Talk:U.S. presidential election, 2000

Template:U.S. presidential election, yyyy project page link

Old discussion

Archive 1

Old talk archived at Talk:U.S. presidential election, 2000/Archive 1 by Oliver P. 03:58 Mar 12, 2003 (UTC)

Summary of old talk:-

Pinkunicorn thought the pages for individual elections should be on subpages. The argument seems to be over now. ("Subpages are evil. --LMS")
Something about Duverger's Law.
etc.... Oh, just read the archive. :)

Summary of ongoing debate about a proposal to move election pages - moved to Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (years in titles)

Archive 2

Old talk archived at Talk:U.S. presidential election, 2000/Archive 2 by Rbsteffes

Summary of old talk:-

Wording debate on how to phrase recounts
Debate about rulings in Supreme Court
A few other points of clarification

Gore would have won a state-wide recount under most counting standards.

Can anyone substantiate this claim? The results listed in the article certainly don't lead to that conclusion.

We should establish a completely independent election commission like that of India with the subsequent campaign laws to include that of finance reform . it would be apolitical and would establish the standards for everything involving elections, To include common ballots and voting procedures, such as no bloc voting etc. You would actually have to read the ballot first and vote person by person, issue by issue.--Tomtom 20:51, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

In the "Minor Party Candidates" section, I recommend the "many Gore supporters blamed Nader" sentence be followed by some mention of Nader's rebuttal of this claim. (i.e. that 8 million or so Democrats nationwide (250,000 in Florida) voted for Bush, that exit polling by the Democratic Party indicated that the majority of Nader voters were not Democrats, etc.)

There should also be some mention of the controversy over Justices Scalia and Thomas. Some claim they acted improperly by failing to recuse themselves, since Thomas's wife and one or more of Scalia's sons worked with the Bush campaign.

That edit can't be right!

"not" within their rights under state law in Florida? Is there actually a law banning a vote recount in Florida? That would be jurisprudentially counter-intuitive, to say the least, and I am loath to give an inch to the notion that anyone would let such a dangerous law pass. That can't be right. Regardless of anything else, it is well within their natural rights. Kevin Baas | talk 22:08, 2004 Aug 11 (UTC)

Nonsense on stilts. What the edit says is that the Gore campaign had no legal right to request a hand recount in three counties. (I suspect what the contributor means is that they had no right to get a hand recount in three counties). Since there's a reference, it should be easy enough to check. Markalexander100 04:22, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The edit does not appear to be entirely correct, at least not per the citation. I'm looking at a google cache (http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:hO7AkWT5czYJ:election.dos.state.fl.us/pdf/99laws/ch_99-339.pdf+F.S.+Ch.+102.166+Part+1&hl=en) of the bill section 1 doesn't seem to pertain. Section 4c seems to say, although I'm not a lawyer, that the county canvassing board CAN authorize a manual recount if there is a correctly filed protest and they feel there is validity to it. He most certainly has the right to REQUEST a recount, even a manual but the board is not required to honor that request. If they do honor it, they may only recount all the ballots if recounting PART of the ballots indicates a mistake was made. ( 102.166.5 "If the manual recount indicates an error in the vote tabulation..."). It seems to me that the question then becomes, was there evidence that the county board announced mistakes were made, thus allowing them to do a manual recount?Rbsteffes

The author has it absolutely 100% completely ass backwards. The section he cites as though it supported him gives the procedures for requesting a recount at the county level, of a minimum of 3 precincts to be chosen by the requestor. <http://www.flsenate.gov/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=Ch0102/SEC166.HTM&Title=->2000->Ch0102->Section%20166#0102.166> The fact that the author did not put a link to the statutes cited in the text leads me to believe that he or she was operating from secondary sources, and not firsthand knowledge. Searching these statutes shows no description of a right to a statewide recount, nor a mandated procedure to request one, which would probably explain why, when Gore did suggest to Bush that they agree to do a single carefulstatewide recount, Bush was able to reject the suggestion, twice, leaving Gore with no legal recourse other than recounts by county:

Gore suggests compromise; Bush says no

RON FOURNIER

Associated Press 11/16/00

Al Gore made a surprise proposal for a statewide hand recount of Florida's 6 million ballots Wednesday night and George W. Bush swiftly rejected it, calling the effort under way in several Democratic-leaning counties an "arbitrary and chaotic" way to settle the presidential race.

Republicans reject Gore proposal for full recount

Radio Telefís Éireann

Tuesday, November 28 2000

In the United States, a spokeswoman for Republican presidential candidate George W Bush this evening rejected Democrat Al Gore's proposal for a state-wide recount of presidential ballots in Florida, saying common sense did not allow it. She was speaking after the Democratic candidate again called on his Republican rival to support a complete recount of votes in Florida.

Gore could, of course, have asked for a countywide recount individually in every single county, which in retrospect would have been the proper strategy, but did not, presumably because the 'Gore is stealing the election' spin which was put on any requests to actually manually count the ballots made any such request politically expensive. So, who's going to correct this?Gzuckier 17:17, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Well, no, Gore had absolutely no right to request a statewide recount, unless you can pull out some other laws with which I'm not familiar. Gore's position was basically recount at all costs, regardless of law. Bush's standpoint was follow law at all costs, regardless of margins Rbsteffes 17:24, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Gore has the 'right' to request pretty much anything he wants, from a free slice of apple pie to a condo on Io, but he didn't have a stutory right to get a statewide recount (now I'm sounding like markalexander), the way the statutes gave him the right to get a county recount on request, supported with some evidence, whether or not Bush agreed. But the law doesn't specifically bar a statewide recount either; I suppose the idea was that if both candidates agreed, then it could get tossed to the courts, and if they didn't see a problem a recounting we would go. Bush of course thinks 'you got nothing to lose, I got everything to lose, I'm not that dumb, contrary to popular opinion' and says no way.Gzuckier 20:16, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

When I say 'right to request', I mean that I couldn't find any statute that would give anyone the authority to conduct the recount after his request. It would be an illegal request as far as I can tell, which is what the Supreme Court ruled. Rbsteffes 21:37, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Something is "illegal" if and only if there is a law explicitly against it. Something is "legal" so long as there is no such law. Kevin Baas | talk 22:20, 2004 Aug 12 (UTC)

Point taken, the request was not illegal, the Court ruled that granting it would be. Minor nitpick Rbsteffes 00:16, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps the wording could be change to prevent any confusion? Kevin Baas | talk 19:22, 2004 Aug 14 (UTC)

Statewide recount

The paragraph starting with

"Due to the narrow margin of the original vote count, Florida law mandated a statewide recount."

seems to be somewhat erroneous in some places. For instance, I'm not sure the statement above is correct. Does anyone have supporting evidence and/or want to verify/edit the paragraph? Gzuckier 14:57, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Create a new article?

There is a lot of information on the topic of the Florida Central Voting file's role in the 2000 election. perhaps it deserves an article/its own subpage. What does the community think? (If yes, please suggest a title.) My title suggestion: "Florida Central Voting File" Kevin Baas | talk 20:42, 2004 Aug 19 (UTC)

Yes

No

If I recieve no feedback within the next 48 hours, I will consider this to be tacit acceptance, and create the page. Kevin Baas | talk 16:41, 2004 Aug 21 (UTC)

The page has been created: Florida Central Voting File.

Butterfly ballot

Does anybody have any idea what this part of the sentence means?

... designed by a Democrat, Theresa Lapore who would not have chosen party affiliation if the county had not historically chosen Democrats for her position...

? Gzuckier 14:09, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It's a counter to the argument that is often used that the butterfly ballot was designed by a democrat. Basically, the designer says she would have listed herself as "Unaffiliated", but she believed she had a better chance of getting her job is she ran as Democrat. It doesn't really change much in the arguement, as the basic argument is whether the ballot was specifically designed to be confusing as is claimed by many of the outraged democrats.

Hmm. I guess I'll change it to say that, but you're right, it doesn't change much. Gzuckier 14:32, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The one problem I have with the buttfly ballot is actually the picture of it the article has posted as the "voter's eye view". What The heck angle where they using for that? It's looks like a toddler trying to see over the kitchen counter. Rbsteffes

But at least there had to be some parallax, nobody was facing the ballot from directly vertically above. Gzuckier 14:32, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Self-conflicting information

There are conflicting statements in the article:

Al Gore publicly conceded the election after the Supreme Court, in the case Bush v. Gore, voted 7-2 (not 5-4 as often reported) to declare the recount procedure in process unconstitutional because it was not being carried out statewide.

...

This case eventually reached the United States Supreme Court, which ruled 5-4 to stop the vote count, which allowed Katherine Harris to certify the election results.

-- Myria 06:47, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Seven justices agreed that the recount being carried out was not constitutional (although Breyer and Souter only did so with reservations, as I recall from their opinion - the general interpretation is that they were trying to come up with a compromise that they could get Kennedy to sign on to, rather than that they really thought that the recounts violated equal protection). But only Breyer and Souter also said that it should be bounced back to Florida to determine a uniform standard so that recounts could proceed. So the key decision, that there could be no more recounts, was, indeed, a 5-4 decision. Also, it had nothing to do with being carried out statewide - the recount was being carried out statewide, just with different standards in each county. john k 05:50, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Okay, thanks honey. =^_^= I posted here because I don't know anything about the election and didn't want to edit something I don't know about. I guess the article needs to be clarified somehow but I wouldn't be one to do that, unfortunately =/

Myria 06:47, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Map

Why did someone change the map on this page? The one that is currently there is inconsistent with the maps for all other presidential elections. Yes, I know that on the old image Democratic states are red and Republican blue; however, if you go back and look, that is the coloring scheme used for all of the maps. In my opinion, the new image looks tacky and unprofessional. Quandary us 08:38, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I agree. Most coloring schemes the news agencies use have Republican as red and Democrats blue.Jwinters 1800, 2 Nov 2004 (PST)

Two unclear things in "Florida election results"

The first thing that is not clear in my humble opinion: The Bush campaign sued to prevent additional recounts on the basis that no errors were found in the tabulation method until subjective measures were applied in manual recounts. What is exactly meant by subjective measures? Is it meant that the vote counters started looking at invalid ballots and looked if there were half punched in them? Is it meant that it is subjective whether a half punched hole is a vote for a candidate or a non-valid vote?

The second thing that is not clear in my humble opinion: Seven of the nine Justices agreed that the lack of unified standards in counting votes violated the Constitutional guarantee of equal protection, Why does the lack of unified standards violate the constitional guarantee of equal protection? Are there counting standards that would favor Al Gore? Protecting him more than George W. Bush? Or is this about the protection of voters in certain districts? Are some counting standards making more sure that the count is accurate and protecting voters in certain districts more? Paulus/laudaka (add me to your YIM/AIM/ICQ/M$N M contact list if you like!) Laudaka's talk page 20:02, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

For the last question, the latter. Counties with more whites and hispanics are protecting their voters better than counties with blacks. That's why it's a violation of the equal protection amendment. Perhaps this should be more clear in the article. Kevin Baas | talk 20:06, 2004 Sep 21 (UTC)

Of course, the argument is that a huge variation from county to county in how well they are 'protecting the equal rights' of the residents to have their votes counted accurately has always existed without the Supreme Court getting alarmed, Neither did the 'protection of equal rights' argument come up when 10 counties did an automatic manual recount as their interpretation of Florida Election Law, and 57 did not. Only when the threat of reducing the variability arose, did the Supreme Court get alarmed and declare that the more affluent counties had to be 'protected' against having their advantage of higher reliability in vote counting reduced. This seems absurd and skewed, and the fact that the Supreme Court had to rule that their decision in this case could not be used as a precedent for other cases, i.e. to order revamping of the voting process in the poorer counties to make it as reliable as in the wealthier counties in the future, kind of underlines that pretty graphically.

Fun fact: In the decade before the 2000 election, Rehnquist, Thomas, and Scalia cast a total of 46

votes in non-affirmative-action cases regarding the Equal Protection Clause. In those 46 votes, they voted in favor of Equal Protection a grand total of..... twice. (In contrast, their judicial colleagues in those cases voted in favor of Equal Protection 74% of the time.) Think of it; in this one single case, the three justices voted in favor of Equal Protection more often than they had in all non-affirmative-action cases in the previous decade. Could it be that actually there was something about this case other than Equal Protection that determined their 'not to be used as a precedent' ruling? Gzuckier 16:57, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The seven justices agreement bit is pretty dubious. It is pretty clear that Breyer and Souter did not believe this argument - they were making it as a way to try to tempt Kennedy into voting for a renewed count with a universal standard. In their own opinions, if one actually reads them, they essentially say only that it might be considered an equal protection violation, but the main thrust of their dissents is "even if it does, the proper remedy is to have a new count with a uniform standard, not to not have any counting at all." The weak adherence to the equal protection argument is pretty clearly for Kennedy's benefit. The supposed violation of equal protection, by the way, had nothing to do with blacks and whites - it had to do with different counties having different counting standards. john k 16:43, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

As I just said, those different counties had different demographics. If it was just that different counties had different counting standards, then it would not be a violation of the 14th ammendment. Kevin Baas | talk 19:21, 2004 Oct 22 (UTC)

In any case, for more info, see this report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/vote2000/report/main.htm). Kevin Baas | talk 19:26, 2004 Oct 22 (UTC)

Did Gore win the popular vote?

If I recall, there were a million absentee votes in California. Al Gore won California by more than a million votes; therefore, there was no reason to count these, as, of course, as we all know, the national popular vote is utterly irrelevant.

However, this introduces a problem. Absentee votes typically lean more Republican than Democrat. It is entirely possible that the uncounted absentee votes in California, and other states, could very well have put George W. Bush over the top. Therefore, harping on "Gore won the popular vote" is possibly not factual - there's simply no way to know, since the popular vote is irrelevant.

Does anyone else think this is worthy of addition to the article? I'd have to find a source though. --Golbez 03:40, Oct 22, 2004 (UTC)

Your point is interesting and well-taken. However, the national "popular vote," no matter how emotional an issue, is no more than a talking point in a closely-contested election, since the US runs by the electoral college vote, and the electoral college vote only, as certified by the individual states. If we were really to delve into "who won the popular vote," we would need to examine not only uncounted absentee ballot, but also votes fraudulently cast. It is an open secret that there are non-citizens registered to vote (not to mention dead people). In fact there was recently a case of a woman who picked up an absentee ballot for her dead mother. She says she had no intention of voting it. She wanted it for a keepsake...[1] (http://www.theomahachannel.com/politics/3839239/detail.html)

If you were to include material like this, though, be prepared for it to be ripped apart, so should you bother? -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 16:14, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It is untrue that absentee ballots in California were not counted - this was something Republicans said at the time to make it seem as though Gore had not won the popular vote. In fact, every vote in California, and every other state, was counted, whether or not it made a difference in the final outcome in that state - recall also that president was not the only race on the ballot that year. john k 16:39, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Then I stand humbly corrected. --Golbez 22:10, Oct 22, 2004 (UTC)

Bear in mind the article is balanced. As it explains:

"However, it should be pointed out that if the American system were based on the popular vote, rather than the Electoral College, then the turnout of voters would have been different. Voter turnout in states that favor one party heavily tends to be lower. Because of this, the popular vote cannot be used to predict who would have won an actual popular vote election."

ChrisG 12:01, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Map colors

Is it just me or do the old maps have inverted colors vs. the 2004 red blue setup?? Confusing for users, no?

Please check out the image discussion page. It has been reverted several times back and forth, but this one is kept because it is the official map the US Gov uses. --[[User:Tomf688|tomf688]] 05:57, Nov 28, 2004 (UTC)

NORC recount

The NORC recount is not a 'less comprehensive study' than the University of Chicago recount, it IS the University of Chicago recount, which explains why the url is www.norc.uchicago.edu. The intent to include NPOV should not lead to mangling the basic inescapable facts to include the point of view of the ignorant. That's all I have to say about that. Gzuckier 16:38, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Electoral college contest

This information should be in the article: [2] (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A27270-2001Jan6) Kevin Baas^talk 21:11, 2005 Jan 5 (UTC)

good idea i'll put it in Gzuckier 14:27, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Spelling

I just made a quick anon change to fix a misspelling (dispite to despite) in a paragraph about Catherine Harris about 3/4 of the way down. I forgot to include an editing comment to let people know what change I made. Sorry.

Completely incomprehensible

Although the NORC study was not primarily intended as a determination of which candidate "really won", analysis of the results, given the hand counting of machine-uncountable ballots due to various types of voter error indicated that they would lead to differing results, reported in the newspapers which funded the recount, such as The Miami Herald (The Miami Herald Report: Democracy Held Hostage) or the Washington Post [6] (http://www.aei.org/docLib/20040526_KeatingPaper.pdf).

esp.: ", analysis of the ..., given the ... due to ... types of ... indicated that they would lead to ..., reported in the .. which funded the ..., such as the ..." I'm sorry, you lost me. Kevin Baas^{talk: new (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Kevin_baas&action=edit&section=new)} 18:13, 2005 May 16 (UTC)

Blues and reds

Why are the Republicans blue and the Democrats red in that image? It goes against current practice. 24.54.208.177 01:03, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Please read the rest of the discussion page. This question has been asked and answered in "Map colors", above. — DLJessup 13:33, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Bush's Home State

Bush wasa born in Connecticut. According to his tax returns, his official residence is Illinois. Neither one is Texas.Kuralyov 22:38, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Are you saying in 2000 when he was the incumbent governor of Texas, he claimed Illinois as his official residence? I would love to see your source. NoSeptember ^(talk) 22:57, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

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