Continued:
How does Chait decide the only method ultimately favorable to Gore was the right one? Conveniently, Chait thinks that’s the fairest method. We don’t need to argue which was the fairest method, though, because the Chait Method was a post-hoc innovation by the newspapers explicitly not permitted by law.
The recount ended when the Supreme Court decided Bush v. Gore, striking down a ruling by the Florida Supreme Court. But had the Florida Supreme Court ruling stood, all 67 counties would have counted some ballots, and, according to the newspaper, this count would have yielded a Bush win, the New York Times reported: “f Florida’s 67 counties had carried out the hand recount of disputed ballots ordered by the Florida court on Dec. 8, applying the standards that election officials said they would have used, Mr. Bush would have emerged the victor by 493 votes.”
Gore’s campaign was asking for a different, less defensible remedy — a selective hand recount only in four very pro-Gore counties. Again, the Times noted that that too would have resulted in a Bush win: “Even under the strategy that Mr. Gore pursued at the beginning of the Florida standoff — filing suit to force hand recounts in four predominantly Democratic counties — Mr. Bush would have kept his lead, according to the ballot review conducted for a consortium of news organizations.”
Again, the facts establish that if Gore had won the Bush v. Gore court case, Gore would still have lost the 2000 election. It isn't even controversial, unless you are unfamiliar with the facts.
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“Without overvotes,” the Orlando Sentinel explained, “Gore could not have won a statewide recount, the ballot study shows. In every recount scenario examined, Bush would have reaped more of the undervotes….”
You can always argue that the law should allow a more liberal vote-counting standard, but in fact the law didn’t allow it. Under Florida law, Bush won. Had courts overturned that victory, they would have been rewriting the law in order to give Gore the victory. That would have been stealing the election.
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