US Presidential Election 2000 confusion?

It takes 270 electoral votes to win the office of President.

In 2000, Al Gore, Jr. (D) got 266 Electoral Votes.

George W. Bush (R) got 271 and the win.

Al Gore, Jr. is from the state of Tennessee. The State of Tennessee had 11 Electoral Votes in 2000.

The state voted for the Republican, George W. Bush. to give him his 271 Electoral Votes.

Had he won his own state of Tennessee he would have 266 + 11 = 277 Electoral Votes and he would have won the Presidency and Florida would not have entered into the equation except as just another state voting in the election.

Now during the re-count the Democrats wanted to blame the butter fly ballot as the reason people did not know who they were voting for. When you voted in Florida, as I understand it you punched a hole next to the name of the candidate you wanted. And then it got down to does this vote count for Bush or Gore or Ralph Nader (did not earn any Electoral Votes) but did get 2,882,728 popular votes nation wide. The argument was that ballots marked for Nader really wanted to vote for Gore. This rocked on for weeks and finally Bush was declared the winner in Florida. Many people looked at the ballots long after the election was over and decided that Bush really did win Florida. But it would not have been an issue had he won his home state.

On election night and before the polls closed in the Panhandle of Florida (Central Time Zone) the media announced that Florida's 25 Electoral Votes would be Gore's. But then as the votes were being counted Bush was ahead. But the heavy Democratic counties totals came in late in the night. Bush was ahead by some 300 votes. Problem was the Democrats wanted recounts in only 4 counties. And they wanted those ballots hand counted, not put into the voting machines. Hand counting is open to "But I think this voter want to vote for Gore and not Bush or not Nader. The machine count would count the ballot as punched.

Bottom line the people of Tennessee did not want him to be President either.

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I agree substantially with the other two answers, but I'll add my two cents. George Bush won Florida, but not because he would have won no matter how they counted it (he wouldn't have, as explained below). But the Supreme Court recognized that there would be different results depending on the methodology; therefore, there was no "objective" way to do a recount...so any recount would have been unconstitutionally arbitrary and capricious.

The numbers bear this out. The NYT did its own recounts after the election debacle was over. It found that if Gore had been allowed to get exactly what he asked for (i.e., recounts in only three select counties), he would have STILL LOST FLORIDA.

As you implied, there were a million ways to recount the votes with three independent counters per vote:

1. Only overturn the machine vote if all 3 counters agreed;

2. Only overturn the machine vote if 2 of 3 counters agreed;

3. Only recount in selected counties;

4. Recount the entire state;

5. Count dimpled chads;

6. Count hanging chads;

7 Count only fully punched-out cards;

8. Count only chads with at least 2 of 4 corners detached;

9. Count only chads with at least 3 of 4 corners detached;

10. Combine one or more of the above methods (e.g., count dimpled chads, but recount only in Broward County, and only overturn the vote if all three counters agreed to do so);

11. etc.

The Florida vote was so close, that the winner would have been decided by which set of criteria you selected for the recount. Some ways to recount favored Gore; others favored Bush. So no recount method would have been more "fair" than the machine-counted votes. At least the machine-counts were performed objectively, i.e., without human manipulation.

Gore's team knew his only chance to win was by a manipulated recount. The problem is, they didn't even guess right on which methodology to beg the courts for. Had Gore been handed the election, Bush would have had just as much--or more--of a right to complain.

Essentially, the state of Florida would determine who won the presidency. Whoever won Florida would have enough electorate votes to be president. At this time, Bush and Gore were neck-and-neck. With many people

waiting in anticipation (and the media sending mixed results), it was announced that Bush had won Florida. However, the margin of winning was so close (around 537 votes or so), that Democrats were demanding a recount. For example, there were claims that a disproportionate amount of voters in Palm Beach voted for a third-party candidate, that an unusual amount of African-American votes were exempt and removed from the ballot (the reason being they were felons), yet the majority of those said Africans were law-abiding citizens who who were not felons, and a case where many people voted for 2 people as president as oppose to one, thus invalidating their vote. This would lead to an eventual demand for ballot recount, with Gore demanding it be done by hand. Bush claimed there was no evidence of any voter fraud, therefore no recount. This eventually went to the Florida Supreme Court, where they agreed that a voter recount by hand would be done. However, the Supreme Court declared that the Florida Court's ruling was unconstitutional (due to irregular regulation aand counting methods) and all recounting must be finishe by the next day. As you can imagine, many people were furious. Since it is impossible to recount every vote in the matter of 24 hours, that ruling effectively proclaimed that Bush took Florida. This would lead to distrust in the Supreme Court, and some sentiments that the Supreme Court, being conservative, voted in favor of Bush to ensure a conservative president.

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