 13 plus million of Perot voters to Clinton taking only 7 million. That means Bush I would have had to win 65% of the Perot vote just to break even and that wasn’t about to happen.

As for Florida, I think Bush II won Florida and he could have won it by a bigger margin if all the media networks hadn’t called Florida for Gore with the Panhandle precincts still having an hour left to vote. No one knows how many stay home because of that. Then latter in the night all the networks changed their call of Florida to Bush II, which later became challenged by Gore.

Where Gore lost the election was his failure to carry his home state of Tennessee, which if he did he would have been president regardless of Florida. Gore didn’t even carry Clinton’s home state. In my opinion, Gore lost the election in Tennessee, not Florida.
 
Helix said:
i think they did a full count a year or so later and Bush was just barely on top. what an ugly election that one was.
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Despite its ugliness I was a kid at a candy store! We got to see some amazing history unfold before our eyes and watch provisions of the US Constitution come into play most generations never see.
 
disneydude said:
No...actually, most every poll had Gore in a fairly comfortable lead for several weeks leading up to the election. You would have to believe that every one of those polls and every exit poll was wrong. Its just not possible. I can understand one or several getting it wrong, but every single pollster? Too much of a coincidence considering that GWB had the governor and the secretary of state in his pocket.
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Interesting.

One explanation might be I heard in the northern part of the state there was a Democratic candidate for Congress with the last name Brown. There was also the Libertarian candidate for President with the last name Brown. In get out the vote efforts by the Democratic Party, they would pick up voters in less affluent neighborhoods in vans then on the way to the polls they were given a last minute crash course on how to vote. "All you need to remember are 3 names: vote for Brown, Nelson and Gore. Let's rehearse : Brown, Nelson and Gore. Brown, Nelson and Gore. Brown, Nelson and Gore. Brown, Nelson and Gore. Brown, Nelson and Gore." Brown being the congressional candidate, Bill Nelson for US Senate and Gore for POTUS. When they got to the polls however, Brown appeared on the ballot twice, the Congressional candidate as well as the Libertarian Presidential candidate. Some simply voted for both of them leading to 2 votes cast for President on a bunch of ballots. Obviously, those ballots could not be counted, at least in the Presidential column. After the election, the very Congresswoman got on TV (I think on the floor of the House) saying thousands of ballots in her district were thrown out claiming fraud.
 
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The process is what matters. Under that process, Bush won. End of story.
 
Smeagol said:
Interesting.

One explanation might be I heard in the northern part of the state there was a Democratic candidate for Congress with the last name Brown. There was also the Libertarian candidate for President with the last name Brown. In get out the vote efforts by the Democratic Party, they would pick up voters in less affluent neighborhoods in vans then on the way to the polls they were given a last minute crash course on how to vote. "All you need to remember are 3 names: vote for Brown, Nelson and Gore. Let's rehearse : Brown, Nelson and Gore. Brown, Nelson and Gore. Brown, Nelson and Gore. Brown, Nelson and Gore. Brown, Nelson and Gore." Brown being the congressional candidate, Bill Nelson for US Senate and Gore for POTUS. When they got to the polls however, Brown appeared on the ballot twice, the Congressional candidate as well as the Libertarian Presidential candidate. Some simply voted for both of them leading to 2 votes cast for President on a bunch of ballots. Obviously, those ballots could not be counted, at least in the Presidential column. After the election, the very Congresswoman got on TV (I think on the floor of the House) saying thousands of ballots in her district were thrown out claiming fraud.
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A lot of strange stuff just like you described happen all the time. I was one who voted for Browne, the Libertarian candidate in 2000 as I didn't like either of the two major party candidates. I think the most comical situation in Florida was all those ballots where no presidential candidate was chosen and the committee or what ever it was called going down each ballot trying to determine if they had voted for president, would they have voted for Gore or Bush. Hey, they may have been in my boat and didn't want either one. Florida turned into a farce. The SCOTUS probably should have stepped in way before it did.
 
I know who lost. The people did and the supreme court did. We lost the ultimate power to decide an election, and the supreme court lost any claim to be non-partisan.
 
Perotista said:
A lot of strange stuff just like you described happen all the time. I was one who voted for Browne, the Libertarian candidate in 2000 as I didn't like either of the two major party candidates. I think the most comical situation in Florida was all those ballots where no presidential candidate was chosen and the committee or what ever it was called going down each ballot trying to determine if they had voted for president, would they have voted for Gore or Bush. Hey, they may have been in my boat and didn't want either one. Florida turned into a farce. The SCOTUS probably should have stepped in way before it did.
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Oh come on! Exactly. I have considered voting for "none of the above" before. A blank ballot can be a powerful statement. I guess you just have to write in Mickey Mouse, so there's no confusion.
 
I was 10 when this happened(yeah, be jealous :2razz:)

But from what I've read, and know about the situation, it is pretty clear that Gore won. If it wasn't for the SCOTUS stopping the recount Gore would have won.
 
Ray410 said:
Peripherally related, we may be seeing the law of unintended consequences. It the election had been given to that total fool Gore, would we have had the disaster of Obama now?
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No, we'd just have the disaster of Bush now instead of being done with it. Two disasters in a row - we really know how to pick 'em don't we!
 
Smeagol said:
Despite its ugliness I was a kid at a candy store! We got to see some amazing history unfold before our eyes and watch provisions of the US Constitution come into play most generations never see.
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yep, I watched it in that frame of mind, too. my regret, as I stated on a similar thread, is that I voted for either of them.
 
Smeagol said:
What? Jeb wasn't involved at all.
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I don't know if I'd say that. Seems a little funny that after Florida was called for Gore, Bush called his brother and suddenly it was too close to call. It's a very interesting coincidence, don't you think?
 
Smeagol said:
Oh come on! Exactly. I have considered voting for "none of the above" before. A blank ballot can be a powerful statement. I guess you just have to write in Mickey Mouse, so there's no confusion.
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Yeah, exactly. If anything Florida taught me was not voting for any office, if the election is close some darn fool will try to figure out who would would have voted for if you had voted.
 
rocket88 said:
I don't know if I'd say that. Seems a little funny that after Florida was called for Gore, Bush called his brother and suddenly it was too close to call. It's a very interesting coincidence, don't you think?
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Karl Rove? Except Jeb was right. I'm sorry, I just can't believe the GOP was doing voter suppression/election fraud in 2000. They didn't start that until Barack Obama came on the scene, a desperate response to his agenda of imposing Shiria Law on America starting with legalizing gay marriage.
 
Smeagol said:
Karl Rove? Except Jeb was right. I'm sorry, I just can't believe the GOP was doing voter suppression/election fraud in 2000. They didn't start that until Barack Obama came on the scene, a desperate response to his agenda of imposing Shiria Law on America starting with legalizing gay marriage.
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Well I do think that Bush probably legitimately won. We'll never really know.
 
rocket88 said:
Well I do think that Bush probably legitimately won. We'll never really know.
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I agree with you. I was tired of the vote, the recount, the recount of the recount followed by a recount of the recount of the recount. It got to a point I didn't care who was declared the winner, just get this dang thing over with.

I remember the 1960 election vividly, I was still in High School, so I wasn't yet 21 and couldn't vote. But there was plenty of evidence of voter fraud in Illinois and Texas, which a couple of thousand votes could have given Nixon the victory. But Nixon decided not to push it, he basically said it would cause to much of an upheaval and perhaps unrest to do so. He didn't want to put the nation through such a torturous process. So with class, one of the few class acts Nixon accomplished he conceded. This is something Nixon will always have over Al Gore.
 
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