Politics: February 2002 Archives

I keep hearing people say things like "Bush wasn't elected," as if there were some truth to the statement. I hoped it was just bitterness at defeat that would eventually die down. But apparently the bitterness or blindness of some knows no bounds. So let me set the record straight, once and for all.

Bush was elected. There is no sense in which it is correct to say that he was not. We have a system of elections, determined by written law, and that system and law was followed at every step.

Some say Bush didn't win the "national popular" vote, as if the total number of votes means anything. It doesn't. Our law defines an electoral college system, and there is no such thing as a national popular vote.

Some say the Supreme Court of the United States stepped in and handed the election to Bush, as if the Supreme Court is not the final arbiter of Constitutionality of election law. It is such, as defined in Article II Section 1 and Amendment 14.

Some say that the decision of the Supreme Court was invalid because it was partisan, that if you look at the 5-4 decision, it is the conservatives voting in favor of Bush, with the liberals in favor of Gore. Actually, the decision that the Florida recount was unconstitutional by breach of due process was 7-2, including all but the two most liberal members of the court; if the vote was partisan by vote makeup as we've been told, then it was the two liberals who were partisan. Of course, even if the decision in Bush's favor were partisan, it wouldn't invalidate the election (despite damaging the integrity of the Supreme Court), but this is just another example of people ignoring the facts of the matter.

So you can disagree with the outcome, but you cannot reasonably say that Bush didn't win the election, unless you believe the election procedures should be determined by something other than the law that defines them, and our system of law that interprets them. To continue to say he wasn't elected is to ignore the factual truth of the matter.