Quote from dgabriel:
More sophistry from the right wing...
Well, we can re-fight the Y2k election, I suppose, not that there'd be any point in it. Dems - and poorly informed international critics - like to point out that Gore received more votes nationwide, but everyone should know that direct vote totals are skewed by the American electoral system. We have no way of knowing who would have voted - or for that matter, how the candidates would have campaigned, or which candidates would have been nominated - if the US system was based on direct election.
As for Florida, Ds point to the "butterfly ballot," claim that one version of re-counting methods might have favored Gore, and claim that many African-American voters were disenfranchised. Rs point to studies that the counting method favored by Gore's side would still have given Bush the victory, point to depressed turnout in the Panhandle, and argue that the laws and regulations in place at the time of the election did not allow for the recount procedures Gore's side was demanding. Neither side can prove what would have happened under their favored scenarios - how many votes were really gained or lost.
In the end Bush won for a set of reasons: He won the first count in Florida according to the procedures and rules that were in place at the time, and, during the recount process, he benefited from Republican preponderance in the key secondary institutions - the Florida legislature and executive offices, the Supreme Court, and the House of Representatives - that would have been in a position to validate whatever results. All Gore had going for him was the Florida Supreme Court, which failed to act speedily enough in his favor at key points, and whose decisions may not, even if carried out in full, have worked out in Gore's favor after all. It's worth pointing out that all of these institutions were set up lawfully and democratically - representatively if imperfectly.
As things turned out, it was the US Supreme Court that acted decisively against the recount, but, at the time of the decision, it was by no means clear that even an outcome in Gore's favor would have ended the struggle, far from it.
Only two things about the entire affair are inarguable: 1) election itself was as close to a coin flip as the US system could produce - neither side can rationally claim that the election produced a clear decision for either side. 2) The loser, to his great credit, acknowledged, accepted, and affirmed the result.
At this late date, most Americans are totally OVER IT, and find criticisms from unsympathetic, frequently ignorant foreign observers and from disappointed partisans to be unwelcome.