Talk:2000 United States presidential election/Archive 3

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Picture

What's with the super young and somewhat anemic picture of Al Gore? That's not what he looked like in 2000, and it's *certainly* not what he looks like now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.163.0.41 (talk) 15:51, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Ignorance

Could 72.140.17.5 of Toronto, Canada explain, how the Florida state County Clerk's office could find who actually won the state?

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)

"would have won" cannot be substantiated. Here is the NYTs on the results of the 2nd consortium vote count:

But the consortium, looking at a broader group of rejected ballots than those covered in the court decisions, 175,010 in all, found that Mr. Gore might have won if the courts had ordered a full statewide recount of all the rejected ballots. This also assumes that county canvassing boards would have reached the same conclusions about the disputed ballots that the consortium's independent observers did. The findings indicate that Mr. Gore might have eked out a victory if he had pursued in court a course like the one he publicly advocated when he called on the state to count all the votes.

This says "might" not would. The results of the first consortium recount didn't mention a possibility of a Gore win. --Paul 01:11, 21 August 2005 (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.

After six years of arguing and bickering about the 2000 election, it is crystal clear that George W. Bush won Florida by more than 500 votes. The recount proved that Bush won. All this bickering about Bush stealing the 2000 election is a whole sham. Bush won and it's time to get over it!!

Bush did not win, I don't know where you get your sources, but if this is the free encyclopedia, then we need and encyclopedia run by non republicans, because that is what you probably are, just another republican who gives opinions without even bothering to check the sources. the 500 votes you are speaking about arrived by mail with dates marked after the elections took place, many of them in December. If you knew the law you would realize you cannot vote after the elections. furthermore, anyone that speaks for bush in the Florida election case, is a racist, because governor bush and the Florida state, together with the federal supreme court, violated the voting rights of hundreds of thousands of black people from who 94% would vote democratic. This should be called the red neck encyclopedia.

Normally I don't weigh in on this page, but I thought that this one was too much to pass up.

1. Please get an account.
2. Please, at least, sign your posts.
3. Please learn to punctuate properly. It makes your sentences ramble and they are very difficult to follow.
4. "[I]f this is the free encyclopedia, we need and (sic) encyclopedia run by non republicans (sic), because that is what you probably are, just another republican who gives opinions without even bothering to check the sources." A "free" encyclopedia is not free from people with whom you disagree, but provided at cost. Besides, you can't possibly tell who someone is by their posts. I know Democrats who concede Bush won the election and I know Republicans who express doubt. This article has clearly stated sources. The recount showed that Bush won under the count available and in the manner in which Gore wanted a recount. Ironically, the manner in which Bush wanted a recount would have given Gore a margin of votes.
5. "the (sic) 500 votes you are speaking about arrived by mail with dates marked after the elections took place, many of them in December. Do you have any source for that? Or is this just an opinion "... without even bothering to check the sources" (your words not mine).
6. "furthermore, (sic) anyone that speaks for bush in the Florida election case, is a racist, because governor bush (sic) and the Florida state, (sic) together with the federal supreme court, (sic) violated the voting rights of hundreds of thousands of black people from who 94% would vote democratic." So anyone who disagrees with you is a racist? How did hundreds of thousands get their voting rights violated? That's kind of vague and has no source. Is this one of the kinds of things that people post "... without even bothering to check the sources?"

How do you know that it would have been 94%? Do you even have any reputable sources for these claims?

1. "This should be called the red neck (sic) encyclopedia." There are quite a few subjects in Wikipedia that have a liberal tilt.

In short, I will delete any further comments by this person unless evidence is given for his/her claims in accordance with the Wikipedia policy regarding opinion-based posts. — BQZip01 — ^talk 21:49, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

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 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)

I made an edit to this awhile back and it was changed back to this. I found this same arugment (about only being legal in the case of a mechanical error) in conservative webpages. I think this really breaches neutrality. A "liberal" interpretation of the recount law should be added, or the conservative one deleted. If it's too controversial let's just leave it out, but the rendition is deceptive.

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)

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)

It seems that the extreme angle of the ballot showing parallax should be balanced by showing it alongside the standard (face-on) view of the ballot that is used earlier in the article. Putting the two images side by side (or on top of each other) would illustrate the meaning of "parallax" to a lot of readers, and it would also help clarify other details in the "Butterfly Ballot" section. (The parallax view of the ballot is unreadable.) BJ Nemeth 07:08, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

The following looks like a good source of info, but i wasn't able to locate an online source: http://www.nald.ca/PROVINCE/ONT/PLAIN/index.htm Greg Ioannou, Did a Butterfly Elect George Bush? The implications of design on voter literacy --Espoo 08:41, 26 April 2006 (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)

What happened to the butterfly ballot photo? It was part of the controversy and should not be deleted.

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. Quandaryus 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)

Why does the map say that DC has only 2 electoral votes? It has 3. moonwatcher 21:05, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

One DC elector did not cast her vote, as a protest against having no representation in congress. Only two votes from DC were cast. --Golbez 07:29, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

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. 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]

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)

• If I may join this discussion, a year later--In point of fact not every ballot in the country was counted. I cannot speak as to the ballots in California. But each state has their own laws regarding the counting of absentee ballots. In years past, because of the great effort in manually counting ballots, absentee ballots were simply thrown out if the quantity of absentee ballots was less than the difference in the vote margin between the first and second place candidate.

With the advent of mechanical voting methods, including what one which we now regard as arcane-- (but was once considered advanced; I remember) punch card ballots, many localities began opting to count all ballots, all the time. But not in all places. In some states still, absentee ballots are not counted where they will not make a difference.

But the effect of this remains very difficult to sort out. For example, in one state where absentee ballots are not required to be counted, New York, while the ballots may not be counted in a presidential election with a wide margin of victory, those same ballots will have to be counted if, for example, there is a close race for a particular congressional district race. In that event, only the ballots that have to be counted will be counted, but whilst they are counted for the sake of the congressional race, all the other votes cast on those ballots for all other races (including the Presidential race) will be counted as well. This reduces the number of uncounted votes, but does not eliminate them entirely.

I am quite confident that no one will ever be successful in conducting a reliable scientific study of the effect of absentee ballots on the results of the 2000 popular vote. I suspect that they would not affect the popular perception. But, given the much higher proportion of absentee ballots that are cast Republican in most elections, neither can the possibility be ruled out. Unschool 05:54, 29 October 2005 (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)

• An excellent point, ChrisG. But it still avoids the issue of what really happened. Unschool 05:54, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Did Gore win the popular vote? I believe that is hard to answer. On the obvious point, yes, the "official" tally of votes nationwide gave Gore a plurality. But what constitutes a "win"? In many jurisdictions, if no one receives 50% (as happened here), there is no winner until you have a run off. Additionally, neither candidate was looking for a large vote total per ce. For instance, had Bush received the same percentage of votes in NYC that Dole did in 1996, he would have had 80,000 more votes to his total (out of more then 1,000,000 cast). By contrast, he won West Virginia - a state that voted for Dukakis - by 25,000 votes. Bush made zero campaign visits to NYC, he made 5 to WV. So it is a little hard to declare a winner in a "race" that neither candidate was competing in, and when there are no clear standards for "victory". That's my 2 cents. --Stillhere 15:41, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Runoff elections are held when mandated by law. This is typically done for non-partisan offices and local offices. The rules vary from state to state and county to county, but the rules for a Presidential election are determined largely by federal law, and during the general election there are no runoff elections for President or Congress. -- MiguelMunoz 09:27, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Thats not correct, there are run off elections for Congress & Senate. In Louisiana, you have to have 50% of the vote in the general election, or face a run off. This happened to Mary Landrieu in the 2002 Senate Race. Also, in some special elections for Congress you can face a run off, as happened this year in CA-50. Francine Busby actually won a plurality of the vote in the special election, but lost in the run-off. But my main point was that its hard to declare a "winner" without first setting the parameters of what a win is. I was just using run-off's as an example --Stillhere 15:08, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I would like a reference about states where absentee ballots are only counted if they will influence the outcome. I have lived in three states (all in the top 10 in terms of population), and in all three of them absentee ballots are counted unless they are individually challenged. I have never heard of absentees not being counted unless there is a close race.

The stated "example" of New York should be qualified. That state includes a column in its certification of "blank, void, and scattering" votes which includes uncounted absentee votes: the totals of all candidates and the BVS vote gives the entire number of people who voted in the state. In 2000, the BVS total was 138,216. This represents about 2% of the state's presidential vote.

Even if we assume that 2% of the vote in each state was not counted and was cast for Bush or Gore, Bush would have had to win 62.9% of this uncounted vote to reach parity with Gore's nationwide popular vote. Bush's necessary % of these "uncounted" votes increases when we add Nader and/or others to the mix. Chronicler3

Not sure why you put example in quotes, "Chronicler". This is a Talk page, I thought the idea was to express opinions in a non-encyclopedic manner. My source is a Print 2002 Almanac that broke down the results by county, and I can't excatly add a footnote here! But in any event, by harping in on numbers, you are missing my point. The point I was making is not about "X" number of votes in NYC. The point is 5 campaign stops in WV, and zero in NYC. Neither candidate was trying to get large wholesale numbers of votes nationwide. For that matter, Gore never really got out the vote in safe NYC either. So in an election that was a staistical tie, and neither candidate got 50% of the vote, it is hard to say what would have happened if this was a "Popular Vote Only" type election. And by hard to say, I don't mean "that means my guy won", I mean "it's hard to say". --Stillhere 11:37, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

My understanding is that it's a myth that absentee ballots are sometimes not counted. In reality, each ballot has votes for a number of candidates and ballot propositions. When an absentee vote is tabulated, they count votes on all the issues. So even if it wouldn't make a difference on the Presidential election, there are still many other elections to count. -- MiguelMunoz 09:27, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Somebody wrote above that New York State does not count all absentee ballots unless necessary. But I looked at the NYS election law[2] and from what I can tell, it provides that all absentee ballots are to be counted. See Article 9, Title I, § 9-104(3)(c), which says:

"(c) Absentee and military, special federal, and special presidential ballots shall then be canvassed and tallied, the vote thereon for each candidate announced and added to the vote as recorded on the statement of canvass and a final proclamation made as to the total vote received by each candidate and ballot proposal."

In my view it would be remarkable if a jurisdiction's election law provided that you don't have to count all the ballots. Keep in mind that selecting a winner is just one of the purposes of elections in a democracy. Another purpose is to allow voters to express their view and have it counted. Any voter has the right to vote for some candidate far out of the mainstream and have that vote counted in the final tally. I have a hard time believing that in the U.S. there are any elections to state or federal office that don't require all the votes to be counted. --Mathew5000 18:59, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

This is my first time in a discussion, so if I am doing anything wrong, please inform me. However, someone put that this was the third time in history that a president won a majority of electoral votes, but not as many popular votes. I don't think that is true, for instance the 1978 election. Can anyone else make some sense of this?

1. Please sign your posts with 4 tildes (~~~~). This ensures we know who wrote it and when it was placed there.
2. It happened a total of 4 times: In the elections of 1824, 1876, 1888, and 2000, the candidate who received a plurality of the popular vote did not become president. The 1824 election was eventually decided by Congress. Not so rare considering that we have only had 43 presidents.
3. This should be fixed to 4, not three. Not sure exactly where it is, but if you find it, feel free to fix it.

— BQZip01 — ^talk 03:58, 2 May 2007 (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: [3] 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} 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)

Kuralyov, his 2000 Tax returns list the address of his accountants that were preparing his return. If you look at the return (as I assume you have), the address clearly says c/o Northern Trust Company, 50 South LaSalle Street, Chicago, IL 60606. The key word there is c/o. He was not claiming to live at his accountants address. Besides, ,that return was prepared on April 10th, 2001. At that point he lived in DC.

Bush was birn in Connecticut. SO WHAT? Al Gore was born in Washington, D.C. but I don't have yet to see someone change his home state from Tennessee to the District of Columbia. I thought it was pretty obvious that "Home State" means the state where the individual's home (primary residence) is. Also important is the state the individual was elected from. In both cases, for Bush this would be Texas.--SpudHawg948 (talk) 12:47, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

F.S. Ch. 102.166 2C

Special:Contributions/User:68.7.179.38 made a change to the text about the recount process. He deleted some of the material and replaced it with a quote of F.S. Ch. 102.166 2c:

Upon receipt of a proper and timely request, the Elections Canvassing Commission or county canvassing board shall immediately order a manual recount of overvotes and undervotes in all affected jurisdictions.

I have checked the Florida Senate's site and verified that the Florida Statutes read this way now. However, this whole section has been massively revised since the 2000 election (as witnessed by the many references to July 1, 2002 for hardware and software certification), and I do not believe that this verbiage obtained in 2000. Therefore, I have reverted the edit until this section can be verified to have existed in the 2000 Florida Statutes.

— DLJessup 22:55, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Pat Buchanan was not a candidate for president in 1996

Therefore, this line is incorrect: "an unexpectedly large number of votes for third-party candidate Patrick Buchanan, although he received roughly the same amount of votes there as he had received in the 1996 election"

Perhaps the writer meant that *the Reform Party* received roughly the same amount of votes there as it had received, with Ross Perot as its standard-bearer, in the 1996 election? If so, this is perhaps worth noting in passing, but it really doesn't prove anything at all, considering the vast differences in philosophy and political affiliation between Ross Perot and Pat Buchanan, and the fact that Perot's support nationwide was much stronger than Buchanan's.

Well, I looked at the article history. User:68.124.70.64 added the offending line on August 2.

Buchanan did run in the presidential election of 1996 — but he didn't make it past the primaries. According to the FEC, Buchanan won 162,770 votes in the Florida Republican primary in 1996, while he won 17,484 in the Florida general election in 2000. Maybe our anonymous author had heard somebody say something along these lines: "Buchanan won 162,777 votes in the Florida Republican primary. We'd expect that most Republican voters would vote for the actual nominee, but there might be, say, 10% of Buchanan voters who couldn't stomach Bush and so would fall back on Buchanan. Then we'd expect 16,277 votes for Buchanan, which is pretty close to what he actually got." Play a little telephone game with that, and you get the suspect clause.

I'm removing the offending clause now. — DLJessup 21:11, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Citation needed

I noticed that anonymous User:58.104.17.164 added the tag "citation needed" to the front of this article. It is unclear what this is supposed to apply to. I'm going to make a guess that he or she is referring to User:156.110.25.59's recent change of Bush's margin of victory from "several hundred" votes in Florida to "527" votes. If this is the case, I would refer User:58.104.17.164 to the table in "Florida election results" which is sourced to CBS News State Results for Election 2000. If not, I ask that he tell us what he is referring to here in the talk page. In any case, I will remove the "citation needed" tag.

— DLJessup (talk) 12:50, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

"The vote was certified by Katherine Harris, the Florida Secretary of State and a Republican who had publicly supported Bush during the campaign. Additionally, Bush's younger brother, Jeb Bush, was the governor of Florida and this led to rumors that he had somehow "fixed" the election results to favor his brother." Hokay - Although much was made of Kat's political stance, it should not be included here. There is no pattern of attaching political leanings to an individual if that person is not running for office; this is a mild hint at an existent/nonexistent conspiracy. This belongs in her bio page. Next, the Jeb item, in addition to running along the same lines, isn't at all relevant to the paragraph. It's going.

Minority Presidents

According to the "U.S. Presidential Election, 2000" article:

This election was only the fourth time in United States history that a candidate had won the Presidency while losing the nationwide popular vote. (The other three times were the elections of 1824, 1876, and 1888.)

The above statement is incorrect, and is inconsistent with Wikipedia's U.S. presidential election, 1960 article. John Kennedy was also a minority president.

• "Minority President" is a term used by historians to describe any candidate who wins the election without a majority of the popular vote. However, Kennedy, like many other presidents (Nixon, '68; Clinton, '92 and '96; etc) have won without a majority but with a plurality of the popular vote. What makes 2000 so significant is the fact that Gore appears to have won the plurality, yet lost the election in the Electoral College. The only previous instances of this were in 1824, 1876, and 1888. Unschool 06:03, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia's U.S. presidential election, 1960 article, Kennedy received 33,902,681 votes, while Nixon received 34,108,157. Those figures do not include the 318,303 votes from Alabama that were not cast directly for Kennedy, but instead for a slate of unpledged Democratic electors.

Alabama had eleven electors, five of whom cast their votes for Kennedy and six of whom voted for Harry F. Byrd. It is not possible to determine exactly how many Alabama voters chose Kennedy versus Byrd, since the ballot did not specify either. Instead the ballot merely specified a choice between either, Nixon or the slate of unpledged Democratic electors.

Nevertheless, if the Alabama votes were allocated proportionally, 144,683 would have gone to Kennedy and 173,620 would have gone to Byrd. That would bring Kennedy's nationwide total to 34,047,364, which is still less than Nixon's nationwide total. Thus, it is entirely reasonable to include the 1960 election in the list of those where the winner did not win a plurality.

Another Minority Fix

The statement was ambiguous. It used the word "won" but not "majority" or "plurality," the meat of the 2000 election. Many presidents have won without a majority, including Lincoln (the first time) and Clinton (both times) but they won a plurality in a first-past-the-post system and the electoral college. In 2000, then governor Bush won the former but not the latter, the key distinction. Probably best not to mention Jefferson or John Q. Adams and their election by the house.

Also--just realized my own edit's error of not mentioning electoral college. Will fix now. Levelistchampion 03:02, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Nader's home state?

I'm assuming that "home state" in the voting table refers to a candidate's state of legal residence, not where he was born (otherwise Bush's home state would be Connecticut). Anyway, Nader is listed as being from Connecticut here (where he was born), but according to the Ralph Nader page, "Nader inhabits a modest apartment in Washington DC". Should the table be changed to say that he's from DC or does he have legal Connecticut residence for some reason? Or is the Nader page inaccurate? (I have heard elsewhere that he lives in DC full time, so I'm betting the Nader page has it right.) --Jfruh 14:50, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Request adding SCOTUS to introduction

It's not a POV to call it an "unprecedented" court decision. Never in America's history did the federal court system ever overrule a state's certification (either process or completed) and for this reason alone it needs to be mentioned as to why Bush won FL. It was an UNPRECEDENTED election because Bush won the state *only* from the judgements in the supreme court which forced to hault the tallying of the uncounted ballots. Sorry if that seems bias to you. It's just Reality!!!!--Lamrock 06:51, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

The state certification occured on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. The post-certification process is something that courts of all levels get involved in all the time. Federal courts overrule state courts quite often if they find standing and a reason to do so. The notability of this case comes from the fact that it involved the election of a President, not because of any supposed rarity of federal court intervention. NoSeptember 09:50, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Additionally, the court simply interpreted the law. They did not choose a candidate. Thus, the statement, "Bush won the state *only* from the judgements in the supreme court which forced to hault the tallying of the uncounted ballots" is rather misleading. You can blame the law, but you can never say that they Supreme Court picked the president as has been claimed so often.

1960 Election - Did Kennedy fail to win a plurality?

As an Illinois republican who was around back in 1960, I can say that I wholely believe that Mayor Daley the Elder loaded up the ballot boxes across Chicago to put Illinois in the Democratic column in 1960. Nonetheless, I reverted the subtle reference to this because, as thin as the margin was, I have yet to see an analysis that makes a conclusive case that it is more likely than not that Nixon carried the national popular vote. Sure, 0.1% is a thin margin. But that 0.1% is a lot of votes, and probably a lot more than Daley added to the box. After all, Chicago was (and is) a Democratic town, Chicago was (and is) a Catholic city, and Chicago had (and has) one heck of a lot of Irish. It doesn't look like Daley is the reason that JFK carried the state so heavily. My own father caused a riff in our home when he voted Irish Catholic instead of Republican (for the only time in his life). He wasn't the only one to do so. Unschool 05:29, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, the reference to 1960 has nothing to do with the dead voting in Chicago. Rather, it has to do with the fact that in Alabama, voters couldn't vote for Kennedy directly. From the current incarnation of U.S. presidential election, 1960:

The actual number of votes received by Byrd and Kennedy are difficult to determine. In Alabama, the statewide primary had chosen eleven electors, five of which were pledged to vote for Kennedy, and six of whom were free to vote for anyone they chose. The ballot gave voters a choice between Nixon and a slate of Democratic unpledged electors. It is unclear how many of the 318,303 Democratic votes in Alabama were for Byrd, and how many were for Kennedy. This margin is easily large enough to make Nixon the winner of the popular vote instead of Kennedy.

— DLJessup (talk) 05:41, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

• Fascinating. I was completely unaware of this. And having moved to the South nearly 20 years ago, I find it quite believable. Still, I've not seen this anywhere else. Can someone get some kind of independent citation linked up here for ignorant old curmudgeons like myself to peruse? Unschool 06:09, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, I looked up who inserted the above text into the 1960 election article, and it turned out to be an anonymous user, so I can't ask that person for a cite. However, I have found a reference that "electoral quirks" in Alabama and Georgia may indicate that Kennedy didn't win the popular vote on page 669 of A Patriot's History of the United States : From Columbus's Great Discovery to the War on Terror by Larry Schweikart and Michael Patrick Allen (ISBN 1595230017), and they in turn reference an article in a 2001 issue of PS: Political Science & Politics.

I'm still looking for a more detailed reference to back up the 1960 election article — and I'll post it as soon as I find it — but hopefully this is sufficient for this article.

— DLJessup (talk) 03:38, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Surely there must be some info on this out there. I guess the question is, who did the voters in Alabama think they were voting for when they cast votes for those Democratic electors? What was the campaign like in that state? What were people who wanted Kennedy urged to do? --Jfruh 16:17, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

BTW, for anyone still reading this thread, I finally tracked down a reference for the electoral quirks in 1960. See Gaines, Brian J. (2001). "Popular Myths About Popular Vote–Electoral College Splits" (PDF). PS: Political Science & Politics: 71–75. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

— DLJessup (talk) 19:46, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

This reference to the 1960 election is ridiculous: it is historical record that Kennedy won the popular vote. Conjencture about what Daley did in Chicago or "quirks" in Cobb County, is fun, but including 1960 with the other elections makes the article a farce.

I too have found references to the 1960 as being one which produced a "minority" president as silly or even irritating. But I just now read the six page article that DLJessup posted in April. Before reading it, I too agreed with the implicit point found in the question posed last November by Jfruh; namely, that "who did the people think they were voting for?" Faithless electors, after all, do not represent their constituencies properly, under today's system. But having now read the article, I encourage other fair-minded people to review it. It seems quite solid—if I could find a totally independent source with a similar analysis, I'd favor considering a change in the Wikipedia articles both on the 1960 and 2000 elections. Unschool 20:04, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

blue, red/map colors

Can anyone explain to me why the colors changed? Why the switch and how did it happen?

There appears to be no discussion for the images on the article, so the answer may have been answered, but is not now. 134.250.72.141

All of the election maps for 1789–1996 were pulled from the National Atlas of the United States, which is in the public domain as a government publication. That source used blue for Republican and red for Democrat. The map for 2000 also used to be pulled from the same site; however, because the terms "red state" and "blue state" were coined as labels for the Republican- and Democratic-leaning areas of the country in that election, the talk page was periodically pelted with complaints about the color scheme on the map until finally an editor came along and replaced it.

— DLJessup (talk) 06:24, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Results and PV loss

The following text appears as the first paragraph of the "Results" subsection:

Vice President Al Gore came in second in the electoral vote even though he received a larger number of popular votes (Gore won 500,000 more popular votes than Bush) and this contributed to the controversy of the election. This was the fourth time that a candidate who did not receive a plurality of the popular vote received a majority of the Electoral College vote, the first time being in the 1824 elections, although popular vote records do not exist for earlier elections and in 1824 many states did not have a Presidential popular vote (in those states, electors were still chosen by the state legislature). Until this election, the 1888 election had been the most recent presidential election in which the winners of the popular and electoral vote differed. It should be pointed out that if the American system were based on the popular vote, rather than the Electoral College, then the focus and methods of campaigning would be different. Because of this, the validity of using popular-vote totals under the present system to predict who would have won an actual popular vote election is questionable.

I am going to cut out the claim that this is the fourth time that a candidate who did not receive a plurality of the PV received a majority of the EV. First of all, this repeats a claim made in the introduction, and it seems redundant to repeat it here. Secondly, it would seem to apply for the universe of all U.S. presidential elections and that's not true: for elections prior to 1824, this is a problematic claim because most states had their legislatures choose the electors. Even in the 1824 election, a quarter of the states used legislative choice for selecting the electors. When there was a popular vote, the vote was usually restricted to property-holders.

I am also going to cut out the "It should be pointed out…" statement about the fact that different candidates may have won the PV if it were a direct election. This is either a defense of Bush or a defense of the Electoral College, and it doesn't seem appropriate here.

— DLJessup (talk) 15:57, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

The property restriction was removed, iirc, in most states, by 1824. JoshNarins 22:07, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, if if memory serves, by the mid-1820s, only Rhode Island still had property qualifications for sufferage (isn't that part of what led to Dorr's Rebellion? Unschool 07:42, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't think the property qualification is relevant. In the 1876 and 1888 elections, women couldn't vote, and 18-20-year-olds couldn't vote, yet we'd still consider that a "popular vote." Furthermore, I'd say that sufficient States had instituted the popular vote for us to have a fair idea that it was actually a difference. Zz414 14:57, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Need to add Vote certification by congress?

Shouldn't this article include a section on the electoral vote certification by congress to which no senator signed by Maxine Waters?

"The objection is in writing, and I don't care that it isn't signed by a member of the Senate." (December 2000, on her objection to the Presidential Election in 2000), to which Al Gore responded "The chair would advise that the rules do care".

It does. The second to last paragraph of U.S. presidential election, 2000#Disputes reads:

On January 6, 2001, a joint session of Congress met to certify the electoral vote. Twenty members of the House of Representatives, most of them Democratic members of the Congressional Black Caucus, rose one by one to file objections to the electoral votes of Florida. However, according to an 1877 law, any such objection had to be sponsored by both a representative and a senator, and no senator would co-sponsor these objections. Therefore, Gore, who was presiding in his capacity as President of the Senate, ruled each of these objections out of order.

— DLJessup (talk) 01:42, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

"Decided by only 537 votes"

I believe statements like these to be rather inaccurate. The election was decided by the millions of votes cast around the country. If Al Gore had done better in other states, he would have been elected. It is akin to saying that a basketball game was won by a two-point buzzer beater. If Team A had to score all the points that it did throughout the game, otherwise Team B would have won. --Mego2005 15:02, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

To some degree I agree, and there's no doubt Gore ran a lackluster campaign (well maybe there is a little, you never know about the media). But to a large degree it did come down to those votes in Florida and how Florida was decided and no other votes in in other states could change that. My POV is that it was decided by only five votes (the supreme court), but I don't intend to make that edit. Шизомби 03:57, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

The irony of this statement is that the only way that can be accurate is if one has full belief in the accuracy of the final recount. I know of no one who has full faith in the recount. --67.105.241.226 15:58, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

We all know that Al Gore lost Florida. He lost the recount and the winner was George W. Bush. George W. Bush won. END OF STORY.

Thats clearly an opinion.NYKenny 02:28, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Disputes

I added some stuff to correct situations were less important issues were emphasized. Would a link to the FL Supreme Court order, be appropiate here? --CorvetteZ51 13:08, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

"Close states" numbering

I just corrected the figures in the 'Close states' section of the 1992 election article, and ended up with over 30 "close" states. I chose to restrict the definition of "close" to a 5% span, rather than have over half the states be considered close. This article has nearly half of the states in the 'Close states' column. I personally think that it should be changed from a 10% to a 5% span, as anything over 5% isn't particularly close in American politics. Thoughts? -Subsurd 00:58, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

As I wrote in the 1996 article talk page, sounds good.

— DLJessup (talk) 04:56, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Turnout?

Maybe I didnt read to accurate, but my 'find' function also couldnt find what the voter turnout was. Anybody know? The Minister of War ^(Peace) 11:39, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

"Bush appeared sincere about reaching across party lines"

There is a part of "Disputes" section that reads: "On the surface, Bush appeared sincere about reaching across party lines and bridge a divided America, stating that "the President of the United States is the President of every single American, of every race and every background." However, his actions in the following months, before September 11, 2001, and after, would call this sincerity into question." --- This is a statement of opinion and not fact (unless you can cite "his actions" that lead you to prove that he was insincere) Jimspilman 17:51, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Bush's speech accepting the nomination had a quote to this effect. If that quote can be found, it can simply be stated that 'This is what he said', without respect to what he's done, and completely avoids an opinion problem. Skybunny 00:06, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Stolen election

Why no mention of the widely-held belief that this election was quite simply stolen, and no links to any articles covering the issue of the malfunctioning voting machines, Diebold's promise to deliver the election for Bush etc.?

Without a prominent and substantial mention of these issues, this article is flat-out BS. 68.183.79.214 19:01, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

First, this article does have a good amount about controversies connected to this election. For example, you'll note that there are two full screens of information on controversies concerning the election in Florida.

Second, this is Wikipedia. I strongly encourage you to join in and add any verified information you'd like to this article if you think it lacks something.

Third, if enough of this sort of info gets added to this article, then perhaps there will be enough to start an article analogous to 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy and irregularities. Be Bold! --Deville (Talk) 02:42, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I strongly disagree. I think that if someone writes on Wikipedia, yet omits well-known information, that is immoral. As you put it: "This is Wikipedia." You should work to make sure that what you write is correct and unbiased, or you're threatening the existence of wikipedia, by threatening to turn it into nothing but biased pandering. Example: if everyone just writes what they think, an issue on, say, economics is always going to favor the viewpoints of educated people, who are generally richer. Less-educated people do not always have the ability to write as well, research as well or fit into the status-quo of those richer than them as well. Therefore, your response of "this is wikipedia. I strongly ecourage you to join in and add any verified information you'd like to this article if you think it lacks something" is unfair. The vast majority of this earth believes the elections were stolen. My "verified" proof? I have none, because people that tend to believe this are not those with the money to run opinion polls. My evidence? I've lived in different places in Europe, and in the US, including in environments with people from all around the world. The world is laughing at us. Just my circles, you may argue? Here's an example: national opinion polls of 90 percent behind Kerry in Germany for 2004 (see Der Spiegel from October 2000) and Poland the only place on the Earth that gave over 50 percent for the man (the US only did from time to time, but I believe not in 2000, not in 2004) The fact that this is not mentioned in the article is as much YOUR FAULT as it is the person's, to whom you are responding. The "democracy" of wikipedia will never fully function as long as we have educational and class disparity. HOWEVER, if everyone who posts does so with as little bias as possible, we can at least attempt to approach something resembling democracy.

Omigosh, whatever made you think our goal was to be democratic? Our goal is to be truthful, insofar as that can be achieved. Do you think that if the majority believes something, it must be true? Did somebody in a time machine pluck you out of the 9th century or something? Unschool 05:40, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

(responding to Unschool) Democracy is the soul of wikipedia. Of course it's majority opinion. True? What does that mean? It's all about majority opinion. The great thing about wikipedia is that it IS majority opinion truth, rather than corporate truth. (Although, they are almost exactly the same most of the time, because people don't always think so critically when soaking up information from the media) There isn't a publisher who has to be concerned with profits or anything else sitting behind the dissemination of information on Wikipedia, so the "truth" can be more unfettered. You can site lots of sources of false information, and parade it as truth, or you can omit information that is necessary to understanding. But I can then find my sources and refute yours. That's what's great about Wikipedia. Noone knows what's really happening. It's completely relative. However, I am not Rupert Murdoch, whose official stance is surely that Bush won. His media, along with all other major media sources provide us with their version, that's it. Wikipedia doesn't not have those issues. However, Wikipedia claims to be democratic, in that everyone has a chance to correct errors, etc. Yet it will never be so, if we have class issues that favor some groups over others in their ability to formulate and "correct" wikipedia articles. If it were up to me, I would begin the article with Bush stole the election. A significant number of people agrees with me. Maybe you don't. Does citing an article from CNN prove that he won fairly? No, that proves that CNN published an article stating that he won fairly. Period. You should read George Lakoff's book Moral Politics on political framing. That gives a far more nuanced explanation of "truth" in politics. Thank you.

I also don't mean to be rude, but calm down! You are all over the place in your argument I have no idea what you are trying to say. I'm not going to touch most of what you say, except one thing: majority opinion does not equal the truth. If that were the case, Slavery being okay was the "truth" in the 1800's. The majority of people believed the world was flat for countless centuries.....but guess what? That was not true. That is why you need to source your information. If you believe that Bush stole the election and George Lakoff's book can prove it, go ahead and put that in and source it to Lakoff. Just remember Wikipedias first caveat:

If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly or redistributed by others, do not submit it.

When it comes to Wikipedia, that caption, my friend, is the real truth --Stillhere 13:22, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

2 quick things. One, I never said that George Lakoff proved the stealing of the election. I was recommending a book on the framing of concepts in politics to someone, who I believe erroneously thinks that there is ONE truth. Slavery is a perfect example of what I'm saying. You could have certainly found reputable sources from scientists saying black people were inferior to whites, therefore justifying slavery back then. The difference is that majority opinion has switched, so the truth changes. Sourcing a work has nothing to do with truth. One race has never been inferior to another, but science believed so at one point. There are many injustices that exist now that you could "prove" by referencing texts. Two, Wikipedia's first caveat relates in no way to any of the points I've made here. My belief that George Bush stole the election has very little to do with my point. That was just my starting point for a discussion of an issue of one of Wikipedia's many flaws. Unfairly balanced toward educated, and thus more affluent people.

Slavery is a perfect example of what I'm saying. You could have certainly found reputable sources from scientists saying black people were inferior to whites, therefore justifying slavery back then. The difference is that majority opinion has switched, so the truth changes. Majority Opinion has changed, yes. But that doesn't change the truth - it was wrong back when the majority believed it was okay. Truth never changes --Stillhere 18:32, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Ok, so we agree. Majority opinion changes, truth doesn't. My point though is that all encyclopedias, including wikipedia do not report something called truth, but rather majority opinion. Today, majority opinion approaches truth much more than at any other point in history, however, "truth" is kind of a silly concept, because noone really knows. My claim is that whereas typical encyclopedia "truth" is restricted by their business interests, wikipedia's is restricted by class. I don't expect any changes, I just wanted to make that point.

May I ask that if it's not possible to know what truth is, how do you know that majority opinion approaches it more now than at any point in history? -- Deville (Talk) 04:35, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Good question. This gets to the root of my original point. We can never know the truth unless we see it. Even this can obviously result in many interpretations. However, eyewitness accounts are the best we can ever do, and through technology, we now have more and more independent sources of news, so we don't have to blindly accept what we hear. Of course, what we hear may be right, I'm not trying to sound conspiratorial, but at least we have a greater ability to confirm it than ever before. That is what I meant. However, I also realize that video and photographs are being doctored all over the place (as evidenced by the recent coverage of Beirut). So, in reality, there are major hurdles. Ultimately, I meant that various people sifting through source-material achieving the truth must be taken with a grain of salt, but I do see the clear problems inherent therein.

And my swan-song: (In my opinion) Bush won 5-4, and that that should lead the story. That is referenced in the article, so according to the way wikipedia works, I don't need to do any more research on it, but if I were to put that at the top of the article, someone would just rearrange it back to say that Bush won the election and not the Supreme Court decision, so it's pointless. Thus my original issue.

No, the 2000 election wasn't stolen. The fact remains that Bush won by 537 votes and the mandatory recount proved that George W. Bush won Florida and the Supreme Court ruling ended all the bickering between Bush and Gore. George W. Bush won the 2000 election and Al Gore knew it. Florida went for Bush and his victory by 537 votes- as close as that was, is still a win for George W. Bush and 2004, George W. Bush clearly won the election. Bush didn't steal the election. Bush won by 537 votes. END OF STORY.

END OF STORY? Capitalization doesn't make your point more/less valid. I think that's the end of your opinion, or at least ability to grasp other people's views. My version: The Court stopped the recount. It did not let it go on until everyone was satisfied. My side believes, therefore, that the five conservatives on the court ruled in favor of stopping the recount at a point when Bush was ahead, and that an enormous amount of evidence shows that had the recount been allowed to continue, Gore would have prevailed. Can I prove my opinion? No. Can you prove yours? Probably not. Anything we site will be deemed unsatisfactory by the other due to bias, thus the original conflict. Therefore, why do we have a section on this topic that is far less than satisfactory to those who share my viewpoint? Because wikipedia is largely ridiculous when it comes to controversial topics.

1. Please sign your posts and indent between posts. This makes it much easier to follow the discussion.
2. My version: The Court stopped the recount. It did not let it go on until everyone was satisfied. Respectfully, the recount hs to stop sometime, not when everyone is satisfied. It is a legal process. If the highest court in the land passes down a verdict, it must be followed. Recounts are there to make sure that close elections were correctly counted. They should not be redone over and over until "everyone is satisfied." That isn't how our laws were written.
3. My side believes, therefore, that the five conservatives on the court ruled in favor of stopping the recount at a point when Bush was ahead... This is not evidence, merely the circumstances when the vote was stopped.
4. ...and that an enormous amount of evidence shows that had the recount been allowed to continue, Gore would have prevailed. If you have such an enormous amount of evidence (belief doesn't count), then show it.
5. Can I prove my opinion? No. Then there isn't exactly an enormous amount of evidence, us there? You haven't posted one article, historical paper, reputable news journal that shows how your opinion is correct. If you have any proof, include it in a new section entitled "Controversy" or something like that, but remember as the box says below, "Encyclopedic content must be attributable to a reliable source."
6. Can you prove yours? Probably not. Think again. [4]
   The Miami Herald and USA Today conducted a comprehensive review of 64,248 "undercounted" ballots in Florida's 67 counties that ended last month. Their count showed that Bush's razor-thin margin of 537 votes -- certified in December by the Florida Secretary of State's office -- would have tripled to 1,665 votes if counted according to standards advocated by his Democratic rival, former Vice President Al Gore. (I will grant that the article later states that the number of votes had the Republicans gotten their method of recounting would have been a margin just 3 votes...in favor of GORE!!! The link is provided; use it if you wish.)
   If you have any evidence to the contrary, please post it.
7. Anything we site will be deemed unsatisfactory by the other due to bias, thus the original conflict. Therefore, why do we have a section on this topic that is far less than satisfactory to those who share my viewpoint? Because wikipedia is largely ridiculous when it comes to controversial topics. I think that the FoxNews approach is best (fine with me if you don't like the network, but the slogan is catchy and illustrates my point) for wikipedia: present both sides and let the reader decide. I have been on many pages where controversy reigns supreme, but as long as both arguments are presented with evidence to back them up, the article is fine. Just post your ideas with reasoned, reliable research.
8. I think that's the end of your opinion, or at least ability to grasp other people's views. I think we all grasp you opinion quite clearly. I think you fail to grasp Wikipedia...but that's just my opinion...BQZip01 00:19, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Nominations section

Just a couple of comments: There is inconsistency among the candidates listed from the parties; some have there degrees (JD, Phd) listed after their names, while others do not. Either everyone should be identified with their degres, or no one should (e.g., Elizabeth Dole is also a lawyer and thus should have a JD after her name).

Secondly, under the Democrat section there is a statement "...only two entered the contest..." However, four candidates are listed above. That statement should be clarified to be more consistent with the list that proceeds it. --Mego2005 18:59, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Someone took the nominations section out completely and I put it back in EricL

Article is way too long and focused

I didn't really notice untill I went to edit a change... but holy-moley this article is huge. Compared to the other presidential election pages, it's roughly twice as big. And really... this page is almost entirely about Florida. It seems like the 2000 Florida electoral vote should have its own article. However, this article has been so dominated by that one issue -- without Florida, it's roughly a 5 paragraph article. Does anyone else think pulling Florida into its own article is a good idea? Questionc 01:56, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

YES. Gzuckier 15:31, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Rephrase

This isn't irony:

"However, the great irony in the election in Florida was that the automatic recount required by state law (perhaps the only undisputed aspect of the election) was never carried out in several counties."

So it needs to be rephrased. I would change now, but I'm busy.

-Bredd13 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 151.203.3.226 (talk • contribs) 01:08, October 14, 2006 (UTC)

Ross Perot

I am forced to wonder why Ross Perot is listed in the "results" field even though he only received 9 write-in votes. --tomf688 (talk - email) 03:48, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Well I went back and looked and it was added by an anon one day, so I've just gone ahead and removed it. --tomf688 (talk - email) 03:51, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Nominations section

Removed opening paragraph in Nominations. It is off-topic and biased since

(1) It made a general subjective statement about the Republican Party as a whole, and (2) It contained an implication that it would be erroneous to think that the American people were "sick" of a Democrat Administration since during Clinton's Administration there was a budget surplus.

67.185.99.246 21:12, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

recount methods

Changed the opening paragraph. The initial statement about GWB having "won" the 25 electoral votes sounds GOP-biased and the follow up in parentheses about how by other standards he wouldn't have sounds like a Dem-biased reply.

Rather, GWB was effectively awarded the 25 electoral votes by virtue of halting the recount. However, according to an independent study reported by USA Today on Feb. 26th, 2001 in which "USA Today, The Miami Herald and Knight Ridder hired the national accounting firm BDO Seidman to examine all 60,000 undervotes in Florida's 67 counties," Gore would have had a "net gain of 49 votes if the most lenient standard -- counting even faintly dimpled chads had been used."

67.185.99.246 22:05, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Uncounted Absentee ballots

The most recent edit provides information on uncounted absentee ballots. I believe that this information should be either sourced or removed. In the United States, absentee ballots are counted unless they are individually challenged for some type of irregularity. The impact of absentee ballots on the outcome is not a factor in whether they are counted or not. Chronicler3 14:29, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I think you may be wrong about that. At least some debate:[5] Gzuckier 17:10, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Maybe so then. I have participated in counting ballots in two elections, and I am familiar with elections in three of the 11 largest states. What I posted reflects what takes place in these three states. Chronicler3 21:47, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

And maybe not... I spent a while searching via Google on this last night and couldn't find anything really solid other than the kind of generally suggestive stuff I linked above, so I guess I will go in and remove it after all unless/until somebody comes up with something definite. Gzuckier 15:01, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Except I can't find where it is. Maybe it already got removed. Gzuckier 15:48, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Split off Florida content

There was discussion of splitting Florida content off a couple months ago, and no objection to doing this. I freely admit that the continuity of both articles will probably suffer for a short time; however, lacking objections to this split, it's my belief that this will ultimately improve both articles, much as in the case of splitting Hurricane Katrina and Effect of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans, where the latter article allows more careful focus than the parent article could easily support. I'm not wedded to the article name United States presidential election, 2000 Florida results; please move it if you want. Skybunny 00:30, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Edited Map

I really think we should have a map like the 92 and 96 election, which looks better than this one and 04. 81.154.20.166 17:14, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

What If?

I recall at the time that there was some discussion as to 'what if' the election could not be resolved by the Supreme Court in time & the Presidential line of succession. Does anyone have any sources re that discussion?--ScMeGr 01:00, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Of course Gore won the popular vote

OK, so Gore got 0.5% more votes than Bush. Now we assume a 1% voting error rate. Gore still had more people vote for him, unless somehow 75% of disqualified votes were from Bush voters. I removed the sentence saying that you can't claim he won the popular vote. Blah42 09:58, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Republican Party Nomination

The article states that some credited Bush's victory in South Carolina to the fact that only registered Republicans could vote, thus negatings McCain's appeal among independents. South Carolina is an open primary state. Wikipedia's own stub titled "open primary" lists South Carolina as such. That sentence needs to be taken out, but I'll leave it to someone more familiar with that section, as it will require rewording of other parts of the paragraph. ClickClack27 18:52, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Map Image descriptions

On the descrption for the map image, the word "Blue" is red, and "Red" is green. What are the correct colors? This is very confusing. Thanks!!--CJ King 20:43, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Better? — BQZip01 — ^talk 06:47, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much!!--CJ King 16:18, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Wow, some Democrats are still bitter....

Edited the part about Bush being defeated by Gore. I'm pretty sure that's incorrect. Perhaps this page should be protected. Ryratt 17:08, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

• Also removed the sentence regarding the "illegality" of the election as this is not NPOV. Also because it stated that Bush ultimately won, which would have been the 3rd time that was mentioned in the first two paragraphs. Ryratt 17:20, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Bitter... definitely. Heck, I just edited the first Supreme Court vote back to it's factual 7-2 count (the minions always change it to 5-4) just to keep the facts accurate. I have done this several dozen times... they just don't quit... Jkwikiwiki (talk) 02:44, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Color problem

I just noticed that on the map blue=reps and red=dems, while in the "close states" list it is the other way around. This is confusing. Shouldn't the colors be consistent? Wrad 23:35, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

COLORS

Why are the colors reversed? Somebody please change this. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.99.146.57 (talk • contribs).

The strong association of each party with a specific color is a recent (past two elections) phenomenon. The source of the maps is one reason for the use of colors as they show on the map. See Wikipedia talk:Style for U.S. presidential election, yyyy#Incorrect colour scheme and look at the maps used for other earlier elections at commons:Category:US presidential election maps. The inconsistency within a single article could be a bit confusing though, and the map used in this article has been switched back and forth multiple times over this issue. NoSeptember 06:09, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I'd be all for using red for dems and blue for the GOP, simply in order to emphasize that the parties do not have official colors in the way that European parties do. The fact that the National Atlas colors them that way consistently is also a consideration. john k 06:40, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, whatever is done, it should be consistent. Wrad 06:22, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Political leanings (Florida)

One paragraph, two items. "The vote was certified by Katherine Harris, the Florida Secretary of State and a Republican who had publicly supported Bush during the campaign. Additionally, Bush's younger brother, Jeb Bush, was the governor of Florida and this led to rumors that he had somehow "fixed" the election results to favor his brother." Can someone tell me... - How KatHar's political leanings and background became a relevant part of the 2000 Pres. election? I can see how her certification of the vote is relevant, but the fact that she is a Republican doesn't seem to fit into this context for any reason other than to suggest she acted in error. - How is a rumor about Jeb relevant info? Would anyone expect to see this line in a "real" encyclopedia?

We have differences about the phrase I cut/you kept with reference to Kat and Jeb in the Florida section. I'd love to discuss it. Nosferatublue 13:44, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

The words you cut were: "the Florida Secretary of State and a Republican who had publicly supported Bush during the campaign. Additionally, Bush's younger brother, Jeb Bush, was the governor of Florida and this led to rumors that he had somehow "fixed" the election results to favor his brother." This seems pretty straightforward to me. Harris was Florida's Sect'y of State. There were rumors that Jeb Bush used his influence on his brother's behalf in Florida. Griot 15:34, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

You're missing the point. First, you are incorrect as to the substance of my edit; I left the part about Harris' position, but removed the part suggesting her political leanings. You have yet to make any claim as to the relevancy of those leanings. Also, you are right that there were rumors about Jeb Bush fixing the elections. Are you suggesting that an unsubstantiated rumor with no citation has any place in this article? There are regularly half-baked rumors of all sort regarding almost every election. Nosferatublue 15:50, 28 June 2007 (UTC) Nosferatublue 03:59, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I think you're missing the point. Let's not be naive and pretend that someon'e political leanings doesn't influence how they view a matter or conduct their actions. The relevancy of these leanings is obvious. Griot 20:29, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Okay, now we're getting somewhere. You suppose that Katherine Harris's leanings are relevant for two reasons; first, because they influence how she views the matter, and also, because they influenced her actions. The former is not proper content for this page as Katherine Harris' view of the election is not really relevant to the 2000 elections. Several million people voted, but we are not listing their POV's as it would be inpractical. The latter point gets more to the crux of the issue; you feel that her political opinions are relevant information because you believe they influenced her performance of her duties. Unfortunately, unless you can get Katherine Harris on record as stating that she would have acted differently if she were not a Bush supporter, this is pure speculation. Only Katherine Harris can authoritatively state what thoughts motivated her actions. Your statement that her course of action was a result of her political leanings is unverifiable and clearly your POV (although, I will grant, one shared by many people). Unfortunately, you insist on continuing to insert the phrase about "rumors" of Jeb Bush helping to fix the election results while failing to provide any source for this or any support for these rumors. I can create a rumor that the Flying Spaghetti Monster fixed the election, but until we can offer some sort of supporting evidence, that rumor will have no place in this article. Nosferatublue 18:11, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Note the addition of sources. I hope it clears this up.Griot 18:43, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, your citation quotes a "progrom" enacted by "Jeb Bush's operatives", then goes on to assume the results of votes not actually cast. This, and your statement is still at base an assumption of the motivations of Harris and Bush. You yourself continue to identify this statement as rumor; I'll ask again: is this page an appropriate place for "rumors" about the election? Nosferatublue 19:15, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

The language is a little over the top, true. But The Nation is a respected magazine, as is Salon. Moreover, these magazines aren't subject to the same staid rules about language as an encyclopedia is. We can take out the word "rumors" if you want. I'll change it to "allegations." No need to apologize. Griot 19:40, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

WAIT. That user has a point: This article isn't accurately representing the situation. However, the implied slant is incorrect. Katherine Harris was not JUST a Republican who supported Bush. She was named a co-chairman on Bush's campaign. So in all fairness, this article ought to say A LOT MORE about the "allegations," as her position is so obviously a conflict of interest. It is detrimental to censor out information regarding the political leanings of Katherine Harris, especially given her empowered role in the 2000 election. All relevant information should be included, as long as it is cited.

Rob Shepard 11:48, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I am the person who wrote the sentences of the "Florida" section that appeared to have caused some controversy. Far from trying to be biased, I tried to be as neutral as possible in describing the situation in Florida. Whether one agrees or disagrees with the allegations that Katherine Harris and/or Jeb Bush somehow "stole" the election in Florida for Bush (I am personally skeptical of such claims), to omit the fact that there were (and have been to this day) persistent claims of vote fraud would be to create bias in the article (by only mentioning that the election was officially certified, without hinting at the controversy). Please note that at no point did I assert that the election in Florida actually was stolen, only that such allegations were made, which is correct. As for the argument that the article should mention in greater detail the charges of vote fraud, I did not do so because there is a separate wikipedia article on the 2000 election in Florida, and it goes into the controversies in detail. In my opinion the article, as it is currently written, is about the most "neutral" account you will have of this much-disputed and discussed election.

Populism 7:48 11 July 2007

The Election section

Just something I caught, it states in this section: Gore balanced Bush by sweeping the Northeastern United States (with the sole exception of New Hampshire), the industrialized Upper Midwest, and the Pacific Coast states, including California. Please, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't every state "industrialized" to a greater/lesser extent? It seems kind of redundant. Secondly, given that Gore did not win Indiana, which is commonly considered a part of the "Upper Midwest," this statement implies that Indiana is not industrialized. In my opinion, "industrialized" should be omitted, as it's either redundant or not factual. GregTheVirus 22:22, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

• I agree, and since the qualification is rather superfluous anyway I went ahead and removed it. Thanks for pointing this out. Remember, be bold! :) --XDanielx 06:46, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

The supreme court decision was 5-4 in favor of Bush, not 7-2. Rcool101 9:39 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Can we please have an explanation of what the 'Electoral vote' is?

I don't understand this.

Does this article help you any? --SGT Tex 20:44, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Winner/Runner-Up

I have to voice my concern that this format is hurting the article. I will post this on a few notable election pages and hope that it's noticed. I have to admire the determination of whoever came up with this idea (it's apparently on every page) but ultimately, I think it should go. I think that having "winner/runner-up" displayed so prominently in the infobox overshadows the importance of the election. Some of these elections were not mere contests, but were epic events in American history where a variety of important viewpoints were symbolically represented and voted upon. Just in the last 50 years, the notable political climates of 1968 and 2004 came to a boiling point around election time. We should not be placing so much emphasis on the "winner" and the "runner-up" -- this is not a spelling bee. If we condense this into who "won" we are doing a disservice to the issues that drove these elections. SpiderMMB 23:14, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Gained?

I hate to ask, but why does it say "gained" in the lead paragraph? Is there a reason it doesn't say "won?" ThreeE 20:52, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Recount

Just before the table of results with different counting methods, there's this line: Again, Bush received more votes than Gore. This is not what the table shows -- it shows that depending on the method, the results differ. This difference is also what the NORC results show-- please refer to table 11 in the articles link on the NORC page (linked from this section of the main article(this is a huge .pdf file). Why do you think the change to say that differing methods produce different results was wrong? Merrily 00:05, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

my revert was a kneejerk response to a line being 'flipped' in meaning by an anonymous editor (at least, at the time of the edit, it was by a raw IP). furthermore, the edit had a 'signature' line for the IP dumped into the article, which is inappropriate. the table as presented is not clear at all. what it needs is a proper explanation and legend, rather than any editorializing about the results. Anastrophe 00:20, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I guess I didn't see it as flipped, as I didn't change from one candidate to the other--and the sig line was a definite mistake, so thanks for catching that. (I had to go through the retrieve password process to sign in, so I didn't do it for the first edit.) Would you prefer if I make this table look more like that in the article (table 11), which shows that both candidates end up ahead (4 for bush, 5 for gore for the unanimous column, out of the 9 different ways shown in the table). Frankly, I don't know where the current numbers came from -- I was assuming from somewhere in the data tables on that page, but I wasn't able to find it in a cursory look. The table in the published article might be more supportable in any event. --Merrily 00:42, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

On further thought, maybe the table could be deleted altogether, and just the summary of table 11 could be put in instead, Something like, The NORC reanalysis showed that the winner of the election in Florida depended on the recount method; out of nine different proposed methods, four showed Bush winning and five gave the victory to Gore. --Merrily 00:55, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

i've yet to download the pdf - my first attempt aborted, now i'm using a download manager, and it is dreadfully slow. in any event, i frankly think that anything would be an improvement over the existing little chart, which is clear as mud to me. Anastrophe 01:30, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh, it's hideously large (although not many pages long), which seemed to me to defeat a main purpose of pdf files. Most of it is about reliability, but at least table 11 shows actual results; since it's the only article there, it's what I used. I'll give you time to look before I go ahead and change the main content. -- Merrily 01:53, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

holy cow, i finally looked at it. i was expecting something on the order of 500 pages. this may set a record for absurd inflation of digital data through incompetent encoding. ironic in a strange sense. anyway, use your own good judgement, i won't get a chance to read the document with any care for at least 18 hours, so feel free to move forward. ideally, quote and cite from the document for whatever conclusion - or anti-conclusion they came to. Anastrophe 06:15, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Coincidences

Regarding "It was the third time in American history that a candidate won the vote in the Electoral College without receiving a plurality of the popular vote; it also happened in the elections of 1876 and 1888. Coincidentally, it was always the Republican candidate that ultimately gained the Presidency."

The problem with the coincidence is that it is non-notable. For that matter, the fact that the republican party of the late 19th century bears virtually no similarity to the party of today further renders it lacking in any probative value. I've removed the line. Absent some reliable source indicating a basis for notability, I see no reason for it to be restored. Anastrophe 22:42, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Inconsistency in rounding percentages

The percentages in the infobox for this article are rounded to 2 decimal places, while every other one is rounded to 1 decimal place.
The percentages are: 47.87% & 48.38%
which rounded are: 47.9% & 48.4%
I made the change, but User:Anastrophe. reverted it. How is this inconsistency a) beneficial, and b) controversial? Either this should be rounded to 1 decimal place, or all of the other articles should be rounded to 2 decimal places in the infobox. Either I am missing some previous argument and this was previously decided, or something is fishy. I would appreciate input here, especially from User:Anastrophe.. Regards.--Old Hoss 17:32, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

"every other one is rounded to 1 decimal place". can you provide evidence to support that? or are you referring to a random sample of articles pertaining to elections that you've reviewed? The 2000 election was extremely contentious - this is a matter of record. it was arguably one of the most controversial election in american history. considering the extremely thin/slim/narrow margins by which the election fell, it seems appropriate in this article to use the two decimal place value. that said, i'm not married to it; if there's consensus with other editors that this article should fall in line with 'every other' article that references elections, i'm fine with it. Anastrophe 17:44, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes I did go through every article, thank you, and the evidence is those articles! Why are the '68, '60, 1888, 1884, 1880, 1844 & 1824 articles not 2 places? They were as close or closer than this one. I just do not see why the inconsistency is required for this one article, other than it is recent. This election was arguably far from the most controversial election, it is just the most recent controversial election. I am not trying to stir up anything, but I did not anticipate controversy on this. I will leave it for a few days, unless no one else objects. Regards.--Old Hoss 18:11, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

the additional decimal places may simply be a reflection of the trend toward greater accuracy in results. i would question whether the years you list are the only other articles on elections on wikipedia...? i've seen election results listed with no decimal places in various articles. there may not be a WP:RS for two decimal places worth of accuracy for the older elections. as i said, it was one of the most controversial elections; i did not claim it was the 'most'. that said, i can't see a rational argument in favor of displaying results with less accuracy than is available. Anastrophe 18:26, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

(I did not state, nor mean to imply, you claimed this to be the most controversial. An extreme was used in making my point.) Alright, if this is the trend, then why is the more recent 2004 election only 1 place? Regardless, these are percentages of the popular vote, so if you have the results from the election (which are listed on the articles), the math can be done. And yes, the articles I went through were all of the other 55 American presidential elections on WP. With that being said, for consistency's sake, if one out of 55 is 2 places, then it is more feasible to change the one, and only a minute aspect of accuracy is lost. For consistency's sake, then, I propose to you (you in general, not necessarily in a personal manner) that either the other 54 infoboxes should be changed, or this one. Regards.--Old Hoss 18:47, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

fair enough indeed. and in fact, i just realized that two decimal place value is not cited at all. so, on that basis alone, it should be dropped to the (elsewhere cited) one decimal place. we are now in agreement! Anastrophe 18:55, 21 October 2007 (UTC)