Posted on 08/11/2004 12:45:43 PM PDT by Lando Lincoln
We've all been there.....a relative that insists some sacredly held leftist point is correct. In this case, it is my brother - who has far more conservative views than he knows. Well, in this case, he is convinced that Bush stole the election in Florida. Anyone who can direct me to a factual summary of those painfully long events, it would be greatly appreciated. I believe my brother to be intellectually honest and the "pesky facts" may sway him.
I only on the rarest occasion post vanities. Any help is appreciated.
Lando 
Like ChemGeek sez, Sammons' book is very good. 'bout the only qualm I have with it is that there are no references or footnotes in it, but this issue has been so huge that finding reference material to back up his work is simple stuff.
The summary points of Sammons' book that jump out:
1) How the media through the use of exit polls was sandbagging Bush and propping up Gore by speedily reporting states that had gone democrat (avg of 8 minutes after poll closing, iirc) and greatly delaying reports of states that had gone Republican (56 minutes avg). There were 3 exceptions to the above; Tennessee & Arkansas were both reported over 50 minutes after the polls closed... why?- because they went Republican. The 3rd of course, was Florida, where the media reported Florida for Gore decided 10 minutes BEFORE the polls closed (Florida's panhandle is in the Central Timezone). Sammons makes the case - and I believe him - that such delays have the snowball effect of having more voters from the losing party within the state called to not pull the lever ("Florida for Gore, I'm staying home") and estimates that as many as 16-30,000 panhandle (and overwhelmingly Republican...) votes were lost this way. Of course, in the above cases where the Republican states were called later than the Dhimmi states, the net result would have been more dems voting (since they would not have been "told" by the media that their vote wouldn't make a difference).
2) That Gore's selective requests of recounts were in predominantly Democratic counties.
3) That Gore was lying by omission when he played up the "whole state should recount" ploy - Florida State law is clear that recounts can only be mandated at the county level; neither the state nor the liberal Fl SC could "make law on the fly" to change the rules as they went.
4) Gore did successfully screw the military, something for which - speaking here as retired Coastie who will be military until I get my final PCS orders from God - there is no forgiveness. This resulted in (again, memcheck) about 700 lost votes, most of which would have gone for Bush.
5) Sammons also clearly explains the USSC decisions - but which I can't likewise adequately explain... cuz mah brehn gits fuzzy win ah try this legal stuff... but in any case, I've sent this posting to our Freeper C-Billybob who's forgotten more legal stuff than 10 of me can remember, and can bring you up to snuff on this. Suffice to say on the USSC, the decision to keep the FSC from breaking the law was a solid 7-2, not a 5-4 like most dhimmi-leftists shrilly claim.
I've got a slew of postings saved to disk about the Gore voting fraud that i'd be glad to send your way. One in particular - which I got here on the freep - hasn't gotten much play, but I think merits consideration:
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3a0c85230a29.htm
An excerpt from the above: "In Palm Beach Gore got more votes than there are registered Democrats. (Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections: registered Democrats = 296,122 while Gore voters = 296.696.)
ONLY in Palm Beach did Bush receive LESS than 65% of the registered Republican voters. (Registered Republicans = 231,626 while Bush voters = 152,954.) In every other county in FL Bush received MORE votes than there were registered Republicans. In the rest of the nation, poll results show more than 90% of registered Republicans actively supported the Republican candidate."
It's really a well-written piece, check it out.
CGVet58
On the legal front, in Round I of the case in the US Supreme Court, the Court took the very rare step of neither affirming or reversing the Florida Supreme Court's decision in favor of Gore. Instead, the US SC "vacated" the lower court's decision, and did so unanimously. (My brief, filed in that case, was the only one which urged the Court to vacate or strike the decision below, and do nothing else.)
The Fla SC then took the case up again. This time they ruled for Gore, but split 4-3 rather than their original unanimous decision. The Chief Judge of the Florida SC warned in dissent that the US SC would not accept what they were trying to do.
The US SC then took the case again, on an emergency basis, and ruled 7-2 that the Fla SC had violated the US Constitution. The "5-4 decision" that the press and other Democrats like to cite, had to do with how to remedy the errors of the Fla SC, not whether it had made legal errors.
The general proposition the case stands for is this: it violates the US Constitution for any court to apply different rules to different parts of an election. Unfortunately, only four Justices of the Court were willing to reach a broader, clearer conclusion, namely that courts do not have the power to change the rules for elections after the election process has begun.
Had the Court reached that clear decision, it would not have permitted the atrocity in New Jersey where the corrupt Sen. Torricelli resigned late in the day, and Lautenberg was sneaked in, contrary to NJ law, at the last moment. But I digress.
Also on the general discussion, be sure to say that there were three official recounts, and Gore lost all of them. There were also two unofficial recounts done by the press. The first was done by Florida newspapers; the second was done by a consortium of at least ten newspapers, lead by the New York Times. Both of these unofficial recounts also concluded that Gore lost.
To combine the legal and pragmatic sides, the Gore people in the US SC were asking it to continue the recount beyond the date set by Florida law. Had they WON that case and had the recount continue, Gore STILL would have lost, per the one-year analysis done by the New York Times.
In short, if you get into details rather than dealing in slogans, Gore lost and Bush won under all of the scenarios. Neither the actual US SC ruling, nor would the reverse of that ruling have, "allowed" or "caused" Bush to be elected President. It requires deliberate and aggressive ignorance for anyone to believe that the US SC controlled the 2000 election.
Is that, plus my colleague's comments to you, sufficient to counterattack the liberal you're dealing with? Hope so.
Congressman Billybob
Latest column, "Says the Wuss: Ma, He's Touching Me"
If you haven't already joined the anti-CFR effort, please click here.
The US SC final opinion is sloppy. It has, as I recall, six different opinion clusters generated by just nine Justices. (It's been three years since I read that decision, even though I participated in the case.) And it helps to draw a chart to keep track of which Justice supported which part of the decision. (One of the info babes misreported the outcome as a Gore win because she lost track of who wrote what.)
John / Billybob
We agree on that point. I said ....
Gore got the FLorida Supreme court to move the statutory certification deadline. This shortened the amount of time available for court-supervised recounts (the post-certification period was shortened at Gore's demand)
LOL.
Congressman Billybob
Latest column, "Says the Wuss: Ma, He's Touching Me"
If you haven't already joined the anti-CFR effort, please click here.
Lando 
John / Billybob
Lando
LOL. I do it all the time. Could (probably should) have held a rebuttal.
Can you locate the article that came out after the media consortium's final recount, which found that Bush won? If your friend can't accept that, it's a lost cause.
What does that mean? Would have? If they did a state-wide recount, what was the result? If they did not do a state-wide recount, how can anyone possibly know that it "would have" gone for Gore?
Oh, one more thing. If true, it only proves that hand recounts are unreliable, if you have some recounts going one way and others going another way.
That would be an "Anybody But Bush" vote.
Gore/Lieberman became Sore/Loserman, and the rest is
history. By a small margin in the electoral college, but
every vote really does count. Gore lost. He knew he lost.
The Democrat machine in Florida tried every dirty trick in
the book to crown Gore king, but the conservatives in
Izod shirts with smiley faces stormed their secluded room
where they were counting "hanging chads and pregnant chads"
for Gore. Katherine Harris and some other brave people
stood up to them. They counted and recounted and it still
came out maddeningly a few hundred votes ahead for Bush.
Tell them to think what they like. We've been over this so
many times already, and they should have been paying
attention.
Get a new brother. :-)
What is HIS evidence that Bush stole the election?
Ping
Anyone who is still moaning about this almost 4 years after the fact is either not intellectually honest or is too stupid or lazy to do some basic research to understand the facts
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