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Nobody is “disputing democracy” at this point. Bush vs Gore took an entire month to sort out. Hillary said this might drag out for a while... and she was rig

Nobody is “disputing democracy” at this point. Bush vs Gore took an entire month to sort out. Hillary said this might drag out for a while... and she was right, it is. That’s fine. We have a process for this; no need to be melodramatic. Biden has almost assuredly won, but first there will be some court cases and recounts simply because it was extremely close. That’s a good thing for Democracy.

joshuamorton 6y ago
> Nobody is “disputing democracy” at this point. Bush vs Gore took an entire month to sort out. The trump campaign is literally putting forth the unfounded conspiracy theory that Democratic-party-affiliated groups some how placed fraudulent ballots, and that this is the only reason Trump lost. > Biden has very likely won, but first there will be some court cases and recounts simply because it was extremely close. There aren't actually. Biden doesn't need to carry any states with recounts to win. Pennsylvania isn't going to a recount, nor is Arizona. Even if GA and Wisconsin flip on a recount, Biden has carried the electoral college. All of the court cases so far have have been thrown out or withdrawn. Despite this, Trump continues to claim that there was election fraud (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1327750127679889409 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/13277501276798894...), even after his own lawyers have dropped suits in Arizona and Pennsylvania, and have yet to, in any suit in any state, provide an example of fraud. There's no substance to his claims, and when in front of a judge, the lawyers admit that. And yet.
JamesBarney 6y ago
This election wasn't extremely close. It was a clear Biden win, it just took a week to count all the mail in ballots and figure that out. There've been 6 elections over the last ~20 years. Popular vote count 1. Obama-08 7.27% 2. Obama-12 3.86% 3. Biden-20 3.4% 4. Bush-04 2.46% 5. Bush-00 −0.51% 6. Trump-16 −2.09% By Elector College 1. Obama-12 365 2. Obama-16 332 3. Biden-20 306 4. Trump-16 302 5. Bush-04 286 6. Bush-00 271
- leetcrew 6y ago
  comparing margins for EC and popular vote does not really capture how close a US presidential election was. you can easily have a blowout in the EC that was determined by a <1% lead in a few key states. popular vote is an interesting stat, but not very meaningful under the current rules.
tzs 6y ago
> Bush vs Gore took an entire month to sort out. That was a difference of around 500 votes out of nearly 6 million, which was around 0.009%. That's well within the range you can get with just the ordinary counting error. It is not at all uncommon for a recount to reverse a lead that small. In addition, Florida at the time was using a lousy ballot marking system that caused many ballots to fail to register that the voter had tried to vote in the Presidential race. Neither side disputed this. The dispute was over how to address it. Are you really comparing that to trying to challenge in several states where the difference is well outside ordinary counting error and there is no evidence of sufficient voting irregularities to come anywhere near changing the winner in those states?
- rayiner 6y ago
  There is a lot more to it than that. There had already been a machine recount in Florida, and Bush won that one as well. What Gore did was use a loophole in Florida law to pursue a dubious recount strategy. He demanded hand recounts only in four counties he had won by large margins. That tilted the recount in his favor: hand recounts will find more discernible votes than machine counting, and by only requesting recounts in counties that where the base rate of Gore votes was very high, most of those newly-counted votes would be for Gore. Even WaPo called out this strategy as obviously unfair: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2000/11/18/on-hold/90cd95be-dd09-445d-896b-d7ac4cc0952a/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2000/11/18/o... > But there's a danger to Mr. Gore's eventual legitimacy too, if this extraordinary story eventually results in his election. The recounts will now go forward in three counties--Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade. That at least was the situation as of last night. All three of those jurisdictions are heavily Democratic and voted heavily for Mr. Gore; the recount is thus tilted in his favor. Gore’s tactics got very ugly including objecting to counting military ballots: https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/0817928820_55.pdf https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents... > The Gore campaign, however, viewed the absentee mili- tary ballots received between Election Day and November 17 as a lethal threat. Bob Dole, the 1996 Republican candi- date, who had lost Florida, nonetheless had received a hefty majority of the military absentee vote. Bush would likely top 60 percent at a time when he already enjoyed a 300-vote margin, which Gore was seeking to erase with selective recounts.

joshuamorton 6y ago

> Nobody is “disputing democracy” at this point. Bush vs Gore took an entire month to sort out. The trump campaign is literally putting forth the unfounded conspiracy theory that Democratic-party-affiliated groups some how placed fraudulent ballots, and that this is the only reason Trump lost. > Biden has very likely won, but first there will be some court cases and recounts simply because it was extremely close. There aren't actually. Biden doesn't need to carry any states with recounts to win. Pennsylvania isn't going to a recount, nor is Arizona. Even if GA and Wisconsin flip on a recount, Biden has carried the electoral college. All of the court cases so far have have been thrown out or withdrawn. Despite this, Trump continues to claim that there was election fraud (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1327750127679889409 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/13277501276798894...), even after his own lawyers have dropped suits in Arizona and Pennsylvania, and have yet to, in any suit in any state, provide an example of fraud. There's no substance to his claims, and when in front of a judge, the lawyers admit that. And yet.

JamesBarney 6y ago

This election wasn't extremely close. It was a clear Biden win, it just took a week to count all the mail in ballots and figure that out. There've been 6 elections over the last ~20 years. Popular vote count 1. Obama-08 7.27% 2. Obama-12 3.86% 3. Biden-20 3.4% 4. Bush-04 2.46% 5. Bush-00 −0.51% 6. Trump-16 −2.09% By Elector College 1. Obama-12 365 2. Obama-16 332 3. Biden-20 306 4. Trump-16 302 5. Bush-04 286 6. Bush-00 271

leetcrew 6y ago
comparing margins for EC and popular vote does not really capture how close a US presidential election was. you can easily have a blowout in the EC that was determined by a <1% lead in a few key states. popular vote is an interesting stat, but not very meaningful under the current rules.

tzs 6y ago

> Bush vs Gore took an entire month to sort out. That was a difference of around 500 votes out of nearly 6 million, which was around 0.009%. That's well within the range you can get with just the ordinary counting error. It is not at all uncommon for a recount to reverse a lead that small. In addition, Florida at the time was using a lousy ballot marking system that caused many ballots to fail to register that the voter had tried to vote in the Presidential race. Neither side disputed this. The dispute was over how to address it. Are you really comparing that to trying to challenge in several states where the difference is well outside ordinary counting error and there is no evidence of sufficient voting irregularities to come anywhere near changing the winner in those states?

rayiner 6y ago
There is a lot more to it than that. There had already been a machine recount in Florida, and Bush won that one as well. What Gore did was use a loophole in Florida law to pursue a dubious recount strategy. He demanded hand recounts only in four counties he had won by large margins. That tilted the recount in his favor: hand recounts will find more discernible votes than machine counting, and by only requesting recounts in counties that where the base rate of Gore votes was very high, most of those newly-counted votes would be for Gore. Even WaPo called out this strategy as obviously unfair: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2000/11/18/on-hold/90cd95be-dd09-445d-896b-d7ac4cc0952a/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2000/11/18/o... > But there's a danger to Mr. Gore's eventual legitimacy too, if this extraordinary story eventually results in his election. The recounts will now go forward in three counties--Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade. That at least was the situation as of last night. All three of those jurisdictions are heavily Democratic and voted heavily for Mr. Gore; the recount is thus tilted in his favor. Gore’s tactics got very ugly including objecting to counting military ballots: https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/0817928820_55.pdf https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents... > The Gore campaign, however, viewed the absentee mili- tary ballots received between Election Day and November 17 as a lethal threat. Bob Dole, the 1996 Republican candi- date, who had lost Florida, nonetheless had received a hefty majority of the military absentee vote. Bush would likely top 60 percent at a time when he already enjoyed a 300-vote margin, which Gore was seeking to erase with selective recounts.