The Final US Election Thread

[Seamus Fermanagh]

What CA said, and, 2000 was a very hotly contested election which was ultimately decided by the Supreme Court, not the voters. And yet Al Gore called for people to support the decision. The circumstances were very different, there is no real question about legitimacy about last night's end result.

Koga:

You're smarter than that. The Supremes decided that is was inappropriate to recount part of, but not all of, the Florida vote. Given our knowledge of how certain locales break for certain candidates, it is NOT unreasonable to suggest that ANY partial recount is a form of favoritism.

Gore lost in 2k because: 1) 90k Floridians were deranged enough to throw away their votes on the Green Party because GORE wasn't being eco-centric enough when 2k of those 90k in Gore's column would have ended the Bush presidencey before it began, & 2) Gore couldn't win his home state.

Subsequently, several recounts were conducted, sponsored by newspapers who had endorsed Gore, and none of these "recounts" altered the results.


Decry the electoral college system that made the minority popular vote sufficient to elect Bush if you will. Decry what Bush did in office subsequently if you will. The voting results were correct.


Al Gore and Nixon both did the correct thing after narrow defeats.

[Koga No Goshi]

Koga:

You're smarter than that. The Supremes decided that is was inappropriate to recount part of, but not all of, the Florida vote. Given our knowledge of how certain locales break for certain candidates, it is NOT unreasonable to suggest that ANY partial recount is a form of favoritism.

Gore lost in 2k because: 1) 90k Floridians were deranged enough to throw away their votes on the Green Party because GORE wasn't being eco-centric enough when 2k of those 90k in Gore's column would have ended the Bush presidencey before it began, & 2) Gore couldn't win his home state.

Subsequently, several recounts were conducted, sponsored by newspapers who had endorsed Gore, and none of these "recounts" altered the results.


Decry the electoral college system that made the minority popular vote sufficient to elect Bush if you will. Decry what Bush did in office subsequently if you will. The voting results were correct.


Al Gore and Nixon both did the correct thing after narrow defeats.

None of this was relevant to people staying up late at night on Nov 4 2000, Seamus. All that stuff was established record long afterwards. On the night in question everyone was up saying that the count looked like it was going to Gore and that it was later stopped. There was a lot of confusion and frustration and pretending like no one had any reasonable cause to feel bitter after 2000 is revisionism. It is absolutely no comparison whatsoever to last night, and it's ridiculous for anyone to do so and expect credibility.

Decry the electoral college system that made the minority popular vote sufficient to elect Bush if you will. Decry what Bush did in office subsequently if you will. The voting results were correct.


Al Gore and Nixon both did the correct thing after narrow defeats.

None of this really changes what I said, Seamus. I said people were frustrated because the vote came down to one hotly contested state, and the recounting was stopped. If that wouldn't make voters feel aggravated, regardless of what the whole story looks like in retrospect, I don't know what would. Saying "it turns out the counts were correct" after the fact doesn't change how people felt when they were told that the recount was being stopped by order of the court, on procedural considerations the electorate in general neither knew about nor were fully informed about at the time.