Here's the truth...Florida did not have any more voting irregularities than are prevalent in all states.
It's just that ALgore decided to make Florida his battleground.
Anybody that uses any machinery to vote has under and overvotes.
The people counting the votes and the dems decided that everybody ALWAYS votes properly and that is simply not the case.
The Dems will be able to find the same problems in any state they want to contest...it's just the nature of voting...it's always been this way, but not until Algore and the Dems decided to make an issue of it did it become the "norm."
And from then on, contested elections will be the norm. Even the Dems in their primary in Florida had irregularities and that had nothing to do with disenfranchisement or partisan politics. There is no such thing as a perfect election or EVERY VOTE BEING COUNTED.
While I agree with you on this, I disagree with the complacency in the rest of your post. I think our election procedures are the subject of very valid complaints. We do very little in the way of verification, polling places are often set up in a haphazard fashion, etc.
Florida is a great example because the votes were well within the margin of error of our systems. The big problem is that our margin of error is, frankly, much greater than it should be. It's also hard to correct politically because both parties have (or at least, believe they have) competing interests in the polls. Democrats want to push the turnout as high as possible, Republicans want solid verification - which correlates with lower turnout.
Still, difficult or not, I think our election procedures should get some federal attention (and money, those go together.) Our current procedures are embarrasingly sloppy, and another election like the last one will - not might, will - cause us significant disruption. Mind you, I'm hoping it's not at all close this time around, but it is at least possible it will be.
Drew Garrett