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Letter: Merit of election system in eye of the beholder

Wednesday, May 31, 2006 | 7:22 a.m.

Bill Scott, in his May 27 letter, "Whining about 2000 election is tiresome," is right in general about the 2000 election, but wrong about the particulars. And those particulars are pretty interesting.

A major media consortium did conduct an exhaustive survey of all the Florida ballots - hanging chads, dimpled chads, no chads. They found that, had the Gore camp gotten its way and had an official recount been limited to certain contested voting districts, their man would have lost anyway.

Here's the irony: If the Gore camp had agreed to the Bush side's counteroffer of a statewide recount, Gore would have won. And let's never forget that it was the Gore campaign that ran to the courts first.

Also, Scott is correct that Gore's lead in the popular vote "means nothing." In other words, under our Electoral College system, a presidential candidate can lose the popular vote but win the election.

A lot of Democrats complained about this fact (you can still spot the bumper stickers). But you can bet, had things gone the other way, they'd be praising the wisdom of the Founders.

Jeff Nation, Las Vegas

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