Was the 2000 Presidential election rigged?

[Paradoxical]

Poll question: Was the 2000 Presidential election rigged?

By rigged I mean that the results of the election differed from the actual votes cast by individual citizens and that the difference was intentional in order to promote one candidate over the other.

Poll result (193 votes)
Yes	(163 votes, 84%)	Vote
Most likely	(7 votes, 4%)	Vote
Not likely	(2 votes, 1%)	Vote
No	(21 votes, 11%)	Vote

[applegrove]

1. The 2000 election was stolen via voter suppression and the supreme court.

[SugarShack]

2. The Miami Herald actually counted the Florida ballots and said Gore won !

Gore Won Florida!

On November 27, Republican Secretary of State Katherine Harris officially certified George W. Bush as the "winner" in Florida by 537 votes.

Since that date, independent investigations by the media have revealed that many illegal votes were counted - while many legal votes were not.

If the votes in Florida had been counted by non-partisan election officials in compliance with the law, Gore would have won Florida.

Unfortunately, George W. Bush, his brother Governor Jeb Bush, Secretary of State Katherine Harris, a partisan Republican majority on the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Republican-owned media did everything in their power to prevent a fair and legal count of the votes.

In other words, these Republicans used their enormous power to steal the Presidency of the United States. Indeed, the untold story of Floridagate is as chilling as Watergate.

This is a crime against American democracy. Democrats.com demands a thorough investigation and the prosecution of all criminal actions.

And because he is ultimately responsible for the Theft of the Presidency, we call upon George W. Bush to resign.

Note: To read all of the coverage on Democrats.com of Election 2000 and related stories, click the following links:

Theft of the Presidency (major revelations)
Stolen Election
Katherine Harris
Jeb Bush
Felon Purge
Election Reform
1. Media Consortium Statewide Count of "Undervotes" and "Overvotes" Proves Gore Won Under ANY Standard

The Media Consortium hired the National Opinion Research Center to examine 175,010 ballots that were never counted in Florida. The investigation took 8 months and cost $900,000. No matter what standard for judging ballots is applied, Gore wins.


Gore Gain Gore Deficit
or Lead
Certified by Katherine Harris
-537


Valid votes found after certification +59
-478

Correctly marked paper ballots +493
+15

Full punches
+100
+115

Poorly marked paper ballot +309
+424

3-corner chads -208
+216

2-corner chads
-111
+105

1-corner chads -45
+60

Dimples with sunlight +88
+148

Dimples
-41
+107

Unfortunately, the members of the Media Consortium insisted on distorting the analysis of their own clear data (see "Spin Control" below).

2. Miami Herald Statewide Count of "Undervotes" and "Overvotes" Proves Gore Won by 662

Without counting a single hanging or dimpled chad, Gore won by 662, according to the Miami Herald. The votes below were crystal clear votes as determined by the Herald's accounting firm, BDO Seidman. Under Florida law, all of these ballots should have been counted by election officials on Election Day. Their failure to do so is Official Misconduct, not "Voter Error"!

http://archive.democrats.com/display.cfm?id=181

[KittyWampus]

15. And the NYTimes deliberately lied. Their headline was a lie. You had to read the article

and buried in the middle was the fact Gore did win.

[L. Coyote]

30. Overvoting cost Gore tens of thousands more votes than Bush.

Democracy Counts
The Media Consortium Florida Ballot Project
Dan Keating
The Washington Post
[e-mail]
1150 15th St NW
Washington, DC 20071

http://www.aei.org/docLib/20040526_KeatingPaper.pdf

Abstract. The contents of ballots that were not counted as a vote for president in
Florida’s contested 2000 election were catalogued by the National Opinion Research
Center under the direction of a consortium of wire service, television and newspaper
journalists. Results indicate likely outcomes if the ballots had been recounted under
various standards and scenarios. Results also indicate patterns important for election
reform and conduct of elections concerning racial differences in voter error, failure rates
of different technologies and ballot designs, subjectivity of recounts and validity of
mismarked ballots as votes.

Paper prepared for presentation at the annual meeting of the American Political Science
Association, Boston, August 2002.

The contested Presidential election in Florida in November-December 2000
introduced a new reality to American democracy – the fact that every ballot doesn’t
count. Several technical and administrative obstacles render about 1-in-50 ballots mute.
The controversy over the recounts – a mandatory machine recount, completed and
incomplete county recounts, and an aborted statewide recount of selected ballots –
focused attention on how voters and voting technology fails.
Even before the Supreme Court ended the disputed election, news organizations
had begun to request access to the ballots themselves, a public record under Florida’s
expansive Sunshine Law (Florida law 101.572).
This paper is intended to introduce people to the datasets gathered that are
available for further analysis, and to present analysis conducted by The Washington
Post.

..................

The overvoting also showed a very notable difference in which candidates were
named on the overvoted ballots. Gore’s name appeared on 80,772 of the overvotes
compared to 40,073 for Bush, indicating that overvotes may have had the largest impact
on Florida’s election. Voters included both Bush and Gore on 11,409 overvoted ballots.
Only 4,384, or 3.9 percent, of overvotes had neither Bush nor Gore included.

..........

Palm Beach County’s butterfly ballot design yielded
8,170 voters who overvoted by punching Gore and one of the candidates who flanked
him, Patrick Buchanan or David McReynolds. Another 1,668 voters punched Bush and
Buchanan, the only name flanking Bush. The net effect of those errors cost Gore 6,502
votes.

.......

A similar effect took place in Duval County. The heavily Republican county ... a net loss for Gore of 2,585.

...........

The notorious Voter News Service poll that led broadcasters to predict a Gore victory
might well have accurately gauged the intention of voters in the booth, but was misled by
the skewed nature of overvoting that apparently cost Gore tens of thousands more votes
than Bush.

............

[AndyTiedye]

3. Yes

The govelbot won't let me vote.
It placed its window over all the voting buttons.

[Merlot]

6. I've had the same problem, Try extending your window.

this never used ti happen, seems like suddenly the polls got longer

[AndyTiedye]

27. Grovelbot Got Bigger

I couldn't extend the window any further. It's full-screen. 1920x1080.

It was kinda amusing that the giant grovelbot first showed up for this partiular poll.

[elocs]

4. Of course. Any election where a Democrat loses a close race is stolen and rigged. n/t

[Overseas]

12. Just because it happened to Gore and Kerry doesn't mean they are all rigged.

It is just easier to explain the closer votes away.

Although there were very convoluted discussions in 2004 about why exit polls which we had relied upon for decades to monitor the accuracy of elections here and in other countries were suddenly so wrong.

[L. Coyote]

20. Yeah, that's the lamest damn excuse ever for not having fair elections. Whip a fresh mule already

That one is getting rather worn out

[LAGC]

5. No, it was quite accurate.

Bush 50,456,002 (47.87%)
Gore 50,999,897 (48.38%)

Seems simple enough to me.

[Vanje]

7. Yes.

and I hav'nt believed in anything wrought by our electoral system since then.

I fly an anarchist flag.
I say "fuck" a lot.

[Jakes Progress]

8. Something to ponder.

If the powers that control things rigged that one, what make you think you actually had a choice in the last election?

[DCKit]

9. Simple. They can't go too far, or nobody (even stoopid (R)s) would believe it.

So, they try for a reasonable percentage. Thus, in 2008, we had to give Obama ~15% over Gramps just so he could win by ~3%.

[KittyWampus]

16. Stealing an election is a numbers game. Obama had a good numbers guy and Howard Dean had built

Democratic party infrastructure in enough states to support Democratic voters and securing their votes.

[L. Coyote]

21. Perhaps the primaries placed the R choice for D candidate ahead.

It is quite possible that the Dem choice for Pres candidate was rigged too, in favor of the Sidley Austin intern!!

[PufPuf23]

23. Obama/Biden vs Senile/Crazy mean? Call that a choice?

HRC was my abolutely last choice in the primaries but I got excited over POTUS Obama.

Did not realize that POTUS Obama was a neo-liberal until after the election.

Seems like the PTCTs did win the last election in hindsight.

[Jakes Progress]

33. That is my point.

Maybe the powers that run things decided that they wanted Obama. He wouldn't upset what they had under bush and the Democrats would take the blame for the shitty economy that bush brought us. So they got Obama nominated and then ran the worst possible two candidates against him. I mean, can you think of anyone that wouldn't have beat the geezer and the hill billy?

[Mnemosyne]

10. Yes. K&R n/t

[boston bean]

11. butterfly ballot in FL

where many dems accidentally voted for Pat Buchanan!

[GoCubsGo]

13. True, but there were other factors, as well.

Such as purging the voter rolls of alleged "felons" beforehand. Nearly a quarter of a million of those, IIRC. As I recall, lots of people showed up to vote that day, only to be told they couldn't because their name had been removed for being a convicted felon--just because they had the same, or similar name of an actual felon.

Then, there were the Florida State Police showing up in minority districts to intimidate the voters. And, the electronic voting machine discrepancies... The butterfly ballot was an unintended benefit to Dumbya, but I don't believe it was done maliciously, unlike the other doings.

[boston bean]

17. I know, I am agreeing with you and just pointing out one for instance. adding to the convo.

you know...

[WinkyDink]

14. "Rigging" isn't the issue; it is the ILLEGAL SUPREME COURT DECISION.

[RainDog]

31. they should've all been impeached

this court is an example of what horrid govt you get when political extremists put personal profit over justice. The right-wing courts have been shameful to behold.

[Mike Niendorff]

18. It was stolen.

Gore won, and Bush was installed illegally by a crooked Supreme Court.

Five Justices should have been impeached, prosecuted and jailed for that criminal decision.



MDN

[L. Coyote]

19. Rigged? Hell, it was hijacked and the actual outcome was reversed because rigging wasn't adequate.

There is a HUGE difference between rigging an election and actually altering the outcome, as in "successful rigging." The rigging, mnassive voter suppression and voter caging, was failing so they pulled of Junta Day.

[Melissa G]

22. +1. n/t

[Uncle Joe]

28. + Infinity with a cherry on top. n/t

[slackmaster]

24. It was "rigged" only in that the winner was determined by the Electoral College

Rather than the popular vote.

That sword has cut both ways, and it will continue to do so.

[AlabamaLibrul]

25. Yes, and not by Nader (ugh) n/t

[ChoppinBroccoli]

26. Bush Admitted He Knew He'd Win Florida Well Before All The Votes Were Counted

How could he have possibly known that when every single poll done showed him losing Florida? Why, even when the networks started calling Flordia for Gore, he still insisted he'd win Florida. Gee, now how could he have possibly known that when his brother was the Governor (the guy who's in charge of the police force that intimidated black voters statewide on Election Day) and a huge campaign donor was in charge of counting the votes?

If all the votes had been counted AND all the people who were supposed to vote were allowed to, Bush would have lost Florida handily. But we'll never know that because, 1) all the people who were disenfranchised (the vast majority of whom were minorities) never cast a ballot, so you can't count a ballot that was never cast, and 2) the Supreme Court stepped in, defied over 200 years of Constitutional precedent, and halted the recount.

But oh no, the fix WASN'T in.

[L. Coyote]

29. Wow, there are 19 people who don't think 2000 was stolen from Gore!

That's nineteen more than I was aware of before!

[Vidar]

32. Yes.

[Fire Walk With Me]

34. Watch your Michael Moore, Fahrenheit 9/11...Bush with Jeb talking about having Florida delivered

to them or some such, you can bet on it...