Did the 2000 US Presidential Election Have Illegal Activity?

[russ_watters]

Follow-up to my previous poll:

Question: Do you think the 2000 United States Presidential election was stolen via some (any) form of vote fraud or legal malfeasance?

There are more choices this time due to the legal wrangling that went on after the election.

Again, I won't be arguing the subject here - I just want to know opinions.

 

[Smurf]

what about yes, both?

 

[russ_watters]

what about yes, both?

Hmm. Hadn't considered that. If that's what you think, pick one and then state that you really think it was both.

 

[pattylou]

I think yes both too.

And I think "stolen" is too loaded of a word.

I would rephrase it: Did Bush use numerous measures to get into the white house, fully knowing that Gore actually was the people's choice not only in the national popular vote but also in the contested state of Florida?

 

[Pengwuino]

Did Bush use numerous measures to get into the white house, fully knowing that Gore actually was the people's choice not only in the national popular vote but also in the contested state of Florida?

That's too loaded of a phrase

 

[russ_watters]

And I think "stolen" is too loaded of a word.

I choose the word "stolen" because it means illegal. If, for example, someone believed he won by waging a sleazy, but legal campaign or that the legal wrangling was sleazy, but legal, that would require a "no". It would also make him not all that unique, whereas winning by illegal means would make him unique - and that's what I want to know.

I would rephrase it: Did Bush use numerous measures to get into the white house, fully knowing that Gore actually was the people's choice not only in the national popular vote but also in the contested state of Florida?

Well, that has more than one point, including statements of fact (which shouldn't be in a poll) so I don't think it goes well in a poll. Ie:

Did Bush use numerous measures to get into the white house...

That's extremely vague, but at face value, it has to be a statement of fact and can only be answered yes.

...fully knowing that Gore actually was the people's choice not only in the national popular vote...

Again, a statement of fact (worded in a loaded way), that can only have one answer: yes, Gore got more popular votes than Bush. It is also an utterly irrelevant fact when dealing with presidential elections, since popular vote is not what determines who wins. You could start a poll asking if people think there should be a constitutional amendment...heck, I'll do that...

...but also in the contested state of Florida?

That is an opinion (sorta - there are actually a number of factual answers to it) that posited alone could make a good poll. If you feel like posting one, be sure to specify what counting criteria or specific court challenge you are talking about.

 

[russ_watters]

I considered adding the word "unique" to the poll, but thought it might be somewhat prejudicial and reduce the response rate. Ie, if Bush did something illegal but not uniquely different from what Gore did, it would require a "no" response.

 

[pattylou]

I don't know enough about the legal end of the tricks he used. The tricks he used *should* be illegal, just as lying in order to invade a sovereign nation should be illegal. I think he has acted in ways that should be considered illegal too many times to count, but it wouldn't surprise me if he wiggled out of all of them on some obscure technicality.

So I think "stolen" is still the wrong word. The things he did, or that others did for him, *should* be illegal.

(A neutral example that is tangentially related, but is not one of the tricks I have in mind: It should be illegal to have hidden source code in election machines, for example. It should simply be *required* that the source code is completely available; this is our vote, not some run-of-the-mill business. There should be a different standard for those who are working in areas at the very base of our society - they should be transparent because we *all* depend on them, the structure of our society depends on them. )

But as I don't know the *details* of most law, I am hardly able to assess whether Bush "stole" the election. So, I can't participate in this poll. If I were to vote, I'd say yes to both.

 

[Pengwuino]

So patty... you know he did something illegal... yet you have absolutely no idea what the law actually is? I don't really understand...

And think about what you're saying. Put the source code for the software that will be run at a US Presidential Election... out into public hands. Why not hand terrorists the blueprints to every military base in US possessions while we're at it.

 

[loseyourname]

I would rephrase it: Did Bush use numerous measures to get into the white house, fully knowing that Gore actually was the people's choice not only in the national popular vote but also in the contested state of Florida?

How could the answer to that possibly be yes? Without actually counting every vote, how would Bush know that Gore really won Florida? Did he just intuit this information using his clairvoyant powers?

 

[Pengwuino]

Actually since a large majority of studies concluded that Bush would have won Florida... I don't see how anyone could say yes to it. Of course, there was always the 1 variable where Gore won the court decision to toss out the military's absentee votes that would have won it for him.

 

[pattylou]

How could the answer to that possibly be yes? Without actually counting every vote, how would Bush know that Gore really won Florida? Did he just intuit this information using his clairvoyant powers?

Well, I have Volusia county in mind. This is the county where 16,000 Gore votes disappeared on election night and were never recovered. (Every one of those votes was for Gore, in my understanding.)

Diebold counted those on election day, lost those on election day, and upper management at Diebold knew about it.

Jeb Bush as governor must have been involved in some manner, in getting diebold into the county (he was involved in some manner in getting the SoS into office, who certifies the machines for elections.)

So I expect Shrubby knew about it too. If he didn't know the details, I expect he knew that Diebold would do what it could to help him out. I expect he knew that that included some shady business.

I gave a link on one of the other similar threads.

 

[pattylou]

So patty... you know he did something illegal... yet you have absolutely no idea what the law actually is? I don't really understand...

Try rereading my post to see why you are misrepresenting what I said.

And think about what you're saying. Put the source code for the software that will be run at a US Presidential Election... out into public hands. Why not hand terrorists the blueprints to every military base in US possessions while we're at it.

Pretty sure we're clever enough to safeguard against that.

 

[Pengwuino]

Well, I have Volusia county in mind. This is the county where 16,000 Gore votes disappeared on election night and were never recovered. (Every one of those votes was for Gore, in my understanding.)

And the thousands of voter registration cards that were found to be illegal that were all democrats? Of people who were dead/didnt exist?

Hmm... election fraud at its finest, of course, by the illegitimate Democrats.

 

[Pengwuino]

I don't know enough about the legal end of the tricks he used.

Yah sounds like you really got to hold on the information there.

 

[SOS2008]

Follow-up to my previous poll:
Question: Do you think the 2000 United States Presidential election was stolen via some (any) form of vote fraud or legal malfeasance?
There are more choices this time due to the legal wrangling that went on after the election.
Again, I won't be arguing the subject here - I just want to know opinions.

Yes, via some form of fraud or legal malfeasance.

Character is a consistent thing through life (across the board, from beginning to end). IMO Bush, et al, are corrupt beyond anything to enter politics to date. How much will be revealed to the American people in time, who knows? But, he has not earned anything in his life based on his own achievements and merit.

I am very suspicious of the court, but less certain of this, so would vote "I'm not sure" on that if I could.

You realize no matter how many times there is a poll on this topic, and no matter the wording, you aren't likely to get the results you would prefer.

 

[pattylou]

Yah sounds like you really got to hold on the information there.

Why are you so hostile towards me?

Also, I'd love to see a reference on the thousands of illegal democratic registrations in florida. I haven't heard of those.

Laugh at me some more if you must, but please include a reference for the information. (Particularly since I have such a bad grasp of it.)

thanks in advance,
Patty

 

[Smurf]

I don't actually think both happened. I just noticed it wasn't on the poll. I actually don't know anything about the 2000 election so I couldn't make an opinion on it... not that I would care anyways. Elections are in themselves mere rituals to keep the populace happy (and many often cheer!) during the transition of power from one dictator to the next.

 

[Smurf]

Why are you so hostile towards me?

Sexual frustration. He's been humping rocks so long he doesn't know how to act around a real female.

 

[BobG]

I think yes both too.
And I think "stolen" is too loaded of a word.
I would rephrase it: Did Bush use numerous measures to get into the white house, fully knowing that Gore actually was the people's choice not only in the national popular vote but also in the contested state of Florida?

I voted no. Florida may have turned into more of a tactical legal battle than an election, but I don't believe there were any illegal actions.

I'd say pattylou's statement pretty much hits the target, with the exception of the vote in Florida. With that many votes and a count that close, if you recounted the votes again today, it would be 50/50 which candidate would win. You could get a different winner every time you recounted.

Comparing Bush's and Gore's balancing of personal goals against ensuring the public has faith in the democratic election process to three other candidates.

Top 5 (of Bush, Gore and 3 other candidates)

1. Richard Nixon. Could have disputed election returns in Illinois, but decided the national trauma of a disputed election wasn't worth the presidency.

2. Rutherford Hayes. Refused to concede a Presidential election in which he won the initial election count by 1 electoral vote. At least he kept himself out of the dispute and allowed an election board (5 Senators, 5 Representatives, and 5 Supreme Court justices) and Congress to decide the issue. There was a dispute over 20 electoral votes - 3 states in which a large number of Democratic votes were thrown out by Republican election officials because of fraud and one electoral vote in Oregon where Democrats tried to give one of Oregon's electoral votes to Tilden on a technicality.

3. Samuel Tilden. Refused to concede a Presidential election that he lost by one electoral vote. The dispute continued right up until the day before inaugaration. The ranking between Hayes and Tilden is a toss up. Hayes gets the edge since he won the initial electoral vote count, but Tilden had a case on the 3 states where Democratic votes were tossed. Overall, the situaton was handled as badly as a situation could possibly be handled, even if the candidates themselves stayed out of the fight.

4. George Bush. Actively involved in refusing to have a statewide recount. Florida's Republican Secretary of State's decisions certainly seemed very partial to Bush.

5. Al Gore. Actively involved in refusing to concede the election. His team even proposed discarding military absentee ballots, seemingly taking the position that if military votes weren't counted, it was the military's fault, not his. The ranking between Bush and Gore is a toss up. Bush gets the edge since he was the winner of the initial vote count (it's hard to expect the winner to concede the election).

 

[russ_watters]

You realize no matter how many times there is a poll on this topic, and no matter the wording, you aren't likely to get the results you would prefer.

I'm liking these results just fine. I wanted to know if people think Bush got into office in 2001 due to illegal activity by him (or on his behalf) and I'm getting answers to that. What results do you think I'd prefer?

One thing that would probably be interesting is repeating the poll on, say, a yearly basis and seeing how the results change...

 

[russ_watters]

I don't know enough about the legal end of the tricks he used. The tricks he used *should* be illegal...

Could you give an example?

But as I don't know the *details* of most law, I am hardly able to assess whether Bush "stole" the election. So, I can't participate in this poll. If I were to vote, I'd say yes to both.

Well, I'm not a lawyer either, but I still have an opinion. If you'd prefer not to vote, though, fine.

 

[russ_watters]

Well, I have Volusia county in mind. This is the county where 16,000 Gore votes disappeared on election night and were never recovered. (Every one of those votes was for Gore, in my understanding.)
Diebold counted those on election day, lost those on election day, and upper management at Diebold knew about it.

Interesting - I've read BBV's account of that (I assume that's what you are referring to) and it just plain doesn't make any sense. A single memory card from a single machine recorded negative 16,000 votes for Gore. They seem to be implying that those negative votes remained in Gore's tally (reducing Gore's total by 16,000), when the facts that they post say otherwise - and if they had been retained, that'd be a pretty obvious red flag that a lot of people missed, wouldn't it? Since the precinct only had a total of 600 votors, assuming all were lost and all were for Gore, that's a max of 600. (edit: in fact, there were 216 votes cast, and all were correctly counted by the end of the night)

All the reputable sites I've found (news sites, Wik, etc) say that it was an obvious error at the time and was quickly corrected. In fact, they say that error was responsible for the early calls by all the major networks that Bush took Florida and correcting the error is why those calls were retracted.

http://www.unc.edu/~pmeyer/usat29nov2000.html" is the story as told by a highly left-biased source, but which still affirms what I have said.

It's stories like this that make BBV more of a conspiracy theory site than simply a partisan rhetoric-fest, which is what some people treat them as.

Call it condescending if you want, but again I must remind you that you stated that you wish to approach politics scientifically.

Edit: it appears from your description of the event that you are confused about what actually happened. That's understandable, since your chosen source has put a lot of effort into misleading you. Does that change your opinion on the subject? It should. Heck, if you really mean it when you say you want to be scientific about it, this should cause you discard BBV as a reliable source and call into question all of the opinions you've based on what they've told you.

 

[pattylou]

I haven't read the BBV article on that - I read the 16,000 number originally in the news article I linked two days ago and followed up with this:

http://www.votersunite.org/info/Dieboldinthenews.pdf

(See page 2)

It may be a biased source, but I have no good reason to think so. (They even quote LYN's CalTech/MIT study)

In this case you are not being condescending so much as presumptuous.

(Am I supposed to believe the entire county of Volusia has 600 registered voters? I expect we are talking about two different things... )

 

[Smurf]

One thing that would probably be interesting is repeating the poll on, say, a yearly basis and seeing how the results change...

I think you should totally do that

 

[pattylou]

... your chosen source has put a lot of effort into misleading you.

...Praytell... *What* is my "chosen source?"

 

[pattylou]

Interesting - I've read BBV's account of that (I assume that's what you are referring to) and it just plain doesn't make any sense. A single memory card from a single machine recorded negative 16,000 votes for Gore. They seem to be implying that those negative votes remained in Gore's tally (reducing Gore's total by 16,000), when the facts that they post say otherwise - and if they had been retained, that'd be a pretty obvious red flag that a lot of people missed, wouldn't it? Since the precinct only had a total of 600 votors, assuming all were lost and all were for Gore, that's a max of 600. (edit: in fact, there were 216 votes cast, and all were correctly counted by the end of the night)
All the reputable sites I've found (news sites, Wik, etc) say that it was an obvious error at the time and was quickly corrected. In fact, they say that error was responsible for the early calls by all the major networks that Bush took Florida and correcting the error is why those calls were retracted.
http://www.unc.edu/~pmeyer/usat29nov2000.html" is the story as told by a highly left-biased source, but which still affirms what I have said.
It's stories like this that make BBV more of a conspiracy theory site than simply a partisan rhetoric-fest, which is what some people treat them as.
Call it condescending if you want, but again I must remind you that you stated that you wish to approach politics scientifically.
Edit: it appears from your description of the event that you are confused about what actually happened. That's understandable, since your chosen source has put a lot of effort into misleading you. Does that change your opinion on the subject? It should. Heck, if you really mean it when you say you want to be scientific about it, this should cause you discard BBV as a reliable source and call into question all of the opinions you've based on what they've told you.

I'm spending a little more time on this. It looks like the 600 number comes from a single precinct in the county, and I see that you stated that to be the case. It also looks like one possibility still being discussed by many including company execs, is that a second memory card illegally went into the machine to alter the vote. This is reminiscent of the 4000 votes that went to Bush in Ohio in a precinct that had only a few hundred voters.

It looks like this glaring error was caught and corrected ... but doesn't it seem to you that there are some serious vulnerabilities here? If we have two cases where thousands of votes were thrown to Bush, and in the first even the company execs say it might be due to a second card being introduced and caught only because the error was so huge, then who's to say that there weren't dozens of cases that were carried out more discreetly (and by someone who knew not to alter a result by 16,000 votes)?

What we know from the (Diebold) memos can be summarised as follows:

- Two memory cards were uploaded from Volusia Couny's precinct 216, the second one was loaded sometime close to 2am in the morning. It automatically replaced the first card's results and reduced Gore's total by 16,022 votes and added several thousand votes to Bush plus a variety of minor candidates;
- Both memory cards loaded into the system clean and without errors, indicating (contrary to the official line) that they were not faulty;
- After the error was noticed the original card was reloaded and the mistake was rectified;
- The error was introduced in such a way that the total number of votes remained unchanged (again something that could not happen by chance.);
- According to the technical boffins, the chance of the memory card being corrupted and still passing the checksum error test are less than 60,000 to 1;
- The technical managers at Diebold Election Systems considered it a reasonable possibility that the second card was part of deliberate conspiracy to rig the election results.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0310/S00211.htm

 

[Skyhunter]

Bush cheated. It is what he does.
Impeach the treasonous liar

 

[SOS2008]

I'm liking these results just fine. I wanted to know if people think Bush got into office in 2001 due to illegal activity by him (or on his behalf) and I'm getting answers to that. What results do you think I'd prefer?
One thing that would probably be interesting is repeating the poll on, say, a yearly basis and seeing how the results change...

You have taken the position that fraud cannot be proven, so seemed your position has been that therefore it did not happen. But if not, fair enough.

Could you give an example?

Some things, such as the suppression of Wilson’s findings in regard to uranium yellowcake in Niger, etc., are being addressed with other legal processes. Other things were perpetrated by supporters, such as endorsement from the pulpit, which the IRS has been investigating. Still I hold Bush responsible for fueling this with his complete disregard for the constitution and separation of church and state. The conflict of interest in Florida with Jeb as Governor should have been dealt with in some way. And if anyone believes these things did not make a difference in such a close race, they are delusional.

There were many things that helped Bush that are general election reform issues. I'll start a list that others can add to if they wish:

1) Gerrymandering
2) Propositions for laws that already exist - to ban gay marriage in states where it is already illegal per state statutes.
3) The need for consistent (national) voting procedures

Just to name a few…