I absolutely blame Jenny McCarthy for this, and maybe Oprah (I think Oprah gave her the platform to speak), but Jenny never came out and said “I was wrong about this and the doctor totally lied about his results and this has all been debunked” and now the US is in shambles because she’s a fucking idiot.
And yet in terms of lives lost, the 2000 election going to Bush killed pretty much 8 billion people plus most megafauna. Climate change had the last laugh after all.
Throwing out ballots because of hanging chads is ABSOLUTELY an issue with election integrity. How much integrity can an election have if votes are thrown out arbitrarily so an unpopular candidate wins???
And that election would’ve changed things today. People drowning in Japan, Spain, North Carolina to these crazy floods. AMOC collapse has begun. We are so fucked and that was like, our chance. And Republicans and oil suckers decided to kill us all and Noah’s Ark us… in the 70s. When they were told this would happen.
They did not throw them out it was a question of counting the particular part of the ballot. The big issue was the state was not using consistent procedures.
The following day, the Democratic Party in Palm Beach filed suit to contest the vote count due to mistakes using the “butterfly” ballot. They argued that the structure of the butterfly ballot had caused many voters to mistakenly punch out the hole for Buchanan when they meant to vote for Gore. These, plus the ballots not read by the machines because the holes were not completely punched out, they claimed, created a significant “under vote.” They pointed to thousands of ballots having two holes punched out (often for Buchanan and Gore) and many more with holes only partially punched, held on by one corner—quickly labeled the “hanging chad.” They wanted those doing the manual recount to examine each ballot to determine the intention of the voter and to count the hanging chads. Later they successfully argued that other chads, including those only showing signs of being pushed—the “dimpled” and “pregnant” chads—also should be counted. Florida’s votes now appeared to depend on manual recounts and the nature of the chads. Counting chads was complicated and controversial, but it was nothing compared to the legal battles about to break.
The celebration lasted a day as the US Supreme Court issued a 7-to-2 decision in Bush v. Gore ordering a halt to all Florida recounts and calling for arguments to reconsider the Florida court’s decisions. The oral arguments showed that the Court was divided along ideological lines. Bush’s lawyers argued that the method of the recount was “arbitrary,” did “irreparable harm” to his candidacy, and violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Further, the Florida court’s decision violated Article 2 of the Constitution, which states that electors must be selected by a method chosen by the legislature. Gore’s lawyers responded that the recount did not injure Bush and it was best to let the people decide by counting all their votes. Most observers noted that the arguments had little chance of changing the views of the members of the Court. On December 12, the Supreme Court announced its controversial 5-to-4 decision that effectively ended all attempts to recount Florida votes and allowed Harris to ignore the already submitted recounted ballots. The decision determined that the vote certified by Harris previously (537) was correct and, above all, final. Gore conceded defeat on December 13, and five days later, George W. Bush was officially elected forty-third president of the United States as the electors cast their ballots: Bush received 271 electoral votes, one more than needed; Gore received 266.
This is a joke headline, right? Jenny McCarthy and hanging-chads.
I absolutely blame Jenny McCarthy for this, and maybe Oprah (I think Oprah gave her the platform to speak), but Jenny never came out and said “I was wrong about this and the doctor totally lied about his results and this has all been debunked” and now the US is in shambles because she’s a fucking idiot.
Hanging chads were a tiny blip on the radar in the general story of the 2000 election. Trump’s had 100 scandals more noteworthy than hanging chads.
SCOTUS gave the election away because of them and the entire recount situation was manufactured to make it seem like there could be no consensus.
And yet in terms of lives lost, the 2000 election going to Bush killed pretty much 8 billion people plus most megafauna. Climate change had the last laugh after all.
hanging-chad was not about election integrity really.
Throwing out ballots because of hanging chads is ABSOLUTELY an issue with election integrity. How much integrity can an election have if votes are thrown out arbitrarily so an unpopular candidate wins???
And that election would’ve changed things today. People drowning in Japan, Spain, North Carolina to these crazy floods. AMOC collapse has begun. We are so fucked and that was like, our chance. And Republicans and oil suckers decided to kill us all and Noah’s Ark us… in the 70s. When they were told this would happen.
They did not throw them out it was a question of counting the particular part of the ballot. The big issue was the state was not using consistent procedures.
https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/essays/hanging-chad-or-not-2000-presidential-election