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The 2000 Presidential election was attacked as illegitimate. I was watching the latter seasons of X-Files and Fox Mulder made a comment on 2000 elections, some

The 2000 Presidential election was attacked as illegitimate. I was watching the latter seasons of X-Files and Fox Mulder made a comment on 2000 elections, something like “that sounds about as reliable as our elections.” Plenty of folks, Howard Dean comes to mind, said they were straight up illegitimate. Even now many on the left insist it was a tie or something. This thing of “if you don’t win the elections, question the results” started then. The press had no problem allowing baseless speculation and outright dishonesty in 2000. But when it was a Democratic cadidate, suddenly the truth matters. To make matters worse, so many journalists are Democrats … it’s insane. Not just Democrats, but urban, college educated Democrats. Not exactly a cross section of the country.

lostlogin 5y ago
> Even now many on the left insist it was a tie or something. It doesn’t help that the US system can have a winner who didn’t get the majority of the vote. There are a number of aspects of the US voting system which are less than perfect, and that’s just one.
- SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
  > It doesn’t help that the US system can have a winner who didn’t get the majority of the vote This is incorrect. You require a majority of votes in the USA in the presidential election. What you seem to be missing is that people do not vote for the President but vote to direct how their state votes. States vote for President. People vote for states.
  - lostlogin 5y ago
    I think you have described the problem. More specifically, states vote for the president but not in a way that is proportional to their percentage of the union’s population.
cm2187 5y ago
Though it is as old as democracy. Thinking about the scene from citizen kane where kane’s newspaper prepared two alternative headlines for the day after the elections: “kane elected” and “fraud at the polls”.
Fezzik 5y ago
The Bush v Gore fiasco is nothing like what is going on now: in 2000, in Florida, after all votes were tallied, the vote totals were so close a recount was legally mandated. During the recount a large number of ballots (actual, tangible evidence) were noted to have unclear undervotes and overvotes on them and were simply not counted. To compare this to the utterly baseless claims that lack even a scintilla of evidentiary support made by the current republican congress-folk is wacky.
- pyuser583 5y ago
  Even if the discarded ballots Gore fought to save had been counted, Bush would have won. It was very close. Close enough to reveal the messiness that extremely close elections can create. But not enough to change the outcome. Bush won. He probably won by double digits in Florida. But he still won. As late as 2008, Howard Dean was falsely claiming SCOTUS had “snatched” the election from the Dems, which was demonstrably untrue at this point. https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/05/howard-dean-rep.html https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/05/howard-d... Read that article. Nowhere do you see the “this is a lie” disclaimers. Yes, Trump is spreading disinformation, as Howard Dean did (and probably still does.) Here’s another good example: by the end of the Democratic Primary in 2020, Biden had more than enough votes for the nomination. He had won, plain and simple. But he and Sanders kept campaigning, because they knew an active campaign would turn out Democratic votes in downstream elections. The press went along with this facade. At no point did they “declare a winner” even though Biden had effectively won. They allowed the charade of a campaign to go on, allowing Democrats a heavy advantage in elections like the Wisconsin State Supreme Court. Again, the election was already over, and a winner should have been declared. But it wasn’t. The press is very selective. And study after study after shows journalists are almost exclusively Democrats.
  - rootusrootus 5y ago
    > Trump is spreading disinformation, as Howard Dean President Trump. What was Howard Dean? The distinction really matters. > They allowed the charade of a campaign to go on, allowing Democrats a heavy advantage in elections like the Wisconsin State Supreme Court. Primaries are not elections, though, and there is no reason a political party has to call them off just because someone believes the game has already been effectively won. I.e. it ain't over until it's over. It's bad enough that voters in later primaries basically believe their vote doesn't matter, but you're suggesting that we should formalize that? The parties are private organizations, so who do you propose gets to decide when to call the whole thing off?

lostlogin 5y ago

> Even now many on the left insist it was a tie or something. It doesn’t help that the US system can have a winner who didn’t get the majority of the vote. There are a number of aspects of the US voting system which are less than perfect, and that’s just one.

SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
> It doesn’t help that the US system can have a winner who didn’t get the majority of the vote This is incorrect. You require a majority of votes in the USA in the presidential election. What you seem to be missing is that people do not vote for the President but vote to direct how their state votes. States vote for President. People vote for states.
- lostlogin 5y ago
  I think you have described the problem. More specifically, states vote for the president but not in a way that is proportional to their percentage of the union’s population.

cm2187 5y ago

Though it is as old as democracy. Thinking about the scene from citizen kane where kane’s newspaper prepared two alternative headlines for the day after the elections: “kane elected” and “fraud at the polls”.

Fezzik 5y ago

The Bush v Gore fiasco is nothing like what is going on now: in 2000, in Florida, after all votes were tallied, the vote totals were so close a recount was legally mandated. During the recount a large number of ballots (actual, tangible evidence) were noted to have unclear undervotes and overvotes on them and were simply not counted. To compare this to the utterly baseless claims that lack even a scintilla of evidentiary support made by the current republican congress-folk is wacky.

pyuser583 5y ago
Even if the discarded ballots Gore fought to save had been counted, Bush would have won. It was very close. Close enough to reveal the messiness that extremely close elections can create. But not enough to change the outcome. Bush won. He probably won by double digits in Florida. But he still won. As late as 2008, Howard Dean was falsely claiming SCOTUS had “snatched” the election from the Dems, which was demonstrably untrue at this point. https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/05/howard-dean-rep.html https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/05/howard-d... Read that article. Nowhere do you see the “this is a lie” disclaimers. Yes, Trump is spreading disinformation, as Howard Dean did (and probably still does.) Here’s another good example: by the end of the Democratic Primary in 2020, Biden had more than enough votes for the nomination. He had won, plain and simple. But he and Sanders kept campaigning, because they knew an active campaign would turn out Democratic votes in downstream elections. The press went along with this facade. At no point did they “declare a winner” even though Biden had effectively won. They allowed the charade of a campaign to go on, allowing Democrats a heavy advantage in elections like the Wisconsin State Supreme Court. Again, the election was already over, and a winner should have been declared. But it wasn’t. The press is very selective. And study after study after shows journalists are almost exclusively Democrats.
- rootusrootus 5y ago
  > Trump is spreading disinformation, as Howard Dean President Trump. What was Howard Dean? The distinction really matters. > They allowed the charade of a campaign to go on, allowing Democrats a heavy advantage in elections like the Wisconsin State Supreme Court. Primaries are not elections, though, and there is no reason a political party has to call them off just because someone believes the game has already been effectively won. I.e. it ain't over until it's over. It's bad enough that voters in later primaries basically believe their vote doesn't matter, but you're suggesting that we should formalize that? The parties are private organizations, so who do you propose gets to decide when to call the whole thing off?