[rextorres]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Actually, no ballots were off. The recounts never actually came to the conclusion that more than a handful of ballots were miscounted against Gore.

Well more people in Florida went in with the intention to vote for Gore - just the "Buchanan voters" would have brought Gore over the top, Gore got more vote than any presidential candidate except for Reagan, and Gore won the popular vote by more than a million votes. Not to mention all the shenanigans that Jeb did to keep Gore supporters from voting - like designating people as felons who it later turned out weren't.

So even though Bush was selected he certainly didn't have a mandate.

Also Bush had a plan in place to challenge the election if the situation had been reversed - where he won the popular vote and lost the electoral vote - so I am not sure where all the moral superiority comes from.

The fact of the matter is the vote was a statistical tie and the closeness of the vote highlighted the problems that are in inherant in EVERY election - so the state should have been allowed to make it's own decision instead of having a decision imposed upon it at the federal leve. This would have been consistant with Republican politics and the majority of the court - until of course the election.

Also Bush's diplomatic team has been a dismal failure and I am absolutely sure that Gore would have done as good a job if not better.