Random Michael Moore Deceits [#23]

2000 Election Recount [from Fahrenheit 9/11]

How did Bush win Florida? "Second, make sure the chairman of your campaign is also the vote count woman." Actually Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris (who was Bush's Florida co-chair, not "the chairman") was not the "vote count woman." Vote counting in Florida is performed by the election commissioners in each of Florida's counties. The Florida Secretary of State merely certifies the reported vote. The office does not count votes.

A little while later, Fahrenheit shows Jeffrey Toobin (a sometime talking head lawyer for CNN) claiming that if the Supreme Court had allowed a third recount to proceed past the legal deadline, "under every scenario Gore won the election."

Fahrenheit shows only a snippet of Toobin's remarks on CNN. What Fahrenheit does not show is that Toobin admitted on CNN that the only scenarios for a Gore victory involved a type of recount which Gore had never requested in his lawsuits, and which would have been in violation of Florida law. Toobin's theory likewise depends on re-assigning votes which are plainly marked for one candidate (Pat Buchanan) to Gore, although there are no provisions in Florida law to guess at who a voter "really" meant to vote for and to re-assign the vote.

A study by a newspaper consortium including the Miami Herald and USA Today disproves Fahrenheit's claim that Gore won under any scenario. As USA Today summarized, on May 11, 2001:

"Who would have won if Al Gore had gotten manual counts he requested in four counties? Answer: George W. Bush."

"Who would have won if the U.S. Supreme Court had not stopped the hand recount of undervotes, which are ballots that registered no machine-readable vote for president? Answer: Bush, under three of four standards."

"Who would have won if all disputed ballots — including those rejected by machines because they had more than one vote for president — had been recounted by hand? Answer: Bush, under the two most widely used standards; Gore, under the two least used."

Throughout the Florida election controversy, the focus was on "undervotes"--ballots which were disqualified because the voter had not properly indicated a candidate, such as by punching out a small piece of paper on the paper ballot. The recounts attempted to discern voter intentions from improperly-marked ballots. Thus, if a ballot had a "hanging chad," a recount official might decide that the voter intended to vote for the candidate, but failed to properly punch out the chad; so the recounter would award the candidate a vote from the "spoiled" ballot. Gore was seeking additional recounts only of undervotes. The only scenario by which Gore would have won Florida would have involved recounts of "overvotes"--ballots which were spoiled because the voter voted for more than one candidate (such as by marking two names, or by punching out two chads). Most of the overvotes which were recoverable were those on which the voter had punched out a chad (or made a check mark) and had also written the candidate's name on the write-in line. Gore's lawsuits never sought a recount of overvotes, so even if the Supreme Court had allowed a Florida recount to continue past the legal deadline, Bush still would have won the additional recount which Gore sought.

A separate study conducted by a newspaper consortium including the New York Times and Wall Street Journal found that if there had been a statewide recount of all undervotes and overvotes, Gore would have won under seven different standards. However, if there had been partial recounts under any of the various recounts sought by Gore or ordered by the Florida Supreme Court, Bush would have won under every scenario.

A very interesting web widget published by the New York Times allows readers to crunch the data any way they want: what standards for counting ballots, whose counting system to apply, and how to treat overvotes. It's certainly possible under some of the variable scenarios to produce a Gore victory. But it's undeniably dishonest for Fahrenheit to assert that Gore would win under any scenario.

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Moore then suggests the Bush team fought unethically in the post-election process in Florida, though he offers no specific charges, and only shows a snippet of a television interview with James Baker, Bush’s representative in the process, in which Baker says, “I think all this talk about ‘legitimacy’ is way overblown.” This implies that Baker was saying that the legitimacy of the election itself doesn’t matter. But that’s not what he was saying. The sound bite came from an interview with Baker on ABC’s This Week program on December 10, 2000. Baker was asked by Sam Donaldson whether he thought that having the Supreme Court decide the Florida recount question would take away from the legitimacy of whoever would be the winner. Baker answered:

Well, Sam, I think all this talk about legitimacy is way overblown. Whoever wins this election, and particularly if they should win it as a consequence of a decision of the highest court in the land, which everybody has said that they—that they intend to respect, I think that the country will come together behind that leader. Yes, we’ve lost 50 percent of the time normally reserved for transition. Yes, it’ll be harder than it normally is, but I don’t think that we will have questions of legitimacy about the president. Yes, there—there will be hard feelings regardless of which side wins and which side loses. But I think the country’s strong enough and our democracy’s strong enough we’ll over come that.

These are hardly the words of a heartless fiend, and Baker is not suggesting that the legitimacy of the election is irrelevant. He is, instead, arguing that the post-election process will produce a president that the American people will consider legitimate, no matter who wins. Moore’s careful cutting of this statement presents a totally misleading impression.

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