so, how much fallout do you think will happen from the election in court?
It’s not officially going to court yet; Kerry is still convinced there’s 250,000 votes to be counted for Ohio, but officials in Ohio seems firmly say there’s only about 140,00, which is about the size of Bush’s lead. Assuming all 140,000 ballots are valid (which they never are, according to every Republican AND Democrat that’s been asked the now-popular question), Kerry would have to get almost every single vote in his favor, which they all agree isn’t likely. Asking for two recounts in a row would make the democratic party look like little more than sore losers.
BUT… if it does go to court, I’m fairly certain Bush will still win. The thing is, when Gore took it to court in the 2000 election, he had good reasoning: Gore had won the popular vote (narrowly, but a win’s a win), and the Florida electoral votes were razor-thin; Gore only barely lost the state by 537 votes. Even though he was morally right to want the recount, it still made the democrats look bad, plus they lost anyway.
This situation, however, is quite different. First, Kerry is claiming an unreal amount of ballots to yet be counted, ignoring both Republican and Democratic experts who say different.
In addition, Bush has overwhelmingly won the popular vote by nearly 4 million people, which is quite different from the narrow margins in the Gore/Bush race of 2000.
Also, there’s the issue about the exit polls that were leaked all over the internet as early as one in the afternoon (six hours before the votes closed). Strangely, every poll showed Kerry ahead by as many as 6 points in almost every state, but now we’re seeing that those polls were false. Media and the experts they consult are agreeing that this looks bad for Kerry, since it seems like something his campaign would do to unencourage people to vote for Bush.
Plus there’s the fact that Bush has gotten more votes than any other president in history.
Actually, Gore did not take it to the courts. Bush did. The Florida consitution demands a hand recount of any election won by less than .5%. Bush did not like that part of Florida consitution, so he sued to stop the counting of votes. Bush v. Gore, the person filing the suit is always listed first in a court case.
I thought with the recounts the state mandated recounts were allowed all fine and dandy. It was just that when there was another recount after that, aimed at primarily Democratic counties, that Bush got the courts involved.
Except that there never was a second recount, there wasnt even 1 full recount. It went like this: State constitution demands recount, Counties start recount. Judge orders them to stop, they stop. Higher judge rules that can count, So they continue the same count they had already started. Katherine Harris orders them to stop, they stop again. Florida Supreme Court says our consititution demands a rectount, They once again continue the same first recount that was never finished. Katherine Harris opens her office a day early just so that the larger counties can’t finish on time. US Supreme Court says “In this one instance, and in no other, as this case can not be used as precedence, we are invoking the equal protection clause on behalf of Bush. Since not all counties vote using the same method, we will not allow Florida to finish their recount”
It was later found that 6 counties never even started the constitutionally mandated recount, and that had a full state-wide recount been finished, Gore would have won by 12 thousand votes.