Bush vs Gore and the Electoral College

[Mioshi]

I expect to get flamed for this short history lesson because I'm not a far left Democrat. I've noticed that moderate Democrats don't generally make themselves known here and I'm not sure why. Perhaps they're afraid of getting blasted. Anyway, I'm a history nerd and I thought these facts might be interesting to some readers. Facts are stubborn things.

If you want to make the case that Bush stole the 2000 election because Gore got more popular votes than Bush, you should know history doesn't support the argument. Three times before in history, a candidate has won the popular vote but lost the election.

In 1824, Andrew Jackson won both the popular AND electoral vote but no one in the four man race won a majority in the Electoral College so the House of Representatives decided the outcome. The House picked John Q. Adams who had come in second in both the popular and Electoral College votes.

In 1876, Sameul J. Tilden won 51% of the popular vote while Rutherford B. Hayes captured 48%. However, Hayes won 185 electoral votes while Tilden got 184. A special electoral commission picked Hayes to be President.

In 1888, Benjamin Harrison became President by winning 233 electoral votes even though he received only 47.8% of the popular vote. His opponent, Grover Cleveland received 48.6% of the popular vote yet receive only 168 electoral votes.

In 2000, Al Gore won 48.38% of the popular vote and 266 electoral votes. George W. Bush won only 47.87% of the popular vote but received 271 electoral votes and thus won the election.

You can shoot the messenger if you want, but I did not make these figures up. As Yogi Berra once said, "You could look it up."

Arrogant Newbie

[trotsky]

1. Uhhh, no one claims that.

We don't say * stole the election because he lost the popular vote yet won the E.C.

He stole the election because he had to have the Supreme Court stop the vote counting in Florida. That in conjunction with hired thugs to harass poll workers is what STOLE the election.

You might get some flames, but only because you woefully misunderstand the issue.

On edit: I should also add other ways in which the election was stolen: incorrect and rampant purging of voter rolls in Florida, late military ballots being counted, etc. I'm sure others will have more.

[Racenut20]

4. The absentee ballots Republican campaign workers illegally filled out

[LittleDannySlowhorse]

2. The issue isn't the electoral college system

The issue is that Bush stole the election thanks to malfeasance by his friends and family in the Florida government. The electoral college votes that put him over the top were put in his column by way of Jeb Bush, Katherine Harris, James Baker, and the Supreme Court.

The electoral college system is retarded, but that's not the reason many of us view Bush's presidency as illegitimate. It's because he stole Florida's 25 electoral college votes.

[Zynx]

3. On another point there, the 1876 election was different than you make it

seem. There was outright fraud in that election in some of the Southern states by the Reconstruction governments there that happened to turn South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana over to Hayes. Then the special commission gave it to Hayes after certifying those results because the Republicans got a one person edge on the commission following the removal of an independent for some reason I don't remember right now.

[TruthIsAll]

5. Mioshi, you should know history doesn't support your argument

Newbie, get your facts straight. You are not only arrogant, you are a sadly misinformed history nerd.

Gore not only got more votes than Bush, he got more in Florida.
He would have won the state had the Supreme Court not stopped the recount.

15,000 Jewish Gore voters were fooled into voting for Buchanan by the misleading Butterfly Ballot designed by DINO mole Teresa LePore in Palm Beach County.

75,000 Gore votes were double and triple-punched in Duval and Escambia counties.

95,000 blacks were disenfranchised from voting, due to the pre-election scrubbing of the voting roles perpetrated by Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris.

16,022 Gore votes (see Diebold) were dropped in Volusia county and spread out among 10 third-party candidates, 10,000 to the Socialist alone. This "error" nearly caused Gore to concede before it was "discovered" and "fixed". However, the damage was already done. It served it's purpose of enabling the networks who initially called Florida for Gore, to now call it for Bush. This was unprecedented. The devious Bush plan worked.

And you will never convince me or anyone here that you are a moderate Dem. You are fooling no one. A true Democrat, right, left or in the middle, would never make the statement you did. Prior elections have nothing to do with what happened in 2000. As is typical, you resort to strawmen.

Gore WON! It WAS stolen. Bush is a THIEF.

Now YOU get over it. WE won't.

Happy, now?

[leetrisck]

6. bush people thought they were going to win

the popular vote and had all plan in place to challenge the electoral college - they were going to hit this country with a blast of "people didn't get the one they elected" and it didn't turn out the way they thought it would. See Bush v.Gore and Blumenthal's "The Clinton Wars"

[leetrisck]

8. Also - the Florida Legislature

was going to make sure bush got their electoral votes no matter what - had it gone to Gore (without the Supreme Court) the Legislature was going to send new delegates and they would all throw support behind bush so they intended to win no matter what the cost. Wish Gore and the Democrats would have fought harder - look what has happened to us.

[trotsky]

10. But what could they have done?

A lot of people criticize Gore & his team for not fighting hard enough. But once the Supreme Court has spoken, that's it. Highest court in the land, as they say.

IMHO, two big mistakes were made.

1) The Repukes had the machinery in place long before election day. We should have been on top of the errors in the felon purge. We should have caught the butterfly ballot. We should have been working to make sure the election was going to be clean. Democrats in Florida had better be busting their humps leading up to election day 2004.

2) The instant the call was made for *, the Gore camp should have demanded a FULL state-wide recount. That was their right by Florida election law. Not just in the counties that preferred Gore - that made us look weak and petty, like we were trying to stack the deck. Gore, as was shown later in the media review of the ballots, would have won any statewide recount, especially one that counted the LEGAL overvotes.

[Eric J in MN]

11. Gore could have emphasized the civil rights issue of the

Gore could have emphasized the civil rights issue of the blacks who were
falsely labelled "felons" and demanded that they be given an opportunity to vote.

[Cheswick2.0]

20. one point where I disagree

Florida election law did not give Gore the right to demand a full state recount. The DraftGore people have all the info on this, but I am sure the law only gave him that right if bush or his brother or harris agreed.

[vision]

36. each county had to be challenged individually

iirc.

[jsw_81]

38. This is true

Republicans in the legislature were going to approve a slate of Bush electors no matter what the recounts revealed, and the GOP Congress would have done likewise. Is that horrifying or what? The Republicans are lucky that this country didn't descend into civil war after that fiasco. I know what side I would have been on.

[janx]

7. Welcome to DU!

:hi:

I wasn't affiliated with either party during the "election" of 2000 and remained unaffiliated until relatively recently.

But that didn't mean I wasn't mad as hell when I saw what happened. As others have pointed out, the stopping of the recount in Florida was what amazed and angered me the most--but only until Bush was selected by five members of the U.S. Supreme Court, most of whom had been appointed by his father or by Reagan.

That was when I realized that the American people had not elected a president.

And now we're stuck in what looks more and more like another Vietnam every day, our economy is in shambles, and...well, you know the rest.

[Mioshi]

16. Thanks Janx

Thanks for the welcome and the kind words. All I did was provide some historical facts and you can see the flaming I received. Notice how vicious some people were when all I did was give some historical facts.

DU'ers don't seem to understand that this board is read by all kinds of Democrats, not just those from the far left. Elections are decided not by the 1/3 dedicated to the Democrats or the 1/3 dedicated to Republicans. The middle 1/3 is made up of swing voters and that's who decides elections. That's where I am and I know a lot of people like me read this board to help decide where we should vote by getting other opinions. When I read the constant flaming that goes on here to anyone who doesn't "toe the party line", it doesn't help the Democratic Party.

I appreciate your kind words. You're the only one that provided some.

Aarogant Newbie

[Cheswick2.0]

21. try answering some of the points people have made

before you start whining about flames. FYI tons of moderates voted for Gore. Knowing the facts about 2000 is not a threat to their support.

[K-W]

25. You really werent flamed

the basic fact is that no one around here is claiming what you say has been claimed. The election stealing is not about the electoral college and the fact that the system sometimes shows a popular vote to result differential. The fact is that in florida they committed election fraud. This isnt flaming you its simply informing you that youve missed the point.

As far as there being many different kinds of democrats on this forum, yes, thats true, look at any thread and you will see many many different viewpoints and ways of looking at things. You will see socialists arguing with economic conservatives over issues.

I know plenty of people who simply dont understand the facts of Florida and assume its just sore loser syndrome, many of them democrats. I understand where this attitude comes from, but the fact of the matter is, election fraud happened, and if we dont fight, it will happen again.

[janx]

27. Well Mioshi,

People get understandably ticked off about the matter because it set off a very dark time in our country's history. The Florida situation was the most corrupt example of voting I've ever seen in my lifetime.

People are so very divided, and this only adds to the horrific problems we've had since Bush* took office.

A lot of people will be voting in this next election though, and I'm convinced that we won't have to worry about Bush* anymore after that.

Swing voters decided elections, yes, but so do Republicans and Democrats--or at least, that's the way it's SUPPOSED to work. We'll make sure it works properly come this next election.

[DiverDave]

9. Next you will

tell me to "get over it", right?

Sorry pal, the thief stole it. period.

[Ediacara]

12. Welcome to DU, but...

....people claim that Bush stole the election because of widespread and well documented questionable voting practices (including wiping legal voters off rolls, intimidation, vote fraud, and confusing ballots of questionable legality) by Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris.

A final non-binding vote count by a media consortium found that Gore had more votes in Florida than Bush, although this was mostly ignored because Gore's legal strategy would not have gotten him a win (Gore going after some counties as his legal strategy would not have gotten him a majority, but if you counted ALL counties he won).

[rock]

13. bushsucks* won neither the popular vote nor the EC

He did, however, with the help of a lot of criminal Repukians, see to it that many of the ballots were not counted.

[Q]

14. Yours isn't a 'moderate' point of view...

...just revisionism. This is an argument someone tries to make in an attempt to dismiss the massive fraud of the 2000 election.

- You're arrogant...not because you're a 'newbie'...but because like so many others you're willing to overlook the theft of our democracy.

[SadEagle]

15. what you forgot to mention...

that in pretty much all of the historical cases the 'winner' was widely considered illegible, and only served a single term.

[library_max]

17. Bush stole the 2000 election because Gore got more

popular votes in Florida than Bush. That puts Florida's 25 electoral votes rightfully in Gore's column, for a total of 291 electoral votes.

[Cheswick2.0]

18. three years later and you still need an education on this topic?

Bush stole Florida. It was planned it was deliberate and he almost didn't get away with it. More people in florida voted for Gore. Their votes were not counted. If all the legal votes had been counted, using any standard, Gore would be president now.
four partial recounts don't constitute even one real recount.
Now before you start with the "Gore should have asked for the whole state to be counted" bullshit; he did. In florida that only happens if both candidates agree or the Governor or Secretary of State says it should.

[Walt Starr]

19. Gore rightfully got more electoral votes than Dumbass*

Bush stole Florida with a slew of illegal shenanigans.

[Name removed]

22. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[GOPBasher]

23. That's not what anyone said. Bush stole it because

Gore won the electoral college. A least he would have, had Jeb Bush not illegally prevented from voting 90,000 lower-income people who never committed a crime. And despite that, Gore still would've won without the supreme court stopping the recount.

[mdguss]

24. Fellow Moderate Here:

And I agree. It doesn't wash. Unfortunately, our schools do a horrid job of teaching civics, and most people don't know about that. I remember one of my civics teachers saying something like, "A person winning the popular vote and losing the electoral vote can't happen anymore." No, it could. It may happen again next year. I don't see how the country has changed. It's still divided.

There is nothing wrong with being a moderate. Here's a brief overview of my political views:

I support college loans. I oppose free trade agreements without labor and environmental standards. I oppose abortion. I support the right to own a gun. I oppose energy deregulation. I oppose tax cuts for the rich. I support spending on national defense--to a point. I oppose no bid contracts for the president's cronies. I oppose the property tax. I support replacing it with a progressive local income tax. I support environmental clean-up. I support increasing the minimum wage by a buck an hour. I support the right to unionize, and I support unions goals. I support homeland security, though I wish Bush would do it right. I oppose some elements of the patriot act.

According to survey's I've done, I'm a moderate populist. Call me a moderate. I don't shy from that label.

In general, moderates aren't passionate enough. We should be more firm in our beliefs. Otherwise, we get stuck in the middle and catch fires from both sides.

[mdguss]

26. PS--If the Court Ruled Correctly:

Floridas electors would've been considered disputed. Under that scenario, neither candidate would have a majority. The election should've went to the House of Representative who vote on a one state; one vote basis. Exactly what would've happend then is unclear. The vote was 27-23 for Bush, but Maryland's Connie Morella (R-8th) did say that she was going to vote for Gore. And would D.C. be able to vote? That is unclear, as they do have electoral votes, but not vote in Congress.

It is most likely that Bush would be president.

The Senate would've got to decide the VP. The Senate was controlled by Democrats in that time. My guess is Lieberman would've been elected VP.

That's what should've happend. But nobody followed the system, and it created a mess.

[K-W]

28. If the supreme court ruled correctly

they wouldnt have taken the case.

[mdguss]

29. Yes--

Which would've led to two sets of electors from Florida--one elected, and one sent by the state legislature. The Senate wouldn't have endorsed Floridas electors, and we'd have the election thrown to Congress. That's what should've happend, but the arrogant Supreme Court decided to get involved in a matter that it has no constitutional right to get involved with.

[library_max]

30. The ones sent by the state legislature would have been illegal.

Article 2 gives state legislatures the right to set the rules by which electors are selected. It doesn't give them the right to change those rules when they don't like the outcome. It doesn't give them the right to simply select those electors themselves, unless those are the rules they previously established.

The Supreme Court should have refused to hear Bush v. Gore if only because Bush didn't have legal standing to bring a discrimination case - he wasn't a Florida voter.

[MoonRiver]

31. * stole the election because the SCOTUS in defiance of our Constitution

selected him as pResident.

[peacetalksforall]

32. Your post is too transparent...

It reeks of hoopla that doesn't address the judicial branch selecting the president. It reeks of evasion in not addressing the county by county thefts in Fl.

[Catherine Vincent]

33. Oh Please! Bush* is a fucking thief!

Happy fucking holidays!

[mdguss]

34. What would've happend:

If a state-wide recount was ordered: the Republican counties would've slowed--making the last "official count" the one selected by the legislature. That count would've showed Bush ahead. The Senate would've rejected that count, and the election would've been thrown to Congress.

I maintain that's what should've happend anyway. We can't really do anything about the Supreme Court, but if Congresspeople had to vote on that, something could've been done about it: ie. hold them accountable at the next election. It's an ok system for resolving a disputed election. Unfortunately it wasn't used.

[ISUGRADIA]

35. If Bush would have had any honor

he would have said (if certified the winner) "Gore obviously had more than 535 votes more than me from the butterfly ballot problem in Palm Beach. I'm instructing my electors to vote for Gore as this is what the people of Florida intended."

Like it would have ever happened, but on the butterfly ballot alone if it had been correct, Gore would have won nonwithstanding any other stolen votes.

[jsw_81]

37. Electoral college history lesson

In 1824 Andrew Jackson was the clear choice of the American people. He won a plurality in both the electoral vote and the popular vote, but got screwed when Adams offered another candidate, Henry Clay, a key Cabinet post (State). The House then chose Adams in what has forever been known as the "corrupt bargain." Jackson went on to crush Adams in the next election.

In 1876 Democrat Samuel Tilden was CLEARLY elected president, winning a majority of the electoral college and the popular vote, but the Republicans literally stole it from him on election night because they controlled several powerful newspapers (namely The New York Times, which was then a Republican paper) and spread the lie that the election was in "doubt" even though it was clear that Tilden had won. It was absolutely outrageous what they did to Tilden, and we're lucky that the country didn't erupt into chaos afterwards. There's a fascinating new book about this that you really ought to read. I forgot the title, but just go to Amazon and look for books on the 1876 election. I'm sure you'll find it.

1888 was a special case, the only instance where the popular vote loser, Benjamin Harrison, won the electoral vote fair and square.

But 2000 was more like 1824 and 1876. We know for a fact that more voters in Florida tried to support Gore, and we also know that Gore won the national popular vote by over 500,000. But because Republicans controlled Florida (with Bush's younger brother in the governor's chair and the co-chair of the Bush campaign presiding over the counting of votes), he was never allowed to take office. You can spin it all you want, but the fact remains that more Americans, both in Florida and in the rest of the country, wanted Al Gore to be the 43rd president. Bush was just very, very lucky and had some very powerful (and corrupt) friends in high places. But we're going to fix things in 2004 and give Bush a one-way ticket back to Texas, right guys?

[Isome]

39. give Bush a one-way ticket back

Uhhh, no. I can't agree to providing him with a ticket; I think his ass should walk back to Texas.

[GalleryGod]

42. "B+" for JSW!!

Love the Analytical Posts! My Gawd they cry out for footnotes. Not like the normal Bile & Bilge 'round here!

Your Man in the Faculty Lounge,
GG:smoke: :donut:

[DeepModem Mom]

40. Margaret Carlson, no far-left pundit,

described the USSC decision in Time magazine as "an unsigned opinion tossed over history's transom like a ransom note penned by Kafka." She correctly places the theft of the 2000 election in its historical context as one of the darkest deeds in our nation's history.

I'd like to see Democrats of all stripes welcomed here also, however. Welcome to DU, and, to minimize flaming, I'd offer you the friendly advice of staying out of candidate threads --

[GalleryGod]

41. Just Gave you a "B" for My "American Presidency" Class!

:wtf: Way to go,Newbs!

Your Man in the Faculty Lounge,
GG:donut: :loveya:

[Gore1FL]

43. If FL law was followed

Gore would have won election night. FL laws mandate the manual recount of overvotes -- ON election night. If this was accomplished, there would have been no need for him to request a recount anywhere. He would have won without a single hanging or dimpled chad counted. He would have won even with the Butterfly Ballot. He would have won even with the multiple examples of absentee ballot fraud/tampering. He would have done so even witht he illegal voting purge, and the civil rights violations.

Gore Won Florida and he won it handily.

The popular vote is a happy coincidence that is an indisputable figure which allows for endless fun in annoying Right Wingers, but the beef is over the hijacking of FL electors, not popular vs elector votes.

[Nlighten1]

44. Obvious flamebait