I still run into people who believe that Bush won the 2000 election fair and square.
Katie and I did some math today, using figures from that election. These do NOT consider the number of people who were intimidated by roadblocks and the like, or the absentee ballot issues.
Bush won the 2000 election in Florida by only 537 votes.
179,855 votes were invalidated.
53% of the invalidated votes were by black voters. That’s 95,323 black people whose votes were not counted.
Statistics show that 90% of black voters consistently vote for Democratic candidates.
That means that there were likely 85,791 invalidated votes that were almost certainly cast for Gore.
57,700 voters were removed from the roles due to the “felon list.” The vast majority of the people on the list were not felons, or their right to vote had been returned to them. A fair number of the “felonies” listed were on dates AFTER the election.
90.2% of those removed from the roles as supposed felons were black. That’s 52,045 voters.
Using that 90% again, we have another 46,841 probable Gore votes.
Either one of these problems being resolved would have given Gore the election. Taking the results together, Gore would have won by 131,558 votes.
