The same way bush got elected twice (despite all the tech people I hear from in ...

kafkaesque · on March 2, 2013

Wait...I don't mean to spread false information, so please, anyone, correct me if I am totally off base, and I will even delete my comment, but...

I thought it was pretty much agreed upon that George Bush Jr. won through voting machines that had been tampered with and because voting ended as soon as Bush had the majority vote in Florida, when in reality it was later found out Al Gore had more votes.

Or did I just pull that out of my ass?

Again, if it is false, I'll gladly remove this comment since I was watching it all (i.e., the American gov't) crumble from Canada.

Edit: Or was all that just conspiracy theory?

graeme · on March 2, 2013

The quantity of votes isn't the determining issue in American election. Instead, it matters whether you win a majority of electoral college votes.

Florida had enough votes to swing the electoral college. There was a big controversy about this, and a Supreme Court case, and frankly I have no idea what actually happened.

fusiongyro · on March 2, 2013

The voting machine tampering affected the popular vote count but he won by the electoral college so it was kind of a moot point.

The liberals here like to blame every conservative win on voting machine fraud and gerrymandering and the conservatives like to blame every liberal win on minorities and illegal immigrants. In reality, the country is split pretty evenly (not geographically uniformly) and we got a second term with Obama despite DieBold's management publicly endorsing Romney. So both sides have a tendency to inflate their claims.

joelrunyon · on March 2, 2013

Bush had more electoral votes.

Gore won the popular vote.

There were issues in Florida which determined the electoral votes and pushed the state to Bush.

Electoral votes are what mater: Bush won.

pyre · on March 2, 2013

I think that most people are contesting whether or not Bush should have won the Florida electoral votes, which would have changed the election, no?

graeme · on March 2, 2013

In our case it's more the split of the left. Harper only got ~35% of votes, but that's enough here when the liberals and NDP split the vote.

There's also the fact that electoral ridings are biased towards rural areas. They tend to require fewer people to get an MP.

dhughes · on March 2, 2013

I figured it was Baby Boomers nearing retirement and getting more conservative as they get older.

There was a huge amount of student and young voters last election and I was quite surprised at the results.