US Politics Mega-thread - Page 5115

On July 19 2025 00:56 Magic Powers wrote:
I'm not in on the joke of Trump running for a third term. Can someone enlighten me?

On July 19 2025 04:06 KwarK wrote:
Gore got more votes in Florida in 2000 and yet Bush won. Paper doesn’t decide these things, people do, and Republicans had a SCOTUS majority which awarded Bush the state 5-4 on party lines despite Gore’s victory.

We already know what happens when on the one hand you have the rules to an election and on the other a Republican Supreme Court. They’ve overturned an election in living memory.

On July 19 2025 04:06 KwarK wrote:
Gore got more votes in Florida in 2000 and yet Bush won. Paper doesn’t decide these things, people do, and Republicans had a SCOTUS majority which awarded Bush the state 5-4 on party lines despite Gore’s victory.

Taken as a whole, the recount studies show Bush would have most likely won the Florida statewide hand recount of all undervotes. Undervotes are ballots that did not register a vote in the presidential race.

The studies also show that Gore likely would have won a statewide recount of all undervotes and overvotes, which are ballots that included multiple votes for president and were thus not counted at all. However, his legal team never pursued this action.

On July 19 2025 06:24 BlackJack wrote:


That's well disputed. The official vote count had Bush ahead by 537 votes. Subsequent studies on who got the most votes have mixed results.



https://edition.cnn.com/2015/10/31/politics/bush-gore-2000-election-results-studies

Also as far as I'm aware there wasn't a single recount that had Gore ahead before the SCOTUS decision so it's funny to phrase it as "they overturned an election." They stopped the recounts and let the results they already had stand.

On July 19 2025 06:42 KwarK wrote:

There is no “results they already have” if the counting isn’t done.
The Florida state Supreme Court ruled that the there should be a proper count. That was the state result. Then the Federal Supreme Court ruled that Bush won Florida.

Bush had a lead of 537 votes before the dimpled ballots were assessed. The dimpled ballots were ones that were recorded as no vote for any presidential candidate because the tool used was too blunt. It left a mark on the ballot where the voter selected their candidate, placed the tool on the ballot, and used the tool to mark their choice. But it was insufficiently sharp to yield a clean cut. Election administrators reviewed each of the dimpled ballots, considered whether there was a clear indication of which candidate the voter marked their ballot for, and counted them if 2 of the 3 reviewers agreed. Those were enough to give the election to Gore easily.

You’re confusing those with the 70,000 votes for Gore were thrown out because they marked Gore + a third party candidate on a confusing ballot. 25,000 votes for Bush were thrown out for the same reason.

But you don’t need those to make Gore win. Sure, he really won by a 50,000 margin if you turn it into some ranked ballot thing by counting those overvotes. But he also just won if you look at the ballots and count the ones where the voter picked Gore, and only Gore, for president. There isn’t a dispute over who Florida voters picked for president, it was Gore. There is only a dispute over whether a badly sharpened tool at the polling station should void the clearly marked choice of the voter. And even then Florida said they should be recounted.

The man was robbed.

Lenient Standard: Bush +1,665 (“This standard, which was advocated by Gore, would count any alteration in a chad – the small perforated box that is punched to cast a vote – as evidence of a voter’s intent. The alteration can range from a mere dimple, or indentation, in a chad to its removal. Contrary to Gore’s hopes, the USA TODAY study reveals that this standard favors Bush and gives the Republican his biggest margin: 1,665 votes.”)

Palm Beach Standard: Bush +884 (“Palm Beach County election officials considered dimples as votes only if dimples were found in other races on the same ballot. They reasoned that a voter would demonstrate similar voting patterns on the ballot. This standard – attacked by Republicans as arbitrary – also gives Bush a win, by 884 votes, according to the USA TODAY review.”)

Two corner standard: Bush +363 (“Most states with well-defined rules say that a chad with two or more corners removed is a legal vote. Under this standard, Bush wins by 363.”)

Strict standard: Gore +3 (“This “clean punch” standard would only count fully removed chads as legal votes. The USA TODAY study shows that Gore would have won Florida by 3 votes if this standard were applied to undervotes.”)

On July 19 2025 07:00 BlackJack wrote:


From the same CNN article



Bolded - this is the dimple standard you're referring to and the first major review of the election ironically gave the victory to Bush by the widest margin.

Based on the NORC review, the media group concluded that if the disputes over the validity of all the ballots in question had been consistently resolved and any uniform standard applied, the electoral result would have been reversed and Gore would have won by 60 to 171 votes (with, for each punch ballot, at least two of the three ballot reviewers' codes being in agreement). The standards that were chosen for the NORC study ranged from a "most restrictive" standard (accepts only so-called perfect ballots that machines somehow missed and did not count, or ballots with unambiguous expressions of voter intent) to a "most inclusive" standard (applies a uniform standard of "dimple or better" on punch marks and "all affirmative marks" on optical scan ballots).[4]

An analysis of the NORC data by University of Pennsylvania researcher Steven F. Freeman and journalist Joel Bleifuss concluded that, no matter what standard is used, after a recount of all uncounted votes, Gore would have been the victor.[39] Such a statewide review including all uncounted votes was a tangible possibility, as Leon County Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis, whom the Florida Supreme Court had assigned to oversee the statewide recount, had scheduled a hearing for December 13 (mooted by the U.S. Supreme Court's final ruling on December 12) to consider including overvotes. Subsequent statements by Lewis and internal court documents support the likelihood that overvotes would have been included in the recount.[83] Florida State University professor of public policy Lance deHaven-Smith observed that, even considering only undervotes, "under any of the five most reasonable interpretations of the Florida Supreme Court ruling, Gore does, in fact, more than make up the deficit".[4] Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's analysis of the NORC study and media coverage of it supported these interpretations and criticized the coverage of the study by media outlets such as The New York Times and the other media consortium members for focusing on how events might have played out rather than on the statewide vote count.[82]

On July 19 2025 07:16 Introvert wrote:
There is dispute, and iirc Gore lost every recount that he got until he was told to stop asking. The ballot problem was from the ballots those blue counties decided to use. Saying it was stolen is way too categorical when it’s not even clear he won, the margin was too tight to make that statement also.

On July 19 2025 07:19 KwarK wrote:

A margin of over 50,000 votes was too tight?

Over 50,000 more Floridians marked their ballot for Gore than for Bush. That's not in dispute, that's known. They had to throw out 100,000 votes to get a Bush victory.