The remaining 110,000 were “overvotes,” in which the voter may have voted normally for Bush or Gore but also wrote in their name. Of these, 60,000 were “undervotes” - for instance, the voter had not fully punched through the ballot’s relevant perforated box. The presidential choice on about 170,000 ballots could not be read by machine. However, this margin was so small that Florida law required a machine recount of the state, which reduced Bush’s lead to 327. The Florida Division of Elections announced the next day that Bush had won the state by 1,784 votes. The Florida vote was so close that the networks alternately declared both Gore and Bush the winner, and Gore called Bush to concede and then called him back to retract his concession. By that night, it was clear that Gore had won the national popular vote, but that whoever took Florida would win the Electoral College and the presidency. The 2000 election took place on November 7. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., makes a statement on the recounting of votes in the state of Florida on Nov. If Democrats have not learned the lessons from 2000, will manipulate the process again and take away the rightful decision of the voters, in Florida, Arizona and Georgia.”Īl Gore, right, alongside his running mate Sen. “It’s another national, defining crisis,” McAlevey said Friday. In the prologue to her 2012 book, “ Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell)” (excerpted with permission below), she describes what she saw in enraging detail, concluding that “the absolute determination with which the labor elite and the Democratic Party leadership crushed their own constituents’ desire to express their political passions cost us the election.” Today, she is deeply concerned that Democrats have forgotten - or never even knew - what happened 18 years ago. Jane McAlevey, a longtime union organizer, witnessed the disaster up close as part of the AFL-CIO’s team on the ground in West Palm Beach. Second, Gore lost largely because, unlike Bush, he refused to fight with all the tools available to him. If a full, fair statewide recount had taken place, he would have become president. Bush.īut two critical facts from that debacle have been erased from history and are not being mentioned anywhere today.įirst, we know that Gore won Florida in 2000. Each race now appears likely close enough to trigger a recount (or in the case of the Georgia governor’s race, a runoff.)Īll this has led many to compare the current situation to the nightmarish legal battle over the Florida recount in the 2000 presidential race between Al Gore and George W. Scott’s Tuesday night margin of 50,000 votes is now down to 15,000, and he’s demanded that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigate some unspecified malfeasance. Rick Scott is attempting to switch offices by ousting incumbent Democratic Sen. The GOP’s rhetoric has been particularly preposterous in Florida, where Gov. Republicans, led by President Donald Trump, have responded by declaring that counting these votes is somehow fraudulent. And as the count has proceeded, the Democratic candidate in each case has gained more votes than the Republican, narrowing the margin or - in the case of the Senate election in Arizona – taking the lead. The stakes are high: two Senate seats (Florida and Arizona) and two governorships (Florida and Georgia), plus some lower offices. However, many votes remained to be counted in all three states. At midnight on Election Day last Tuesday, vote tallies showed Republican candidates ahead in key races in Florida, Georgia, and Arizona.
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