The choice was between a republican figurehead, son of a former president/CIA director and a thoughtful, pro-environment, progressive democrat. Despite the attempts by either side to play down their differences and appeal to the middle, the candidates represented two divergent paths for our country.
The US media was very careful not to probe too deep into the issue of voter fraud. Instead, there was a united effort not to cast any shadow of illegitimacy on the election result.
2000: Bush wins Florida (and thus the entire election) by 537 votes
Al Gore won the popular vote by over 500,000 votes
The Choicepoint Scandal: “Journalist Greg Palast has shown that the firm cooperated with Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, and Florida Elections Unit Chief Clay Roberts, in a conspiracy of voter fraud, involving the central voter file, during the US Presidential Election of 2000. The allegations charge that 57,700 people (15% of the list), primarily Democrats of African-American and Hispanic descent, were incorrectly listed as felons and thus barred from voting. Palast estimates that 80% of these people would have voted, and that 90% of those who would have voted, would have voted for Al Gore.” 3
The supreme court essentially decided the election by stopping the recount in Bush V. Gore.
All independent recounts show Gore would have won if the supreme court hadn’t halted the counting.
Thousands of black voters were disenfranchised because their names were illegally expunged from the voter rolls.