By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Original Sources (www.originalsources.com)
November 8, 2000
Al Gore spokesman Bill Daley finally came out and said, around 4:00 AM EST, "There has never been a night (in politics) like this!" and commentators on Fox news asked, at the end of a wild election night, "Has anything like this ever happened before?" Everyone assured everyone else that no one had EVER seen such an extraordinary series of events.
Actually, I thought it remarkably similar to the first time I stay up all night tracking presidential votes state by state in 1948 when most of America went to bed after being told by all the media experts that Republican Tom Dewey of New York was the new president. If I remember correctly it was the New York Post that printed articles with banner headlines saying "Dewey Wins!!" And, by 5:00 AM EST, we had the New York Post telling us "Bush Wins!"
In 1948 I wasn't old enough to vote but I was married and I was fascinated with the process so I stayed up and filled pages with the hourly tallies announced on the radio. The early returns, at 8:30 PM, showed Republican Tom Dewey ahead in California, New York (where he was governor), Pennsylvania, and tied in states like Colorado (3227-3228) and Kansas (15,000- 15,000.)
Only, Dewey had not won. By 1:30 in the morning, it became clear that he was losing. And, it appears that George W. Bush has not won at least until some military absentee ballots are counted and there is a careful re-count.
At some point, there also will probably be a demand for an investigation of some of the many charges of fraud made, and reported, before the election took place. One of the accusations of fraud before the election involved military absentee ballots which never arrived and the charge that Democrat operatives throughout America were bribing potential voters with food and cigarettes to get them to the polls. Suddenly we find the entire election hinged on military ballots.
Not too long after the polls closed on the east coast, Fox news announced that Florida, New York and Pennsylvania had all been won by Al Gore,. However, I was double checking network reports on State Election Department tallies linked to each of the 50 states (http://www.originalsources.com/Candidates/statepolitics.html - posted on www.originalsources.com) and they seemed to show Bush ahead or tied with Gore. Long before the polls had closed on the West coast, the networks had announced that Al Gore had won Florida. Californians quickly e-mailed me to say the networks had announced the "win" for Gore, when the Florida votes showed Bush ahead, to discourage Californians from voting. Around 10:00 P.M. George Bush spoke to a pool reporter to tell the public they would not concede, because they believed they were ahead. "I'm going to wait until they count all the votes. I think Americans ought to wait until they count all the votes,'' he said.
At least one reader charged the MEDIA with fraud in order to advance their own agenda.
I was puzzled by the tallies being announced, and some of the announcements of Gore "wins" since the State election departments often were announcing figures showing Bush ahead.
Not long afterwards, the networks took Florida out of the Gore tally and put it back in a "nondecided" category. An hour or so later, as the official tallies showed Bush consistently in the lead, they put Florida in the Bush electoral college count. That gave Bush 271 electoral college votes, one more than the needed 270. Gore called Bush to concede.
Shortly thereafter, before George W. Bush had time to address his followers gathered in Austin, Texas, the networks again put Florida in the "undecided" category and Gore called Bush again to rescind his concession.
By then I was being deluged with e-mail from readers sending me examples of "voter fraud," "vote buying" and even the dead voting in the election, polling placing being kept open in Missouri, etc.
Eventually, about 5:00 AM EST, it was announced that the Florida vote was so close that a re-count would have to take place. In fact, long before that point the news from the Gore camp indicated they were dispatching people to Florida to demand a recount.
So, it is morning, and we still don't know who the next president of the United Sates will be. We also don't know how much campaign fraud there was and how it affected the vote tallies. We haven't taken campaign finance abuse very seriously in this country, nor have we thought it possible that it could affect the final outcome of a race. We've talked a lot about money but very little about the common practice of simply ignoring campaign laws.
Maybe this election would be a good time to start paying attention.
To comment: mmostert@originalsources.com
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