This page was last updated on April 23, 2004.

The historical facts show that if anyone tried to steal the election, it was the Gore campaign.  The Gore campaign filed three motions with courts and the election board before the Bush campaign filed its first motion.  In every case, the Gore campaign tried to change the rules for counting ballots.  The Bush campaign filings simply argued ballots should be counted using the pre-election rules defined by Florida law.

Pennsylvanians should take special notice because Gov. Edward Rendell was up to his neck in the Democrat shenanigans to steal the election.  Rendell was chairman of the Democrat National Committee during the 2000 election.

I could be wrong, but the 2000 election seems to be the event that first incited the intense, irrational hate the Democrat elitists have for President Bush.

In a complete rewrite of history, Democrat leadership convinced rank-and-file Democrats that the Bush campaign started the legal wrangling over the Florida ballots and “pulled a fast one” on voters.  As noted in the points below, this is a completely false proposition.

In a recent interview on NBC News’ Meet the Press, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) said he would never get over the 2000 election, justifying his rage with a version of events that simply isn’t true.

“I can’t forget Florida. I really can’t forget Florida.  It took a long time for my people to get the right to vote.  And once they got it, they did it the way that they should have.  We won the popular vote.  And then all of a sudden, the Supreme Court comes in and says, ‘We got enough votes for Bush.  Stop counting.’  And that’s what happened.”

There “…is no question that people who are entitled to vote were not allowed to vote in Florida.  And so it was a bad count that we got.  And we will never, never, never forget Florida.  This is the only time that we have an appointed president of the United States in our history.”¹

I believe most rank-and-file Democrats trust their leadership and merely repeat the propaganda of Democrat leaders like Rep. Rangel.

While it wouldn’t change their disappointment, most rank-and-file Democrats might stop referring to an appointed or selected president and a stolen election if they knew the facts unfiltered by Democrat leadership.  Here they are.  You don’t have to believe me.  Please do your own research.

• President Bush won the Electoral College vote.  This is the vote that counts, as it has for over 200 years.  Democrat whining about winning the popular vote but losing the election isn’t constructive.  You can argue the Electoral College is outdated and the popular vote should be authoritative.  I’d probably agree, but for now we have the Electoral College.
• The Gore campaign began the challenges and lawsuits, not the Bush campaign.  In one set of cases, the Gore campaign wanted the court to allow recounts in selected areas with varying rules until Mr. Gore got a favorable result.  Some of the rule changes amounted to trying to read the voter’s mind.  Further, the time required would not have allowed the votes to be certified by the date specified by Florida law.
• The Gore campaign lost its first court challenge but refused to accept the ruling.  The judge who ruled against the Gore campaign was a Democrat.  The Gore campaign appealed to the Florida Supreme Court.
• In a split decision, the all-Democrat Florida Supreme Court overturned 4-3 the lower court ruling against Mr. Gore.  The Florida chief judge disagreed with the majority and issued a strong dissent.
• The Bush campaign appealed the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.  The U.S. Supreme Court simply ruled Florida could not change election rules after voting began.  Most people would agree you don’t change the rules after a contest starts.  This ruling allowed Florida to certify its vote according to the rules in place before Al Gore started the lawsuits.
• The Gore campaign convinced election officials to disallow specified military absentee ballots on a technicality.  Why?  Because Gore anticipated military votes would favor Bush, and they did, nearly two to one.
• The Bush campaign appealed the military ballot ruling and a U.S. District Court judge ruled the ballots were illegally excluded.  Unfortunately for the Bush campaign, the ruling came too late for the excluded ballots to be included in the certified count.  Thus President Bush actually won Florida by a slightly larger margin than was certified.
• Though Al Gore claimed he wanted to “count every vote,” he went to court to invalidate military absentee ballots.
• Though Al Gore claimed he wanted to “count every vote,” he sought to recount ballots only in counties he won.  This doesn’t make sense until you realize Gore wanted to count previously uncounted ballots.  Uncounted ballots were those on which the voter didn’t make a clear choice for president.  Gore wanted election officials to interpret “dimpled,” “hanging,” and “pregnant” chads.  Assuming these counts would result in an outcome margin similar to the counted ballots, recounts in counties Gore won would result in more net votes for Gore.  Recounting in counties Bush won would work against Gore.
• The U.S. Supreme Court did not appoint Mr. Bush winner of the Florida election.  As mentioned above, the U.S. Supreme Court simply ruled Florida could not change election rules after voting began.
• Democrat elitists like to say the U.S. Supreme Court decision was an example of partisan politics.  Democrats don’t like to acknowledge the Republican court appointees were split, meaning some voted in favor of Gore.  All Democrat appointees lined up behind Mr. Gore, however.  So who was partisan, if anyone?  Democrats also don’t like to acknowledge that even the Florida Supreme Court was divided 4-3 in overturning the lower court ruling against Mr. Gore, and Democrats appointed all members of the Florida court.  Thus, even Florida Democrat judges were severely split on the legality of changing the rules after the election began.  Remember, the judge who initially ruled against Gore was a Democrat.
• After the election, a consortium of eight news organizations sponsored a recount of the Florida ballots.  The consortium consisted of The Washington Post, The New York Times, the Associated Press, CNN, the Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Orlando Sentinel, the Palm Beach Post, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, and the St. Petersburg Times.  The consortium conducted the recount using the final set of rules endorsed by the Gore campaign and agreed to by the Florida Supreme Court.  Mr. Bush won that recount.  Therefore, even if the U.S. Supreme Court had allowed Florida to violate its election laws, Mr. Bush would still have won.

The above facts won’t change the opinion of Democrat “Kool-Aid drinkers,” but I hope they clear things up for rational thinkers.  Showing how irrational Democrats remain about Florida in 2000, John Kerry said in 2004, “We’re going to pre-check it, we’re going to have the legal team in place.  We’re going to take injunctions where necessary ahead of time.  We’ll pre-challenge if necessary.”²  John Kerry wants to file preemptive lawsuits challenging the 2004 Florida count, even before one vote is cast!  And these folks accuse Republicans of trying to steal elections?  Amazing!

There’s one other example of Democrats using the courts to change the election rules.  In 2002, the Senate Ethics Committee concluded Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-NJ) violated Senate rules by accepting gifts in exchange for official actions.  This was not the first time Sen. Torricelli had ethics problems.  As a result, the senator’s poll ratings dropped precipitously.  When it became obvious to Democrat leadership that Torricelli would lose his re-election bid and would cost Democrats the majority position in the Senate, Democrats had Torricelli drop out so another Democrat could take his place.  However, New Jersey law states, “In the event of a vacancy, howsoever caused, among candidates nominated at primaries, which vacancy shall occur not later than the 51st day before the general election.”  Sen. Torricelli dropped out about 35 days before the election, over two weeks past the cutoff date.

Despite the explicit wording of the statute, the N.J. Supreme Court allowed Democrats to name a replacement candidate.  Let’s be clear.  Sen. Torricelli was not incapacitated; there were no extenuating circumstances why he could not continue to campaign.  Democrats were simply afraid they would lose the election so they wanted to make a “last minute” change.  Torricelli’s replacement, former Sen. Frank Lautenberg won the election.  Due to wins in other states, Democrats still lost the Senate majority, however.

1. NBC News’ Meet the Press - Transcript for Feb. 15th; NBC News; February 15, 2004.

2. Kerry: I’ll ‘Pre-challenge’ Florida Vote Count; Carl Limbacher; NewsMax.com; March 11, 2004.

© 2004 Robert W. Cox, all rights reserved.