Did George W. Bush really lose the election?

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Request for Question Clarification by politicalguru-ga on 21 Jun 2004 16:58 PDT

Are you asking whether he received less votes than Al Gore?

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Clarification of Question by makes_ya_go_hmmm-ga on 21 Jun 2004 18:20 PDT

Yes that's what I'd like to know. Obviously he is the president and I
don't have a problem with that. But I've heard so many people say one
thing and another about it. I wanted to know if there is any real
proof out there somewhere or if it's all hear say.

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Request for Question Clarification by justaskscott-ga on 21 Jun 2004 18:21 PDT

Or are you asking whether he really received fewer votes than Al Gore in Florida?

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Request for Question Clarification by justaskscott-ga on 21 Jun 2004 18:24 PDT

I was writing my post as you responded to politicalguru.  But I'm
still curious whether that is the real issue.  There is no doubt at
all that George W. Bush received fewer votes than Al Gore, but won in
the Electoral College.  The more difficult question is whether he
really received fewer votes in Florida.

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Request for Question Clarification by justaskscott-ga on 21 Jun 2004 18:28 PDT

Just to clarify -- If George W. Bush really received fewer votes in
Florida, and that vote tally had been certified, then he would have
lost in the Electoral College.

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Clarification of Question by makes_ya_go_hmmm-ga on 21 Jun 2004 19:15 PDT

ahh that makes sense... less votes but he won the Electoral College
Florida. justaskscott-ga says the vote tally was never certified? Did
the Supreme Court ruling come in before the vote tally could be
certified? One site I found says Bush received 2,912,790 and Gore
2,912,253 for Florida. http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0876793.html
I've found too much data on this subject! :) This site says the
Supreme Court was bias:
http://www.rationalrevolution.net/supreme_court_justices_were_bias.htm
this one has all the court statements:
http://www.flcourts.org/pubinfo/election/ I guess I'd like to know if
he indeed won Florida, if he did then the rest doesn't matter as much.

Dear Makes-ya-go-hmmm, 

I am not sure what are the things that make you go hmmm... 

George W. Bush did gain less of the "popular votes" (in the national
level) as Al Gore did. However, he had the majority of the Electoral
College, and since this is the system that determines the president
elect (and not the popular vote), Bush won.

Gore won  50,999,897 votes, Bush 50,456,002 (a difference of about
half-a-million votes), but at the end of the day, Bush was declared
the winner of the Florida Electoral College, and therefore, he was the
winner of the elections and the President (see for example: FEC
<http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2000/prespop.htm>).

You could read a little more about the Florida Vote at my answer :
Investigating the Florida 2000 vote 
<http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=245529> 

This happened before in the history of the United States, that the
winner of the Electoral College vote and the popular votes were not
the same candidate.

"In 1824, Andrew Jackson won both the popular and the electoral
vote?that is he received more votes than any of the other candidates.
But, no one in the four-man race won a majority, or more than 50%, in
the Electoral College, so the House of Representatives decided the
outcome. The House picked John Quincy Adams, who had come in second in
the popular and electoral votes. In 1876, Samuel J. Tilden won 51% of
the popular vote, while Rutherford B. Hayes captured 48%. However,
Hayes won 185 electoral votes, while Tilden got 184. A special
electoral commission picked Hayes to be president.

In 1888, Benjamin Harrison became president by winning 233 electoral
votes, even though he received only 47.8% of the popular vote. His
opponent, Grover Cleveland, garnered 48.6% of the popular vote, yet
received only 168 electoral votes."

(SOURCE: InfoPlease, Electoral College,
<http://www.infoplease.com/spot/campaign2000race.html>).

I hope this answered your question. Please contact me if you need any
further clarification on this answer before you rate it.

My search strategy: gore, "popular vote", 2000, bush, 1888

thank you very much sir

You may find interesting the information from BlackBoxVoting.org,
including Chapter 13 of Bev Harris' book, which describes election
fraud in Florida in the 2000 Presidential Election:

http://www.cs.duke.edu/~justin/archive/diebold.html

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-13.pdf

Thank you for the rating and the tip