Sorry to rain on jones' euphoria (he apparently hasn't read what you actually posted), but your impeccable numbers don't actually refute anything stated by gaweb. He was alluding to irregularities in the voting system in Florida which, when combined with the decision not to allow further recounts to validate the legitimacy of vote papers, handed the result to Bush.
In Australia we count and recount votes until we get the true result.
The election outcome was a cleverly constructed abuse of the law, the courts and the electoral process and was very complex though not very sophisticated. If you search on "Bush election" you will find stacks of material. Here is a short summary:
2001-06-08
OFFICIAL: BUSH ELECTION BASED ON IRREGULARITIES
A report has been released today which states that the electoral process in Florida which elected George Walter Bush to the presidency of the United States of America was flawed, unjust and contained irregularities. The US Congress Commission of Civic Rights has taken six months to analyse 110,000 documents and present its report, which concludes that there are clear indications that the process was “unjust”. The Governor of Florida, George W. Bush’s brother, Jeb and the Florida Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, are criticised in the report. As Florida counted and recounted the vote, then decided to suspend the recount, with Katherine Harris totally unable to explain in a coherent fashion exactly what was happening, Bush was elected President of the USA with less votes than Al Gore, having won the all-important electoral college votes of Florida by 537 votes, with thousands more uncounted. The Jewish, Hispanic and Negro communities claim they were prejudiced in the electoral process because the voting system was not properly explained to them. The Negro population makes up 11% of the population of Florida, but 54% of votes cast by Negroes were annulled. Although this report does not take away the legitimacy of Bush’s Administration, which is legally and Constitutionally instated as being the Presidency of the USA for the next four years, it confirms that President Bush was “elected” by skilful manipulation of the system, rather than by his people, and that time would prove to be his worst nightmare. This nightmare is beginning as his popularity rating drops 8 percentage points in 30 days, to an approval rate of 55%. 66% of Americans consider their president too conservative, as more and more Americans protest at Bush’s callous disregard of environmental issues and his energy policy, which will see nature reserves torn up to exploit natural gas and oil, not to mention the attitude of almost criminal negligence shown towards the Protocol of Kyoto. George W. Bush’s election to the Presidency of the United States of America was a swindle. The price he will pay for this may well be clearly visible before the year 2004, the time of the next election, if he is still the president by then.
