[HankReardon]

What's the best response to those who want to believe Bush was "awarded" the Presidency?

[Phlap]

The real story is Bush won on election day and Al Gore put the nation through hell because he didn't like the outcome.

[StoneColdTaxHater]

Read the book by Bill Sammon "At Any Cost" it will explain it all.

[GraceCoolidge]

What's the best response to those who want to believe Bush was "awarded" the Presidency?

Ann Coulter's book Slander has an excellent section on the topic of the media's presentation of the events surrounding the Florida recounts. If you haven't read it, you may want to look at it. It gives a good analysis not just of the events, but of the questionable media presentation of them.

[Fenris6]

I get all my arrows from Athena :)

Here ya go, one Florida recap:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=65000671

[jonno]

bump

[MrB]

Memorize this:
"The real history of what happened won't fit into your soundbit mentality, lefty, because it involves fixed, Constitutional laws that aren't swayed by perpetual adolescent emotions."

[baseballmom]

You have rec'd great answers here, so I'll move on to the next thing.

We need to work ourselves to the bone this election, getting out the vote, volunteering at polling places, educating the electorate, etc.

This election is too important to be lazy or cocky about the outcome. The dims will stop at NOTHING to bring GW down. It is our duty to make sure that doesn't happen.

Pray for President Bush, and us.

[Hat-Trick]

What's the best response to those who want to believe Bush was "awarded" the Presidency?

[chiller]

Here's the best summary I've seen, from a U of I law professor.

"Let us assume that it is a month (or day) before the election. The Republicans and Democrats gather in a room and someone makes a proposal.

Assume, we are told, that the election hinges on Florida and the popular vote is very close. The losing candidate asks for a machine recount, but he still loses. Then he asks for a second machine recount, but he still loses. Then he asks for a manual recount that is limited to the counties where he is very popular, but he still loses.

Then he objects (successfully) to counting many ballots that favor his opponent--in this case, mostly military ballots from overseas on the grounds that the absentee ballots have no postmark, even though state regulations state that a postmark is not necessary. He still loses.

Now, should he be able to have a second round of manual recounts, limited only to counties where he is popular, with the people doing the manual recount (mainly members of his political party) counting any ballots as valid based on "what might have been" the voter's intent?

As the Miami-Dade elections supervisor said: "We look at the whole ballot and try to make judgments."

No rational candidate--before the election--would agree to that lopsided and patently unfair procedure. No one would conclude that such a system is more fair or accurate than a machine count or a hand count of all votes using the same standard throughout the state. But that is what Vice President Al Gore sought and what the Florida Supreme Court ordered last week. That was done only after knowing how people voted.

What the Florida Supreme Court has done is change the rules of the election after the votes were cast and after the court knew which method would produce a Gore victory.

To this scenario let me add one other little fact--the Florida statute, which states it is the secretary of state's responsibility to "obtain and maintain uniformity in the application, operation and interpretation of the election laws." The election laws cannot be uniform when special rules apply to certain counties, those that favor one of the candidates. That is why no candidate in his right mind would agree to the procedure that the Florida Supreme Court has mandated.

We might as well have Johnny Carson's "Carnac the Magnificent" decide who the next president shall be.

By Ronald D. Rotunda. University of Illinois law professor. November 26, 2000

------------------

Here's how I like to summarize it:

If 1 month before election, we strike this deal..would you take it?

If I lose the election, I get a recount, if I lose the recount I get another. If I lose again, I get a 3rd recount, this one manual, only in my best counties......with my people counting and my judges interpreting voters intent.

And I get to throw out absentees without a postmark, even though absentee military ballots don't use postmarks. A few other provisions...we'll get the courts to change the rules after the vote....and you or your people can't complain about it.

Fair enough?

[CMAC51]

What's the best response to those who want to believe Bush was "awarded" the Presidency?

Act like you are genuinely happy to hear from them. Tell them you knew that 6 different organizations had examined the ballots in Florida to show that Gore had really won. That you had never heard of Gore coming out on top of any of those recounts, but apparently this person had. Ask him which one it was so you can go print it out and use it the next time someone brings up Bush winning Florida.

[Hat-Trick]

Just one more image. Sorry, but I couldn't resist:

[Consort]

What's the best response to those who want to believe Bush was "awarded" the Presidency?

For those who prefer the word "awarded," all presidents are "awarded" the presidency by the electorate/electoral college.

Bush won.
Gore lost.
Bush didn't lose.
Gore didn't win.
Gore conceded (at least twice).
Bush didn't concede.
The Florida Supreme Court tried to rewrite election law on the fly during the process.
The US Supreme Court kicked their butts and told them to shove it.
Dumbed down Florida Democrats didn't know how to cast ballots.
Dumbed down Florida Democrat voters think Al Gore and Pat Buchanan are the same person.
Democrats designed the ballots.
Chads happen.
Democrats didn't count all the absentee and military votes.
Gore won some of the other states strictly by vote fraud and not counting/disqualifying absentee/military ballots.
If Democrat vote fraud were eliminated and suppressed votes were counted, Bush would have won the popular vote by a landslide.

[LandofLincoln]

Bush won the count, Bush won the recount, Bush won the rerecount, time ran out for a rererecount, Bush was awarded the electoral votes, and therefore won the election.

Clear enough for you?

Hats off to a "Chicago Daley", who worked his tail off to steal the thing, but without the help of Sam "Momo" Giancana and the Cook County Democratic Machine ... he failed.

[breakem]

Sorry if this is piecemeal, but I recall one county could not meet the deadline for recount as legally established by the secretary of state. They had taken off the four-day Thanksgiving weekend while other counties worked three of the four days. Then because they could not get the recount done, they insisted on an extension of the deadline.

[Publius6961]

You're kidding, right?

You must be awfully young, recently arrived from mars or totally clueless, to have lived through that period and not know exactly what happened.

You did not even need to seek out the information, it was everywhere.

[js1138]

Here's the issue the dems are hanging on to. In Duval County, there were approximately 27,000 ballots voided because votes were cast for more than one candidate. The best guess as to why the double voting happened is that many (presumably black) voters were given instruction pamphlets telling them to be sure to vote on every page. The problem arose because there were 10 or so presidential candidates, and the presidential ballot covered two pages. The pamphlets were printed by the democrats.

The problem for the democrats is that state law requires voiding ballots where votes have been cast for multiple candidates, because there is no objective way to determine the voter's intention.

There are obviously some democrats who believe a concerted legal challenge to this law would have prevailed. After all, it worked in New Jersey. They fault Gore for not pursuing this legal tact.

I might add, that a local alternative newspaper, "The Folio Weekly", just recently ran an editorial beating up the supervisor of elections for following the law, so this is still a burning issue.

Florida will not have this fiasco again, except in the three South Florida counties that had the recounts in 2000. All other counties have switched to optically scanned paper ballots, which have zero scanning errors and which can be easily interpreted by human eye. For example, is someone of limited intelligence tries to change a vote by crossing out a bubble, this can easily be interpreted in a recount. It is also possible in theory, to catch invalid ballots before they are placed in the box.

The three stupid counties chose the touch screen machines, and they were a fiasco in 2002. Not only do they not have a paper audit trail, but the election supervisors have proved too stupid to operate the machines. The 2002 elections were worse than 2000. Fortunately these counties are democratic, so the source of the mess can be correctly attributed.

[Cboldt]

The best approach is to strive to understand:

• Separation of powers between legislatures and judicial branches of states
• FLorida election law, particularly how and why it is structured into "pre-contest" and "contest" phases
• The text of the COnstitution, wherein it prescribes dates certain for presidential election results to be rendered

If you want to show that the SCOFLA was rogue (it was), then the pieces listed above are essential.

[Remole]

Look for the book, Bush v. Gore, edited by Wm. Kristol et al. Contains primary documents and contemporary opinion pieces.

One factor that your summary neglects is the certain development that the Florida Legislature had already made it clear that their set of electors would have been all for Bush; and recall that electors are chosen by the state legislature, really, not by the voters.

Also, the decision of SCOTUS was 7-2 that the Florida SC set up an unconstitutional means of counting votes; the 5-4 vote of the Supremes had to do with whether counting of votes should stop post-haste. Even if the voting had continued until Armageddon, Bush would still have won.

[HitmanLV]

Just do your homework, Einstein. Read as many of the historical accounts as you can. Fishing here for an 'answer' isn't productive. You can do it yourself.

[dalebert]

Easy. Dems cheat.