[Gondring]

Part of "going on and on..."
Don't forget the announcement that polls were closed in Florida an hour earlier than they actually did close in the panhandle part of the state, reducing participation there by an estimated 10,000 to 19,000 votes--in an area that's 2:1 Republican:Democrat (Senate investigation testimony at http://www.senate.gov/~gov_affairs/050301_Perrin.htm)

What's funny is that in a post-election report by CBS (http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/c2k/pdf/REPFINAL.pdf), they skirt this issue... but an independent researcher's* report is attached as an appendix to theirs, and in it, the author points out that reporting of the polls closing was done an hour early by...guess who... Our Man, The Dan!

*Dr. Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Professor of Communication and The Walter H. Annenberg Dean of The Annenberg School for Communication and Director, The Annenberg Public Policy Center

[Robert A Cook PE]

Hmmmmmmn.

Did Rather report "first" that FL had gone to Gore?

(I know, once "somebody" said it, everybody else in the naitonal press corpse jumped on the prediction and repeated it immediately. But did Rather actually go first, while the Panhandle was still in play? Lost Panhandle votes are estimated at over 10,000 Bush votes!)

[Robert A Cook PE]

Ref Dan Rather reporting first that FL was conceded to Gore in 2000.

"First" as far as network anchors go: Many people don't get Fox news on their cable/broadcast stations, so I not sure that a Fox news releaase would have affected as many Panhandle voters.

[Heart of Georgia]

I don't remember the web site, but there was one where you could watch the vote tallies as the precincts were coming in. With a very small percentage yet to come in (and the experts agreeing that it wasn't enough for gore to take Florida) the election was called for GW, and we waited for his acceptance speech.

When it all hit the fan, I went back to the web site and noticed that there had been a huge amount of votes dumped in for gore from one or two precincts in Florida, more than the percentage allowed.

I don't recall hearing this brought up during the re-re-re-re-counts, but FReepers were busy showing how these were manufactured votes, and how the likely scenario was that they stacked ballots and punched them for gore. Then to give cover for the fraud, and to substantiate the "confusing butterfly ballot" claims, they stacked used ballots and punched them for gore...hence the problem with pregnant/dangling chads and the double votes for gore/PB or gore/Bush. They were safe in doing this because, if the votes were cast for gore, gore kept the vote...if the vote was cast for PB or GW, they would be disqualified as a double vote, as they would also have the gore chad punched. A win-win for them, or so they thought.

I also remember them trying to say that no one there would vote for GW, and especially not PB, so they must have meant to vote for gore. PB agreed. This was also one of the ways they tried to discern voter intent in one of the re-re-re-re-counts.