I recall that there were some methods of recounting in Florida that would have led to a Gore victory and some that would have to a Bush victory.
But the real reason there was disenfranchisement was the tens of thousands of voters, mostly black, who were wrongly put on the felon list. Here's how it happened. The company that created the felon list decided to identify names by running a search on their computer, comparing the voting list to the felon list. All that was needed to show a match was the same birthday, an 80% match on the name, and the same race and gender. In a massive state like Florida, that means tens of thousands of people. In terms of race, the number of purges will follow the exact same percentages as the prison population -- that is, mostly black.
So the big issue to me is not the stopping of the recount or even the butterfly ballot. It's the fact that tens of thousands of people, majority black, couldn't get to the polls at all.
Again, please don't think I wish Gore won. I'm just saying that, if you look at the facts honestly, he probably would have won. Now I'm no Pollyanna: I know that politics is a tough business and both sides play hard to get an upper hand. Making it harder for blacks to vote is a way that Republicans do that; trying to get everyone and their mother to be able to register, with no real standards at all, is how the Democrats do it. Both sides are guilty. Given that I'm black and a Republican, I guess my loyalties are split, but in the end, I'm for a fair vote, and if I lose, I lose.
Did you read my link?
I did a good amount of research on this. It was my understanding that during the hearings that the civil rights commission had, they were unable to find anyone, or hardly anyone, forget which that had been unable to vote because they were on the felon list.
If this is incorrect and you can give me a reliable source I will change my whole write up. Certainly I have heard nothing like what your describing about tens of thousands of people.
On a side note, and I guess unlike you, I was a liberal democrat in 2000 and so was rooting my heart out for Gore to win. :)
Funny how things change!
If there were a few thousand felons that shouldn't be on the list, which I doubt; it was more than made up by the voter fraud and not counting the military votes by the Rats.