Fellow Freepers, please forgive me posting this. I do so only in the spirit of "know thy enemy" and pertains to what Al Franken has been drooling out on his unentertaining radio show. He was commenting on this topic and told his microscopic audience that the "Bush Won the Recount" only applied to the selected counties involved, but that the media recounts done state wide, regardless of which standard was used, showed clearly Gore to be the Florida winner. How much of this is Franken-spew or is there any merit in this claim? I worry that this may turn into two conflicting stories in the media and the truth will be lost in the polarizing nature of the topic.
Of course, if Gore could have won his own home state, FL would not have mattered.
Also, I have never heard ANYTHING about the other states that were very close, but that W would not dispute, or ask for a recount.
Only in overvotes... which are ILLEGAL to count... illegal, zilch, zip. Even if you vote for Gore and write Gore's name in the write-in space, it's illegal--period. Bush gained in the undervotes, he lost if (illegal) overvotes were counted.
Yes, there were undoubtedly more total ballots that were "meant" for Gore, if you factor in the braindead overvotes and also the Palm Beach ballots (yes, at least some of them were mis-cast for Pat Buchanan... Democrats are stupid... this fact we all know).
However, Bush "tops" morally if you subtract the felons and the illegals and the ballot stuffers, and if you include those who didn't cast their vote because of the Panhandle call.
But there is no question that Bush got more LEGAL votes than Gore. To suggest otherwise is liberal revisionist history in the making.
In short... it's Franken-spew. And here's the original source which clearly says all ballots were examined:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/568802/posts