WEBVTT - The 2000 Presidential Election: A Real Cluster 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:10.400 Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.039 --> 0:00:13.520 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's 0:00:13.640 --> 0:00:16.760 Chuck and it's just us again, which is fine because 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:19.320 we're here to talk about the two thousand election. Jerry 0:00:19.320 --> 0:00:21.000 probably wouldn't want to hear about it anyway. 0:00:23.040 --> 0:00:25.840 Can I tell the quickest story of my how this 0:00:25.880 --> 0:00:26.520 went down for me? 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:27.120 Sure? 0:00:28.160 --> 0:00:31.440 I was moving to Los Angeles in November twenty twenty. 0:00:31.560 --> 0:00:36.760 H and I mean two thousand, what I say twenty twenty? Yeah, yeah, 0:00:36.760 --> 0:00:37.320 two thousand. 0:00:37.320 --> 0:00:39.199 Weird that you had mentioned twenty twenty when you were 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:40.160 talking about two thousand. 0:00:40.479 --> 0:00:40.800 I know. 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:42.720 So I was in a big U haul. 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:45.560 I was towing my car, my seventy five Plymouth Valiant 0:00:45.840 --> 0:00:49.440 named Ta, behind me, and I was somewhere in Texas, 0:00:49.560 --> 0:00:50.320 West Texas. 0:00:50.920 --> 0:00:53.760 When I spent the night and. 0:00:53.680 --> 0:00:55.560 Then woke up the next morning, it was kind of 0:00:55.560 --> 0:00:58.680 freezing cold in West Texas, and I was documenting this 0:00:58.760 --> 0:01:04.840 whole trip via my high eight video camera, singing songs 0:01:04.880 --> 0:01:07.199 into it and kind of documenting the journey. I'm gonna 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:09.200 get all these tapes digitized soon. That's one of my 0:01:09.760 --> 0:01:13.440 Christmas break projects this year. But I very distinctly. Remember 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:16.280 when I turned on the camera and got in that truck. 0:01:16.319 --> 0:01:18.680 The next morning, I said, hey everyone, So or I 0:01:18.680 --> 0:01:21.560 don't think I said everyone, because I had no audience. 0:01:21.240 --> 0:01:26.319 Spect Sure, so I think I said, hey me. It's weird. 0:01:26.480 --> 0:01:30.720 I went to bed last night and the election had happened, 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:33.320 and I woke up today and no one knows who 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:36.920 won still, And this is weird because we always know 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:39.800 who won. I guess I'll see what happens. And then 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:40.720 I hit the road. 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:47.320 Yeah, and what thirty something days later it was finally decided. 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:49.360 By the Supreme Court of the United States. 0:01:49.480 --> 0:01:54.400 Yeah, that was an interesting thing too that today you're like, yeah, 0:01:54.440 --> 0:01:57.000 I could see not knowing that that day, right, that 0:01:57.040 --> 0:02:01.360 seems a little a little quick, almost suspicious quick. Now. 0:02:01.880 --> 0:02:03.520 At the time, it was like, what do you mean, 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:06.760 It's past midnight and we don't know who won. That's crazy. 0:02:07.120 --> 0:02:11.200 The two thousand election definitely started that whole thing. And 0:02:11.240 --> 0:02:14.320 the election, for those of you who don't know, was 0:02:14.400 --> 0:02:17.760 between Vice President Al Gore. He was vice president to 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:21.480 Bill Clinton for both terms. He was looking to continue 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:27.720 the Clinton legacy, I guess as president himself, and he 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:31.760 was running against George W. Bush the son of George Bush, 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:35.240 George H. W. Bush, and the brother of Jeb Bush. 0:02:35.240 --> 0:02:38.040 I think it's his older brother. And at the time, 0:02:39.360 --> 0:02:42.120 al Gore was viewed as this very wooden I think 0:02:42.160 --> 0:02:46.880 Jeb's younger okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry, Jeb's the younger brother. 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:51.000 And at the time, al Gore was viewed as wooden, unapproachable, 0:02:51.520 --> 0:02:55.000 very smart policy wonk who could not relate to the 0:02:55.080 --> 0:02:59.240 average person to save his life. And George Bush was 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:03.240 viewed as just this complete dingus who was a part 0:03:03.280 --> 0:03:09.919 of a political legacy, whose family clearly viewed him having 0:03:10.000 --> 0:03:13.359 the presidency as his birthright. That was the selection that 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:16.000 America had at the time. But this is all against 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:20.160 the backdrop of the economy really doing nicely and there 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:24.880 hadn't been any really big problems or wars for a while. 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:29.120 I can't really think of any direct war that the 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:33.240 United States would have been involved in since Vietnam. Oh, 0:03:33.320 --> 0:03:36.760 like you know, big time war. Yeah, yeah, I don't 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:38.760 think that. I think Vietnam was the last war we 0:03:38.760 --> 0:03:39.840 were in during this election. 0:03:40.720 --> 0:03:41.080 Yeah. 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:45.120 So, you know, if you were watching comedy shows, especially 0:03:45.160 --> 0:03:48.440 Saturday Night Live at the time, you would get two things. 0:03:48.480 --> 0:03:52.760 You would on one side you would get. I can't 0:03:52.760 --> 0:03:54.840 even remember who played him, but this is how al 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:59.240 Gore was basically portrayed Aryl Hammond. Well, oh that's right. 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:02.480 I don't know, I'm like Bill Clinton without the scandal 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:06.360 that was Al Gore. And then of course, I guess 0:04:06.560 --> 0:04:11.200 was Will Ferrell the first and Bush, you know, through 0:04:11.400 --> 0:04:14.600 comedy and the media was you know that guy, and yeah, 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:17.240 I don't even I don't even care about being president. Yeah, 0:04:17.320 --> 0:04:20.040 I just want to make Daddy happy. That was sort 0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:23.360 of the lay of the land pre nine to eleven, 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:26.320 before you know, a lot of the country rallied around 0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:31.080 Bush and you know, like, like we said, Gore was 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:36.239 trying to to get away from that Clinton stink such 0:04:36.320 --> 0:04:39.680 that he didn't even get Bill on the Canpayne trail 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:43.040 with him that much. And it was also I mean, 0:04:43.080 --> 0:04:45.279 this was a landmark election in a lot of ways, 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:49.880 but it was also sort of the first, the first 0:04:49.920 --> 0:04:55.159 big election where you had someone saying, hey, Gore is 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:58.240 the big Washington insider and I'm just this guy from Texas. 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:03.279 Like sort of rural versus urban power struggle. 0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:06.119 Yeah, that's where it generally began. The Bush campaign really 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:11.080 was doing what they could to kind of highlight that 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:12.840 dividing line. 0:05:13.000 --> 0:05:17.840 Yeah, so at the time Bush had been pretty far 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:21.120 ahead in the polls. In the summer after the Democratic 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:25.960 National Convention, Gore mounted a big comeback and by fall. 0:05:26.040 --> 0:05:29.360 By September, a couple of months before the election, these 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:33.560 guys were basically deadlocked, and everybody was saying, this is 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:36.159 going to be a really, really really close election. 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:37.320 Hold onto your hat. 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:39.520 Everybody knew that it would be close, but no one 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:42.080 had any guess that it was it would turn out 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:45.240 as close as it actually did. But just the polling, 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:49.719 poll after poll after poll showed like Gores in the lead, Nope, 0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:52.560 Bushes in the league, Gores in the lead. Gallup found 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:55.480 that the lead changed nine times just in the fall 0:05:56.240 --> 0:06:01.520 the fall, nine time exactly. And so election Day Tuesday, 0:06:01.560 --> 0:06:05.840 November seventh, a lot of people, including Tim Russert rest 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:09.800 in Peace, had said, I think Florida is going to 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:13.440 be the going to decide the outcome of this. I 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:15.480 didn't see exactly why. I don't know if it was 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:17.400 a gut feeling or what the deal was, but there 0:06:17.440 --> 0:06:19.680 were there were a few people who were already pointing 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:28.040 to Florida. And at the time the news organizations NBC, ABC, CBS, FOXY, INN, 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:31.920 and AP all subscribed to a company called the Voter 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:34.880 News Service, which had been set up in nineteen ninety 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:39.080 I think by the big networks to basically pool their 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:43.200 resources to pay for people who did exit polling, and 0:06:43.520 --> 0:06:47.320 they would give that data directly to the networks, who 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:49.760 would then use it to kind of like you know, 0:06:50.080 --> 0:06:53.159 read the tea leaves as best they could to forecast 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:58.400 who won. Because in nineteen eighty NBC called Reagan at 0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:01.240 eight fifteen pm and set off this huge competition among 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:01.840 the networks. 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:05.719 Oh yeah, like call for calling the election was a big, 0:07:05.760 --> 0:07:08.719 big deal for a network, And so you found that 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:10.640 great article where they were like, you know, after that 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:13.600 Reagan thing, all the networks started spending a lot of 0:07:13.680 --> 0:07:16.760 money in the next cycle, you know, on their own 0:07:16.800 --> 0:07:20.160 exit polling data, and it was like millions and millions 0:07:20.200 --> 0:07:22.880 of dollars. So when they got together basically and said, hey, 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:25.680 why don't we all just hire this one service so 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:28.160 we can all save a lot of money. The downside 0:07:28.160 --> 0:07:31.240 of that was they were all getting the same information, 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:34.400 whether it was good or bad, and in this case 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:36.360 it turned out the information was not great. 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:40.480 So Gore was doing pretty good, not just in the 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:44.120 national vote but electorally too. We got Pennsylvania, got Michigan, 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:50.840 and Florida was starting to come in, and apparently the 0:07:51.760 --> 0:07:56.360 numbers were up. The exit polling data for Gore was 0:07:56.400 --> 0:08:01.360 showing that he probably won Florida enough that NBC said, oh, 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:03.720 we're doing it again, And at seven forty nine pm 0:08:04.360 --> 0:08:08.840 on election Day, NBC called Florida for Gore. They didn't 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:10.920 go so far as to call the presidency for Gore, 0:08:11.040 --> 0:08:13.800 but the writing was on the wall. If Gore won Florida, 0:08:14.120 --> 0:08:17.960 that was that. And I guess about fifteen minutes later 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:21.840 the rest of the news organizations had joined and said 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:22.560 the same. 0:08:22.360 --> 0:08:27.320 Thing, right, so everyone's calling Florida for Gore publicly. At 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:30.920 this point that night, the VNS, that voter News service 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:35.480 that was doing the exit polling for everybody, said, hey, 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:41.880 news organizations, we've got some issues here with our data. Like, 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:45.000 for example, in this one county in Florida, it was 0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:47.320 supposed to be four thy three hundred and two votes 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:50.640 that we saw someone added a zero to that and 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:54.839 it was forty three twenty votes. So maybe you should 0:08:54.880 --> 0:08:58.839 sort of hold off on calling this thing. And all 0:08:58.880 --> 0:09:02.120 the news organizations said, well, that's too late, We've already 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:05.480 done that. And at just before ten pm, at nine 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:08.600 to fifty five, CNN was the first to come on 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:11.280 and say, hey, wait a minute, we jump the gun here. 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:16.480 Everyone else of course followed suit, and then at two 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:20.319 fifteen in the morning, Fox News comes on and says 0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:23.600 Bush is going to be the winner, not just to Florida, 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:26.559 but the whole thing, and then everyone else followed suit 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:29.240 and said and of course this is overnight, so you 0:09:29.280 --> 0:09:32.560 wake up in the morning thinking that George Bush had won. 0:09:33.120 --> 0:09:36.360 Right, so well not quite. 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:38.160 Actually, well, if you were saying this, we'll see what 0:09:38.200 --> 0:09:39.680 happened between then and sunrise. 0:09:39.800 --> 0:09:41.520 Yeah, and I think a lot of people were staying 0:09:41.600 --> 0:09:43.920 up glued to the TV still at this point. By 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:47.760 the time Fox said that Bush was the winner, and 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:51.000 the rest of the networks joined in with that. So 0:09:52.360 --> 0:09:55.720 that's three three times now that they have have made 0:09:55.800 --> 0:09:59.560 the projection. Because retracting a projection is a projection in 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:01.920 and of it. It's like Rush said, even if you 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:04.600 choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:07.679 It's essentially the same thing. Yeah, and there's a quote 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:12.240 from Donna Brazil the disgraced Democratic operative who was running 0:10:12.240 --> 0:10:16.480 Gore's campaign at the time. Get this. She texted Gore 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:18.880 on his BlackBerry and I read the New York Times 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:21.920 article about this. They felt compelled to explain that a 0:10:21.920 --> 0:10:25.960 BlackBerry was an instant messaging pager. That's how two thousand 0:10:26.080 --> 0:10:26.760 this thing was. 0:10:27.640 --> 0:10:28.640 By the way, really quick. 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:31.199 I saw that movie, the BlackBerry Movie, on a plane 0:10:31.200 --> 0:10:33.800 flight recently, and it's actually very good. 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:36.360 Oh, I'm sure most I recommend it pretty good. 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:37.920 Now it's a movie movie. 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:39.520 Most movies are pretty. 0:10:39.200 --> 0:10:41.200 Good anyway, recommended. 0:10:41.400 --> 0:10:45.120 So she told she's running the campaign and told Gore like, 0:10:45.160 --> 0:10:50.120 don't give up yet. This is it's too weird. Essentially 0:10:50.200 --> 0:10:53.800 I'm paraphrasing here, yeah, which is true. But despite that, 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:56.600 Gore was like, I don't I think we lost, And 0:10:56.640 --> 0:10:59.160 so he even went to the extent of waking as 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:04.040 his wife, Tipper, who was not actually sleeping, she was 0:11:04.120 --> 0:11:06.400 under the blankets with a flashlight making a list of 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:10.000 bands that she didn't like and their kids, and said, hey, 0:11:10.120 --> 0:11:14.079 I lost, essentially, and they kids started crying. So he 0:11:14.200 --> 0:11:17.679 started to get ready to do his concession speech. That's 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:20.960 how close this came. He also called Bush called George 0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:24.760 Bush and said, hey, congratulations. You know you're the winner, obviously, 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:28.120 And he got into a limo to go give a 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:33.480 concession speech in Nashville to his supporters, and on the way, 0:11:34.320 --> 0:11:36.959 one of his operatives said, hey, I've been watching the 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:41.319 Secretary of State site in Florida. And Bush's lead went 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:43.800 from fifty thousand to six thousand. I don't think we 0:11:43.840 --> 0:11:47.959 should concede yet. And literally this happened in the caravan 0:11:48.080 --> 0:11:50.400 on the way for him to give his concession speech 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:52.080 at like three point thirty in the morning. 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:55.160 Yeah, and so because there were still some precincts that 0:11:55.240 --> 0:11:56.880 had been unreported, so they were like. 0:11:57.040 --> 0:11:58.160 Slow your role, Gore. 0:11:59.440 --> 0:12:02.200 So Gore call up Bush again, could not have been 0:12:02.240 --> 0:12:04.959 a fun phone call, told them what was going on. 0:12:05.880 --> 0:12:08.439 Apparently there are people that heard these calls and said 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:12.560 Bush said, uh, you know, are you really gonna withdraw 0:12:12.720 --> 0:12:16.679 your concession? And Gore responded, quote, well, you don't have 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:21.280 to be sniffy about it. So Bush said, well, my 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:24.800 brother's governor Florida, and he said that he said I won. 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:28.320 And Gore said, well, let me explain something. Your younger 0:12:28.360 --> 0:12:30.160 brother's not the ultimate authority on. 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:33.640 This that I think the al Gore finally came around 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:36.480 at the end. But George Bush, he sounded like a 0:12:36.520 --> 0:12:39.520 cross between Yosemite Sam and a member of Leonard Skinnard. 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:43.640 That's about right, actually, now that you mentioned it, that's 0:12:43.679 --> 0:12:44.160 like dead on. 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:45.839 Yeah. 0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:48.920 So it was, I mean between them interpersonally, it got 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:50.920 a little sticky right at the beginning. 0:12:51.000 --> 0:12:54.240 Yeah, I think George Bush even said you can't you 0:12:54.280 --> 0:12:57.640 can't retract. You're not allowed to do that. Essentially, daddy 0:12:57.640 --> 0:13:00.640 can he do that? So, yeah, that it was a 0:13:00.679 --> 0:13:03.080 really big deal. I don't think that this had actually 0:13:03.120 --> 0:13:04.160 happened before. 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:06.680 Not as far as I know. I think this was 0:13:06.760 --> 0:13:07.559 sort of the first thing. 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:10.079 Yeah, there were a lot of first things in this election. 0:13:11.120 --> 0:13:14.839 Yeah, so by four o'clock the networks all retract their 0:13:14.840 --> 0:13:18.560 calls and basically this is what you know, Younger Chuck 0:13:18.600 --> 0:13:21.240 wakes up to in West Texas, which is we don't 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:25.800 know who won. Tom Brokaw gets on NBC and says, quote, 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:29.600 we don't just have egg on our face. Oh wait, 0:13:29.800 --> 0:13:33.920 that was al Gore. Light I'm getting all confused now. 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:35.720 I heard a little broke on there. 0:13:35.800 --> 0:13:37.640 I used to do Brokall, we don't just have an 0:13:37.640 --> 0:13:40.000 egg on our face. We've gone humlet all over our 0:13:40.040 --> 0:13:43.960 suits at this point and our faces and everywhere else. 0:13:44.080 --> 0:13:46.520 That was great. That was a great brocall. 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:48.160 And he always sounded like he was out of breath. 0:13:48.240 --> 0:13:51.240 It wasn't that he got on, Chuck, this was four am. 0:13:51.400 --> 0:13:53.720 He was still on from when he got on at 0:13:53.800 --> 0:13:54.720 seven pm. 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:56.000 Oh this poor guy. 0:13:56.040 --> 0:13:58.520 And Tim Russer at least just on NBC alone, are 0:13:58.559 --> 0:14:02.400 like just dying here. But they've never seen anything like it. 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:06.600 And again, like, as you said, this is a big 0:14:06.640 --> 0:14:09.520 deal in that it was really embarrassing. It was a 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:12.240 really big thing to call to be the network that 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:16.320 called the presidency, so it was equally humiliating to be 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:18.720 the network that had to retract it. And that happened 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:22.760 to all the networks. But that also had a really 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:27.560 big impact on public opinion. At first, they were like, well, 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:31.480 Gore won, so that means that if you guys called 0:14:31.480 --> 0:14:35.400 this at before eight pm Eastern, there were still polls 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:38.040 opened in the West Coast, And how many Bush voters 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:40.880 did you discourage from turning out because you'd said Gore 0:14:40.920 --> 0:14:44.120 already won. And then the opposite of it was that 0:14:44.160 --> 0:14:47.400 when they said Bush won but then retracted it, people 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:49.880 were like, no, Bush's the winner, which made it harder 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:53.040 for Gore to get the public behind the recount that 0:14:53.120 --> 0:14:56.520 he was going. There was a lot of public opinion 0:14:56.560 --> 0:15:00.880 about this, a lot of opposition, some manufacture, some genuine 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:05.120 as we'll see that that really makes a big deal. 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:07.800 You think you think for a second, like, well, no, 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:10.160 it just comes down to how many who got how 0:15:10.200 --> 0:15:13.080 many votes or who got how many electors from the 0:15:13.080 --> 0:15:17.120 electoral College. No, Like, the public opinion has a lot 0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:22.240 of sway in a situation like this, So everything that 0:15:22.400 --> 0:15:25.480 happened publicly was a really big deal. 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:29.760 Yeah. Absolutely, Olivia who helped us out with this and. 0:15:29.760 --> 0:15:31.840 Did a bang up training, the fantastic job. 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:34.640 It was keen to point out that there were, you know, 0:15:34.840 --> 0:15:37.720 a few states that they didn't have the full results 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:42.520 about anyway. Oregon has very famously long had a vote 0:15:42.520 --> 0:15:45.360 by mail system, so it took a while to get 0:15:45.400 --> 0:15:49.840 all those votes in. It eventually went Gor's way. New 0:15:49.880 --> 0:15:53.960 Mexico was no one knew about New Mexico until December first. 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:58.600 That eventually went Gor's way as well, and the Republicans 0:15:58.600 --> 0:16:00.560 were like, should we get a recount going in New 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:05.440 Mexico and Wisconsin and Iowa. But they basically because the 0:16:05.520 --> 0:16:07.920 margins were pretty low, not enough to trigger any kind 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:10.960 of automatic recount, but they thought about contesting those, but 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:13.800 they would have had to win all of the states 0:16:13.840 --> 0:16:16.920 that they were thinking about contesting. And the writing was 0:16:16.960 --> 0:16:18.400 on the wall that like, hey, listen, we're not going 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:21.000 to win all of these, so we're not going to 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:23.880 contest any of them. We'll just it's going to come 0:16:23.920 --> 0:16:26.120 down to Florida, and we're going to put all of 0:16:26.120 --> 0:16:27.040 our eggs in that basket. 0:16:27.160 --> 0:16:29.680 Yeah, because Florida had twenty nine electoral votes and it 0:16:29.720 --> 0:16:33.240 could it would put either one of them in the 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:37.400 White House. That's how close this race was that those 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:41.160 twenty nine electoral votes going either way did it for them. 0:16:41.680 --> 0:16:47.560 So in Florida, if you have a margin of victory 0:16:47.560 --> 0:16:52.080 that's under point five percent the total tally of votes, 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:55.800 then there has to be a recount, a machine recount 0:16:55.800 --> 0:17:00.960 where basically you run all the ballots through again and 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:04.680 see what the count is. Right, that's just law. That's 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:08.600 point five percent. This was point zero one percent difference 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:13.000 out of six million votes casts in Florida in the 0:17:13.040 --> 0:17:19.520 two thousand general election. A few hundred votes, yeah, separated 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:24.199 one candidate for president from another and again because whoever 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:29.159 won Florida became president. A few hundred votes is what 0:17:29.240 --> 0:17:32.600 it came down to to determine who would become president 0:17:32.680 --> 0:17:33.240 that time. 0:17:34.160 --> 0:17:36.800 Yeah, because of how it works in the United States. 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:39.159 If you're not from the United States, you can go 0:17:39.200 --> 0:17:43.520 back and listen to our Electoral College episode. You want 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:48.080 to get angry, I know, because no matter how you 0:17:48.080 --> 0:17:51.280 count the votes, Al Gore won the popular vote, just 0:17:51.320 --> 0:17:55.040 as Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in America, it 0:17:55.080 --> 0:17:57.320 doesn't matter who gets the most votes because we have 0:17:57.440 --> 0:17:58.719 the EC in place. 0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:02.200 But just a quick sketch of it. Though, if anybody 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:03.680 doesn't actually feel it, go in and listen to the 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:06.879 episode again. Chuck's right, It's it's worth listening to. But 0:18:07.240 --> 0:18:10.040 in the United States, in a state, whoever has the 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:14.159 most votes gets usually all of the electors that that 0:18:14.240 --> 0:18:17.080 state has to offer. And so in reality, what you're 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:21.200 really running for as president is electors. So you want 0:18:21.200 --> 0:18:23.840 to win states, and you can strategically win some states 0:18:23.880 --> 0:18:27.320 over the others and lose the popular vote and win 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:30.240 the Electoral College and still become president because you got 0:18:30.280 --> 0:18:34.359 more electors. Even though more Americans voted for the other person. 0:18:34.840 --> 0:18:39.479 And that's the big controversy because it's super undemocratic because 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:45.399 the general population doesn't actually decide. Basically, strategy decides. It 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:48.359 doesn't always wash out to be the person who won. 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:49.919 The popular vote. 0:18:49.960 --> 0:18:55.520 Well, since we're talking George Bush, should we say strategery again? 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:56.960 You can go back and listen to that episode and 0:18:57.000 --> 0:18:58.600 we'll touch on that a little bit at the end. 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:01.240 But that's either here there, because we do have the 0:19:01.240 --> 0:19:05.360 EC and Florida was very very close, and there were 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:07.840 people in the I mean, we knew it was going 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:10.639 to be a tough fight at that point because a 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:15.439 Jeb Bush is the governor of Florida, George's brother. The 0:19:15.480 --> 0:19:18.160 Secretary of State in Florida, Catherine Harris at the time, 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:21.520 was co chair of the Bush campaign there. And the 0:19:21.640 --> 0:19:26.359 state attorney general was a Gore guide, Bob Butterworth, so 0:19:26.480 --> 0:19:29.840 nuts was even the head of the Gore campaign. So 0:19:30.280 --> 0:19:32.760 this thing was just fraught from the jump. 0:19:33.160 --> 0:19:35.920 Yeah, well, Chuck, I think with that it's a good 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:36.640 place for a break. 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:38.800 What do you say, All right, let's do it. We'll 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:39.280 get right back. 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:39.520 Okay. 0:20:06.640 --> 0:20:09.720 All right, So here we are, it's November. 0:20:10.560 --> 0:20:12.520 People don't know who the President of the United States 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:14.880 is going to be yet things are starting to get 0:20:14.880 --> 0:20:18.959 pretty tense, and America is going to start learning some 0:20:19.119 --> 0:20:24.680 very specific terms and ins and outs. As far as 0:20:24.720 --> 0:20:28.600 to how Florida conducted their elections at the time, they 0:20:28.760 --> 0:20:31.760 used in a lot of the counties a punch card 0:20:31.880 --> 0:20:35.480 system where you had a little card puncher and you 0:20:35.520 --> 0:20:37.480 would look at the cannona's name and there was a 0:20:37.520 --> 0:20:40.199 little perforated square beside that, and you would use your 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:43.240 little puncher to punch that thing out. The little square 0:20:43.240 --> 0:20:44.320 that gets removed is called. 0:20:44.160 --> 0:20:45.760 A chad, and. 0:20:47.680 --> 0:20:52.560 Depending on how punched out, this chad was determine whether 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:55.440 or not your vote was counted. And there were a 0:20:55.480 --> 0:20:58.240 bunch of terms at the time that sort of had 0:20:58.240 --> 0:21:02.200 to define what this all meant. A dimpled or pregnant chad, 0:21:02.280 --> 0:21:04.879 which means you tried to punch it and it was 0:21:04.920 --> 0:21:08.399 indented but it was still fully attached. Was a dimpled 0:21:08.440 --> 0:21:11.720 or pregnant chad. You had the swinging door chad where 0:21:11.760 --> 0:21:16.240 two corners are attached, and then you had a hanging 0:21:16.280 --> 0:21:18.679 door chad, or what eventually became known as just a 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:21.639 hanging chad where you punch all the way through except 0:21:21.680 --> 0:21:27.159 one little corner remains attached, and that's the situation that 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:32.080 determines the leader of the free world. It's not right 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:33.080 and weird. 0:21:33.000 --> 0:21:36.760 But that was the situation under Florida law. If you 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:42.440 are an elections board in a county during a recount, 0:21:42.520 --> 0:21:44.760 you have to try to determine what the intent was 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:49.280 of the voter based on the ambiguous ballot they turned in, right. 0:21:49.680 --> 0:21:53.760 Yeah, which is huge. Like, again, the Florida law says 0:21:53.800 --> 0:21:56.720 the intent of the voter is what matters. 0:21:56.440 --> 0:21:59.720 Right, and that the election board during a recount has 0:21:59.760 --> 0:22:04.359 to determine with the intendants. But there's no rules. There's 0:22:04.400 --> 0:22:09.520 no statewide rules. There's really no rules unless a canvas 0:22:09.600 --> 0:22:14.880 board like adopts them themselves to determine what a voter 0:22:15.000 --> 0:22:17.320 meant based on all those different types of chads. 0:22:17.400 --> 0:22:17.560 Right. 0:22:17.560 --> 0:22:20.760 So they've made this up as they went along, or. 0:22:20.720 --> 0:22:24.359 In some cases, counties already did have rules on the 0:22:24.359 --> 0:22:26.520 books as far as chads go, like Palm Beach County. 0:22:26.600 --> 0:22:28.920 Yes, Palm Beach County is a good example because Palm 0:22:29.000 --> 0:22:35.840 Beach County arguably is where the entire election flipped. Yeah, 0:22:35.880 --> 0:22:38.200 but they had a policy that they'd had for ten 0:22:38.280 --> 0:22:40.760 years since nineteen ninety that said if you have a 0:22:40.880 --> 0:22:44.719 dimple or pregnant chad, it doesn't count. It's a spoiled ballot, 0:22:44.800 --> 0:22:47.800 and that vote doesn't count. But if you have any 0:22:47.880 --> 0:22:51.480 kind of partially detached head, a swinging door, a tri corner, 0:22:51.800 --> 0:22:55.360 a hanging chad, any of those, that counts as a vote, 0:22:55.520 --> 0:22:59.840 Like the person clearly meant to vote using that. They 0:23:00.640 --> 0:23:03.879 during the recount, they just abandoned that and they tried 0:23:03.880 --> 0:23:06.760 something instead called the light test, where you would and 0:23:06.800 --> 0:23:09.000 there's pictures of people doing this, where you would hold 0:23:09.040 --> 0:23:11.480 the ballot up to a light source to see if 0:23:11.520 --> 0:23:13.080 any light shone through, and if. 0:23:13.000 --> 0:23:15.639 You get in the year two thousand, if you could. 0:23:15.480 --> 0:23:19.399 See any light, then that counted. And they realized that 0:23:19.440 --> 0:23:22.440 actually that totally went against the rules, that you could 0:23:22.440 --> 0:23:26.159 have a type of hanging chad and lights still not 0:23:26.240 --> 0:23:29.520 come through, So then that means you don't count that ballot, 0:23:29.840 --> 0:23:31.520 and they just gave that up and went back to 0:23:31.560 --> 0:23:36.199 the original rules. This was the kind of catastrophe that 0:23:36.359 --> 0:23:39.360 was going on during the recount in Florida, and everyone 0:23:39.480 --> 0:23:43.360 was reporting about every single minute of it, and the 0:23:43.520 --> 0:23:46.480 entire country is like, what is going on? And the 0:23:46.520 --> 0:23:49.200 people in Florida, who were in charge of all the recounts, 0:23:49.359 --> 0:23:52.879 are for rereaking out because if you read about these boards, 0:23:52.960 --> 0:23:55.399 they're like, they're not made for this kind of stuff. 0:23:55.400 --> 0:23:57.840 They're not. This is all totally new, and all of 0:23:57.880 --> 0:24:00.520 a sudden, the New York Times and the Washer Post 0:24:00.560 --> 0:24:03.600 as standing over their shoulder watching them and reporting on it, 0:24:03.840 --> 0:24:06.520 and they're just flipping out. So they're doing just all 0:24:06.560 --> 0:24:09.200 sorts of goofy stuff that just doesn't make any sense 0:24:09.280 --> 0:24:11.800 because there's just like deer in headlights. 0:24:12.080 --> 0:24:15.240 Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And these aren't huge boards like in 0:24:15.240 --> 0:24:16.520 one county it was like three people. 0:24:16.880 --> 0:24:19.399 Yeah. I think that was Dade County where Miami is. 0:24:20.280 --> 0:24:23.399 Yeah, which is just nuts. We should talk about the 0:24:23.400 --> 0:24:24.920 butterfly ballot for right. 0:24:25.080 --> 0:24:25.800 I don't know if I can. 0:24:27.119 --> 0:24:30.920 This was the ballot in Palm Beach County. You sent 0:24:31.000 --> 0:24:34.880 me a picture of what this ballot look like. I'm 0:24:34.880 --> 0:24:39.320 a reasonably intelligent adult human and I looked at this 0:24:39.440 --> 0:24:43.000 ballot and it confused me a little bit. You should 0:24:43.040 --> 0:24:44.840 just look it up. Look up a picture of the 0:24:44.880 --> 0:24:47.919 Palm Beach County butterfly ballot Bush Gore election. 0:24:48.880 --> 0:24:49.720 But what it is. 0:24:49.760 --> 0:24:53.960 It's candidates on two sides like butterfly wings all the 0:24:54.040 --> 0:24:57.320 way down and in the center between all those are 0:24:57.480 --> 0:25:02.560 the little punch holes with But here's the thing is 0:25:02.600 --> 0:25:06.080 those if you look at the two sides, they're they're 0:25:06.119 --> 0:25:09.600 not aligned all the straightaway across. One's a little higher 0:25:09.640 --> 0:25:11.880 on the left, one's a little lower on the right. 0:25:12.600 --> 0:25:17.040 And on the left, number one position is George Bush. 0:25:17.119 --> 0:25:20.200 Right under that is Al Gore. On the right, number 0:25:20.200 --> 0:25:23.639 one position is Pat Buchanan. But the way it aligns 0:25:23.680 --> 0:25:25.960 and there are little arrows that point at the holes, 0:25:26.400 --> 0:25:29.760 but it's it's confusing, and it's very it would be 0:25:29.880 --> 0:25:32.760 very easy to think, oh no, I don't want to 0:25:32.840 --> 0:25:35.080 vote for Bush, I want to go down one and 0:25:35.200 --> 0:25:38.000 vote for Gore. But down one was actually on the 0:25:38.040 --> 0:25:42.000 other side slightly lower is Pat Buchanan. And it was 0:25:42.119 --> 0:25:45.360 just a very confusing ballot. And they found that Pat 0:25:45.400 --> 0:25:49.200 Buchanan got about four times the vote in that county 0:25:49.240 --> 0:25:53.120 than he did nationwide. And that that alone, and I'm 0:25:53.119 --> 0:25:55.480 not saying no one knows what would have happened for sure, 0:25:55.880 --> 0:25:58.199 but it was a funky looking ballot. Pat Buchanan had 0:25:58.240 --> 0:26:01.800 a very highly skewed amount of votes, and those amount 0:26:01.800 --> 0:26:05.280 of votes would have firmly given Al Gore victory. 0:26:05.400 --> 0:26:09.119 Yeah, And to make it even more confusing, the candidates 0:26:09.119 --> 0:26:11.760 were numbered. Didn't even start with one and two, It 0:26:11.840 --> 0:26:15.080 started with three, and then Buchanan was four, Gore was five, 0:26:15.200 --> 0:26:18.920 McReynolds was six, with Renald was a socialist. So there 0:26:19.040 --> 0:26:22.639 was one way that you could accidentally not vote for Bush. 0:26:22.800 --> 0:26:26.280 You would accidentally vote for Buchanan below him. There were 0:26:26.280 --> 0:26:29.040 two ways to accidentally not vote for Gore. You could 0:26:29.080 --> 0:26:32.960 accidentally vote for Buchanan above Gore or McReynolds below Gore. 0:26:33.520 --> 0:26:36.359 And like you said, Pat Buchanan is very instructive. The 0:26:36.400 --> 0:26:39.440 number of votes he got from the butterfly ballots. Even 0:26:39.480 --> 0:26:43.119 comparing other Palm Beach County voters who voted by mail 0:26:43.280 --> 0:26:47.680 absentee ballot that wasn't a butterfly ballot, his numbers were 0:26:48.040 --> 0:26:53.560 way less compared to the butterfly ballot votes. So suffice 0:26:53.600 --> 0:26:55.560 to say that a lot of people accidentally voted for 0:26:55.600 --> 0:26:58.800 Pat Buchanan who meant to vote for Al Gore or 0:26:58.920 --> 0:27:02.640 George Bush, but probably more al Gore because Palm Beach 0:27:02.680 --> 0:27:06.920 County is a strongly Democratic county in Florida, all. 0:27:06.960 --> 0:27:10.160 Right, So in Miami Dade, which I think you said 0:27:10.280 --> 0:27:14.560 was the most populous Florida county. Initially, that three that 0:27:14.600 --> 0:27:17.080 three person canvassing board said they were going to manually 0:27:17.160 --> 0:27:21.280 recount six hundred and fifty thousand ballots. They realize that's 0:27:21.440 --> 0:27:24.880 overwhelming and probably impossible because there was a looming deadline. 0:27:25.359 --> 0:27:27.359 So they said, all right, why don't we just count 0:27:27.400 --> 0:27:30.399 the ten thousand, seven hundred and fifty ballots that the 0:27:30.480 --> 0:27:33.480 computer system rejected, because those are the ones that are 0:27:33.520 --> 0:27:35.879 in question, and we feel pretty good that the other 0:27:35.960 --> 0:27:38.639 votes had been you know, counted properly because they were 0:27:38.680 --> 0:27:45.160 fully punched, no chad issues. The GOP leaders said, hey, 0:27:45.200 --> 0:27:48.040 canvassing Board, you're trying to rig this in favor of Gore, 0:27:49.520 --> 0:27:52.600 And they tried to get all the local Cuban Americans 0:27:52.680 --> 0:27:54.480 riled up and saying like, hey, this kind of stuff 0:27:54.520 --> 0:27:57.480 that happens under Castro, like you need to come down 0:27:57.520 --> 0:28:03.200 here and stage a protest like this will not stand. 0:28:03.440 --> 0:28:06.440 And what ended up happening was what was called the 0:28:06.480 --> 0:28:11.479 Brooks Brothers Riot because it was not local Cubans. It 0:28:11.560 --> 0:28:15.760 was not, in fact, in most cases local Floridians that 0:28:15.880 --> 0:28:20.800 came to protest, but it was Washington DC political operatives 0:28:20.800 --> 0:28:24.320 and insiders that came down and they gave themselves away 0:28:24.520 --> 0:28:26.280 by the clothes that they wore. That's why it was 0:28:26.320 --> 0:28:29.200 called the Brooks Brothers riot. People at the time were 0:28:29.240 --> 0:28:32.120 saying like, and they were trying to deny it, saying 0:28:32.119 --> 0:28:35.240 they were like local Floridians, and they're like, well, you're 0:28:35.320 --> 0:28:37.639 certainly not dressed like somebody from Miami. You've got a 0:28:37.760 --> 0:28:41.760 Brooks Brother's suit code on, sport code on, in fact, 0:28:41.960 --> 0:28:44.840 most of you do. And they went down there and 0:28:44.880 --> 0:28:48.760 they were successful. They gathered in the plaza, they screamed 0:28:48.800 --> 0:28:52.640 voter fraud. They were banging on windows and handing out 0:28:52.680 --> 0:28:56.480 crying towels and saying you're a sore loser. And it worked. 0:28:56.520 --> 0:28:59.120 They succumbed to the pressure and stopped the recount. 0:28:59.200 --> 0:29:01.400 Yeah. So, by the way, Ted Cruz was one of 0:29:01.400 --> 0:29:04.040 those operatives. He was in the who was in the riot? 0:29:04.080 --> 0:29:07.360 This state is essentially fake riot. Although if you read 0:29:07.400 --> 0:29:09.720 an interview there's a i think a Washington Post interview 0:29:09.760 --> 0:29:13.360 with Brad Blakeman, who is the guy who was responsible 0:29:13.400 --> 0:29:18.680 for staging this protest and organizing it, that he sounds 0:29:18.720 --> 0:29:21.959 like he genuinely believed that this canvassing board was trying 0:29:22.000 --> 0:29:26.080 to throw the election to Gore, and that that really 0:29:26.080 --> 0:29:28.400 fueled a lot of it. So it's difficult in that 0:29:28.480 --> 0:29:34.640 respect to fault him and his group for for protesting 0:29:34.760 --> 0:29:38.320 like that. On the other hand, it's very clear that 0:29:38.360 --> 0:29:41.760 this Brooks brother Brother's riot, they were accused of violence 0:29:41.800 --> 0:29:47.200 against election officials. They were at the very least very 0:29:47.240 --> 0:29:50.040 hostile and in your face. Again, these canvassing boards are 0:29:50.080 --> 0:29:52.920 not not cut out for this kind of life. They 0:29:52.920 --> 0:29:54.960 didn't know what the heck they were signing up for, 0:29:55.520 --> 0:30:00.360 and the Brooks Brothers rioters essentially intimidated them out of 0:30:00.400 --> 0:30:04.840 this very democratic process of recounting by hand ballots that 0:30:04.880 --> 0:30:07.480 had been rejected by the computer. There was no evidence 0:30:07.520 --> 0:30:13.400 whatsoever that the computer was selectively rejecting Gore ballots in 0:30:13.520 --> 0:30:17.360 order for him to come in and clinch the presidency 0:30:17.360 --> 0:30:20.560 in a very dramatic win in Miami Dade. It doesn't 0:30:20.600 --> 0:30:24.400 make any sense that would have favored Gore. What they 0:30:24.400 --> 0:30:27.600 were doing was trying to stop the recount in because 0:30:27.600 --> 0:30:31.120 Bus ahead, because Bush was ahead. That was the entire point. 0:30:31.360 --> 0:30:36.200 On November ninth, the Secretary of State, Catherine Harris was 0:30:36.360 --> 0:30:41.280 trying to certify the election because Bush had three hundred 0:30:41.320 --> 0:30:44.800 and twenty seven more votes than Gore. And so what 0:30:44.840 --> 0:30:47.200 these Republican operatives were doing in the Brooks Brothers right, 0:30:47.520 --> 0:30:51.600 was trying to stop the count right there, to keep 0:30:51.640 --> 0:30:55.000 George Bush's lead. That was their goal. So it seems 0:30:55.000 --> 0:30:57.880 like Blakeman's view that what they were doing was illegal 0:30:58.040 --> 0:30:59.680 may or may not be disingenuous. 0:30:59.720 --> 0:31:04.200 I'm not sure, right, Yeah, So these recounts are happening, 0:31:04.240 --> 0:31:07.560 and the Secretary of State Harris, like you said, all 0:31:07.560 --> 0:31:10.640 of a sudden, the Florida State Supreme Court got involved 0:31:11.000 --> 0:31:13.880 and she wanted to certify, like you said on the fourteenth, 0:31:13.880 --> 0:31:18.160 but the Supreme Court said, no, you have to count 0:31:18.160 --> 0:31:21.880 all the votes. You can't certify the election. You need 0:31:21.880 --> 0:31:24.000 to count them all. You can't just throw out the 0:31:24.040 --> 0:31:27.120 votes that are in dispute. So there are four counties 0:31:27.200 --> 0:31:29.840 that you need to do a hand recount on. And 0:31:29.960 --> 0:31:34.320 over the next month, between November and December, there were 0:31:34.880 --> 0:31:39.320 more than fifty lawsuits being filed by all sides. Everyone 0:31:39.400 --> 0:31:42.760 all over the place is filing lawsuits about recounting and 0:31:42.800 --> 0:31:47.760 counting and deadlines and different various counties across Florida, and 0:31:47.840 --> 0:31:50.760 eventually on December eighth, the Florida Supreme Court came out 0:31:50.800 --> 0:31:53.800 and this is very important, and ruled four to three 0:31:54.440 --> 0:31:57.280 that you have to count what's called the under votes, 0:31:57.360 --> 0:32:02.200 meaning these votes that are unclear that the Bush campaign 0:32:02.240 --> 0:32:05.280 wanted to just throw out. You got to count all 0:32:05.280 --> 0:32:07.800 these votes, and if you haven't done that yet in 0:32:07.840 --> 0:32:13.080 these counties, you got to do it. The Bush campaign said, well, 0:32:13.240 --> 0:32:15.800 we don't want to count all the votes because we're ahead. 0:32:16.000 --> 0:32:19.200 The Gore campaign said, well, great, count all of the votes. 0:32:19.320 --> 0:32:24.080 That's a democracy at work. And so the Supreme Court 0:32:24.120 --> 0:32:27.440 of the United States gets involved, and all of a sudden, 0:32:27.600 --> 0:32:31.280 on December eleventh, you are getting oral arguments on the 0:32:31.280 --> 0:32:35.800 Supreme Court of the United States about how like basically 0:32:36.520 --> 0:32:40.840 a lot of things, chiefly one of which is should 0:32:40.840 --> 0:32:44.240 the federal government get involved when states are supposed to 0:32:44.320 --> 0:32:45.360 run their own elections. 0:32:45.640 --> 0:32:48.720 Yeah, I say, we take a little break and just 0:32:48.760 --> 0:32:52.240 prepare ourselves for the catastrophe that is Bush v. 0:32:52.400 --> 0:32:52.600 Gore. 0:32:52.760 --> 0:33:22.440 What do you say, let's do it so Chuck like 0:33:22.480 --> 0:33:24.880 you said, The Florida Supreme Court said, no, you need 0:33:24.880 --> 0:33:28.240 to handcount all of those ballots that the computers rejected 0:33:28.240 --> 0:33:32.720 to figure out who who won. And the Bush campaign 0:33:33.040 --> 0:33:36.200 sued to get that stopped and got it picked up 0:33:36.200 --> 0:33:41.520 by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court on December ninth, 0:33:41.800 --> 0:33:46.160 issue to stay very strange. That is very unusual for 0:33:46.200 --> 0:33:50.000 the Supreme Court to get involved in a state court ruling. 0:33:50.320 --> 0:33:52.240 Federalism basically said, you don't do that. 0:33:52.400 --> 0:33:52.720 Stop. 0:33:53.080 --> 0:33:57.560 Yeah, state was stop the handcount, don't do that anymore. 0:33:58.000 --> 0:34:02.280 And then, even more unusual, without the Bush campaign petitioning 0:34:02.280 --> 0:34:04.479 for the Supreme Court to hear the case, the Supreme 0:34:04.480 --> 0:34:08.319 Court agreed to hear the case, and what they did 0:34:08.680 --> 0:34:10.000 was take this up. 0:34:10.080 --> 0:34:12.000 It sounds confusing, yeah, but yeah. 0:34:12.080 --> 0:34:14.560 No one in the Bush camp asked the Supreme Court 0:34:14.600 --> 0:34:17.719 to decide on the merits of the case. And yet 0:34:17.760 --> 0:34:20.160 the Supreme Court decided to decide on the merits of 0:34:20.200 --> 0:34:22.439 the case. And again, this is highly unusual. A state 0:34:22.440 --> 0:34:28.279 supreme court ruling for a state matter is pretty much 0:34:28.320 --> 0:34:33.400 sacricanct in Supreme Court, like US Supreme Court tradition, Supreme 0:34:33.400 --> 0:34:35.320 Court does not get involved in that kind of stuff. 0:34:35.360 --> 0:34:37.680 And they said, hey, let's get involved in this, this 0:34:38.400 --> 0:34:39.760 hornet's nest right now. 0:34:40.840 --> 0:34:41.640 Yeah exactly. 0:34:41.800 --> 0:34:44.600 So what we ended up with were a couple of 0:34:44.719 --> 0:34:49.000 rulings there was a seven to two ruling that it 0:34:49.160 --> 0:34:53.440 violated the equal Protection clause of the fourteenth Amendment, because 0:34:53.440 --> 0:34:57.440 the argument from the Bush side was, hey, listen, there 0:34:57.480 --> 0:35:02.680 isn't a codified statewide way that everyone has agreed to 0:35:02.719 --> 0:35:07.040 do these recounts, and so that violates the equal protection clause. 0:35:07.560 --> 0:35:10.239 And on the Gore side, he was saying, well, there 0:35:10.360 --> 0:35:12.759 is a codified way, maybe not in the way they 0:35:12.800 --> 0:35:15.839 do it, but the law is intent to vote and 0:35:15.880 --> 0:35:17.000 that's on the books. 0:35:17.000 --> 0:35:18.719 So that's how we should decide, right. 0:35:19.320 --> 0:35:21.960 And so the idea of applying the equal protection clause 0:35:22.000 --> 0:35:27.560 doesn't really make sense because in America every state has 0:35:27.640 --> 0:35:29.880 different ways of voting, not just among the states but 0:35:29.920 --> 0:35:33.600 among the counties. In an individual state, it's all over 0:35:33.640 --> 0:35:35.920 the place, Like it's up to the county to decide 0:35:35.960 --> 0:35:38.279 what kind of voting machines they want to use, how 0:35:38.320 --> 0:35:41.520 many to have, Like it's up to generally the county, 0:35:41.719 --> 0:35:44.600 if not the state. Right, So that's a really weird 0:35:44.640 --> 0:35:47.719 thing to say, no, this particular state is violating the 0:35:47.760 --> 0:35:51.400 equal protection clause. So we're going to say stop doing 0:35:51.440 --> 0:35:53.560 this handcount We're going to rule in favor of that 0:35:53.640 --> 0:35:56.319 because of the equal Protection clause, and then secondly, the 0:35:56.320 --> 0:35:58.759 other thing about the equal protection clause, Chuck, is what 0:35:58.800 --> 0:36:02.319 they were saying was everyone is not going to have 0:36:02.360 --> 0:36:06.360 their vote counted because it's because of the inequity and 0:36:06.440 --> 0:36:08.640 how you vote. So what we're gonna do is just 0:36:08.960 --> 0:36:12.960 make sure we don't count some people's votes to protect 0:36:13.280 --> 0:36:16.800 them and keep them equal. Doesn't make any sense whatsoever. 0:36:17.760 --> 0:36:20.040 Yeah, And on that first point, I believe it was 0:36:20.080 --> 0:36:24.920 either Briar or Suitor in the dissent said kind of 0:36:24.960 --> 0:36:26.960 pointed out what you were saying. Was saying like, well, hey, 0:36:27.040 --> 0:36:31.040 if that means that no state has a fair election, right, 0:36:31.400 --> 0:36:34.160 because every single state and every single county, like you said, 0:36:34.239 --> 0:36:36.760 has different like Josh Clark will one day say, he said, 0:36:37.840 --> 0:36:39.719 has different ways of doing things. So if you say 0:36:39.719 --> 0:36:43.840 that about this, then no state has a free election 0:36:44.080 --> 0:36:46.520 or a fair election or whatever. Everything is called into 0:36:46.600 --> 0:36:50.719 question and that can't be the case. The other concurring 0:36:51.080 --> 0:36:53.279 decision was even more important, and I think we said 0:36:53.280 --> 0:36:56.440 it was seven to two because Briar and Suitor actually, 0:36:57.200 --> 0:37:00.000 as quote unquote liberal justices sided with the quote unquote 0:37:00.440 --> 0:37:01.600 conservative side. 0:37:01.400 --> 0:37:03.960 Which is so weird because it's such a bad legal argument. 0:37:04.880 --> 0:37:07.839 I know, I don't know. Well, it's interesting. Maybe it 0:37:07.880 --> 0:37:10.080 wasn't Suitor or Brier then that said what I said. 0:37:10.280 --> 0:37:12.200 It was probably John Paul Stevens. 0:37:12.400 --> 0:37:15.480 Oh, I think it was Stevens. But the concurring and 0:37:15.520 --> 0:37:18.560 this is really the most important decision, which was a 0:37:18.600 --> 0:37:21.959 five to four ruling on you know, I know they're 0:37:22.000 --> 0:37:25.360 supposed to be impartial, but there were five conservative justices 0:37:25.400 --> 0:37:28.319 at the time for liberal justices, and it ended up 0:37:28.360 --> 0:37:32.640 a five to four concurrent ruling that not only can 0:37:32.680 --> 0:37:34.720 you not do the recount, but like, there's no time 0:37:35.360 --> 0:37:39.080 and because of what's called safe harbor, which is this 0:37:39.239 --> 0:37:43.239 date a deadline for states to resolve issues over the 0:37:43.239 --> 0:37:47.480 selection of their state electors, and that was approaching, whereas 0:37:47.520 --> 0:37:51.320 the liberal justices said, well, hold on, that doesn't mean 0:37:51.800 --> 0:37:54.680 that's not when they cast their vote at the Electoral College. 0:37:54.960 --> 0:37:58.000 There's still six days after that. There's plenty A there's 0:37:58.000 --> 0:38:01.279 plenty of time to do that. And B had you 0:38:01.400 --> 0:38:04.719 not issued a state to begin with, they would be 0:38:04.840 --> 0:38:06.960 done by now probably and we wouldn't have even been 0:38:07.000 --> 0:38:09.880 called on. So we ended up causing a problem with 0:38:09.920 --> 0:38:13.160 this stay that we are now ruling that we're now 0:38:13.239 --> 0:38:15.800 ruling on by instituting that stay. 0:38:15.920 --> 0:38:19.120 They caused the problem. It's really just perfectly put. They 0:38:19.280 --> 0:38:21.480 caused the problem that they were saying was the problem, 0:38:21.560 --> 0:38:24.040 and the reason that they were saying, you have to 0:38:24.040 --> 0:38:26.920 stop the recount. It's too late. Isn't that nuts? 0:38:27.520 --> 0:38:27.719 Yeah? 0:38:27.880 --> 0:38:31.200 RBG and her very famously in her descent, usually say 0:38:31.480 --> 0:38:35.759 I respectfully descent, and she just said I dissent, which 0:38:35.840 --> 0:38:38.279 was doesn't sound like a big deal, but those words matter, 0:38:38.400 --> 0:38:40.920 and it was a big deal. And she was also 0:38:41.080 --> 0:38:43.520 like saying, hey, wait a minute, this contradicts all of 0:38:43.560 --> 0:38:47.359 our federalist principles that this is a state matter and. 0:38:47.280 --> 0:38:49.440 That we shouldn't get involved with this to begin with. 0:38:49.560 --> 0:38:50.520 So it was. 0:38:50.480 --> 0:38:54.560 A not only a landmark ruling, but one that was 0:38:54.640 --> 0:38:59.200 just fraught with upset on all sides, up and down 0:38:59.239 --> 0:39:03.000 the political spectrm into the citizens of the United States. 0:39:02.920 --> 0:39:06.040 Even more suspiciously. There's a really great article from the 0:39:06.080 --> 0:39:12.960 Nevada Law Journal from twenty twelve written by Marcus Broden, 0:39:13.760 --> 0:39:17.480 and he points out there was a lot of books 0:39:17.480 --> 0:39:20.440 written about this afterward, and he said that at least 0:39:20.480 --> 0:39:25.360 three of the conservative justices had like personal what was 0:39:25.400 --> 0:39:28.040 it called when you're supposed to accuse yourself. I guess 0:39:28.040 --> 0:39:28.680 conflicts of. 0:39:28.600 --> 0:39:29.759 Interest, Yeah, yeah. 0:39:29.880 --> 0:39:35.440 One was that Scalia's Sons law firm was arguing the 0:39:35.480 --> 0:39:38.520 case in front of the Supreme Court for the Bush side. 0:39:39.400 --> 0:39:44.680 Another was that Clarence Thomas's wife, Ginny was looking for 0:39:44.800 --> 0:39:47.160 it was like accepting resumes on behalf of the Heritage 0:39:47.200 --> 0:39:50.880 Foundation to set up a Bush administration. And then thirdly, 0:39:52.320 --> 0:39:53.560 I think Sandrade. 0:39:53.200 --> 0:39:55.200 O'Connor, Yeah, she was trying to retire. 0:39:55.239 --> 0:39:57.680 I think, yes, she wanted to retire, so she didn't 0:39:57.680 --> 0:39:59.279 want Gore to win because she didn't want to have 0:39:59.320 --> 0:40:01.880 to stay on for four more years so that a 0:40:01.960 --> 0:40:05.680 Democrat wouldn't pick her replacement. So these three had like actual, 0:40:05.760 --> 0:40:09.160 like personal vested interests in the outcome of this election. 0:40:09.480 --> 0:40:12.680 Three of the five did, at least, and even putting 0:40:12.680 --> 0:40:15.800 that aside, the fact that the Supreme Court got involved 0:40:15.840 --> 0:40:20.560 in the first place was a terrible idea. The fact 0:40:20.560 --> 0:40:24.160 that they decided the election was a terrible idea. The 0:40:24.239 --> 0:40:27.120 legal idea that they ruled on was terrible. And then 0:40:27.160 --> 0:40:30.240 the idea that anybody had even an iota of personal 0:40:30.239 --> 0:40:33.279 interest in the outcome was a really big deal. And 0:40:33.320 --> 0:40:37.480 today the Supreme Court is definitely under question as far 0:40:37.520 --> 0:40:41.600 as political activism's concerned, and I'm sure it has been 0:40:41.640 --> 0:40:44.400 for a while, but it really feels like common knowledge 0:40:44.440 --> 0:40:48.120 these days. Yeah, in two thousand, that was really new. 0:40:48.280 --> 0:40:51.680 That was a really big deal. People thought very very 0:40:51.719 --> 0:40:54.560 differently about the Supreme Court in two thousand compared to 0:40:54.640 --> 0:40:55.840 how they think about them today. 0:40:56.600 --> 0:40:59.120 Yeah, and on those a couple of things you mentioned 0:40:59.600 --> 0:41:01.600 Scale Son, who was part of the law firm that 0:41:01.680 --> 0:41:05.960 argued the Bush case. He very soon after the election 0:41:06.080 --> 0:41:10.120 was given a cabinet position, right right, And Sandrad O'Connor, 0:41:10.160 --> 0:41:13.319 this isn't just speculation that she wanted to retire, Like, 0:41:13.480 --> 0:41:17.640 wasn't she It was either on tape or like people 0:41:17.680 --> 0:41:19.640 that were with her when they called it initially for 0:41:19.640 --> 0:41:23.640 Gore like said she was like, all crap, basically, yeah, 0:41:23.800 --> 0:41:26.480 like this means I got to work another four years. 0:41:26.520 --> 0:41:29.440 She said, this was this is this is terrible. And 0:41:29.480 --> 0:41:32.400 her husband explained that they had been planning on retiring 0:41:32.440 --> 0:41:33.879 but now she couldn't if Gore won. 0:41:34.480 --> 0:41:36.799 All right, So just want to clear up that wasn't 0:41:36.840 --> 0:41:39.080 just like, you know, some opinion that we're living out there. 0:41:39.000 --> 0:41:41.560 Right, and then sorry, there's one more legal thing that 0:41:41.840 --> 0:41:47.759 Gore camp really dropped the ball because legally, the Bush 0:41:47.960 --> 0:41:51.000 campaign had no legal standing in this matter. They weren't 0:41:51.000 --> 0:41:54.440 the injured party. The injured party was the potentially disenfranchised 0:41:54.520 --> 0:41:57.359 voters of Florida, not the Bush campaign. So the Bush 0:41:57.400 --> 0:42:00.799 campaign had no standing to bring this case to the 0:42:00.800 --> 0:42:03.239 Supreme Court in the first place. And the Gore team 0:42:03.480 --> 0:42:05.920 didn't even mention it. And that might have been the 0:42:05.960 --> 0:42:08.560 thing that put enough public pressure on the Supreme Court 0:42:08.840 --> 0:42:11.400 to just toss it and say, no, whatever the Florida 0:42:11.440 --> 0:42:14.239 Supreme Court said stays, and they just dropped the ball 0:42:14.280 --> 0:42:14.720 that hard. 0:42:15.239 --> 0:42:18.040 Yeah, and this isn't a surmising because we're not smart 0:42:18.160 --> 0:42:22.759 enough legally speaking, Like multitudes of legal scholars have come 0:42:22.800 --> 0:42:25.040 out and said, like, why didn't they argue standing like 0:42:25.080 --> 0:42:27.080 that was what would have changed the outcome. 0:42:27.239 --> 0:42:30.239 Yeah, it's crazy how many just small things would have 0:42:30.320 --> 0:42:31.880 changed the outcome. Let's talk about that. 0:42:33.160 --> 0:42:38.040 Sure, So Libya appropriately caused this autopsy report because after 0:42:38.120 --> 0:42:40.399 something like this, they don't just go all right, well, 0:42:40.400 --> 0:42:43.200 that went as it should go, and everything was super smooth. 0:42:43.400 --> 0:42:45.920 I mean, regardless of who won or lost, if it 0:42:45.920 --> 0:42:47.440 would have been Gore, it would have been the same thing. 0:42:47.480 --> 0:42:49.879 It would have been like, boy, what a mess, right, 0:42:49.960 --> 0:42:52.120 This is not how elections are supposed to be decided 0:42:52.120 --> 0:42:55.480 in the United States. So afterward there were all kinds 0:42:55.480 --> 0:42:59.520 of studies, all kinds of people writing legal papers and 0:42:59.560 --> 0:43:03.960 just studying the data. The University of Chicago's National Opinion 0:43:04.000 --> 0:43:07.319 Research Center, which is an independent organization, they did a 0:43:07.360 --> 0:43:11.239 review and they said, what we found out was that 0:43:11.440 --> 0:43:16.319 more Florida voters attempted to vote for Gore, but enough 0:43:16.320 --> 0:43:20.759 of them, like you know, mark their ballots inappropriately, and 0:43:21.360 --> 0:43:26.520 that not only that, but like each side would tried 0:43:26.560 --> 0:43:28.840 to do things that would have hurt their own camp 0:43:29.080 --> 0:43:33.080 Like I believe it was. Gore was trying to get 0:43:33.080 --> 0:43:36.799 these four counties hand recounted that actually would have ended 0:43:36.840 --> 0:43:39.720 up helping Bush. And at one point Bush was trying 0:43:39.760 --> 0:43:45.080 to make the detached at two Corners vote count that 0:43:45.080 --> 0:43:48.200 would have helped Gore. So it was just a big 0:43:48.480 --> 0:43:51.839 play to spaghetti as far as you know, the time, 0:43:51.880 --> 0:43:55.759 because they were all just sort of very quickly in 0:43:55.840 --> 0:43:59.360 real time, reacting to things that they never thought they 0:43:59.400 --> 0:44:01.520 would have to react to, and sometimes doing things that 0:44:01.560 --> 0:44:03.640 would have even hurt their chances at winning. 0:44:03.960 --> 0:44:06.480 Yeah, And another study found that just in Palm Beach 0:44:06.520 --> 0:44:09.640 County alone, the over votes people who voted for more 0:44:09.680 --> 0:44:13.920 than one person where there were just two. The ones 0:44:13.960 --> 0:44:17.799 that went to that included Pat Buchanan. They decided about 0:44:17.880 --> 0:44:20.560 seventy five percent of those were because of ballot design. 0:44:21.000 --> 0:44:24.480 And I think two thousand votes would have gone to 0:44:24.680 --> 0:44:27.440 al Gore, which would have flipped the entire state because 0:44:27.480 --> 0:44:31.040 George Bush won Florida by five hundred and thirty seven votes. Right, 0:44:31.120 --> 0:44:35.560 So it's not one hundred percent clear what would have happened, 0:44:36.080 --> 0:44:39.879 because even if that recount would have gone on, other 0:44:39.960 --> 0:44:43.160 studies have shown like no, actually Bush might have still 0:44:43.200 --> 0:44:47.600 won based on the autopsy we conducted. So it's still 0:44:48.120 --> 0:44:50.440 in twenty twenty three not clear who actually won the 0:44:50.480 --> 0:44:51.400 two thousand election. 0:44:52.320 --> 0:44:55.080 Yeah, and if you're asking yourself, like all right, Florida 0:44:55.120 --> 0:44:58.560 had a law in place about intent to vote, as 0:44:58.680 --> 0:45:02.200 like that's what matters. One way that you can measure 0:45:02.280 --> 0:45:05.120 intent is like to look at that chad and see, 0:45:05.600 --> 0:45:07.880 you know, was it clearly trying to be punched for 0:45:07.920 --> 0:45:11.080 a candidate. Another way you can do that is as 0:45:11.120 --> 0:45:12.960 a right to remedy. You can get in touch with 0:45:13.040 --> 0:45:16.160 people and say, all right, you got another chance, like 0:45:16.239 --> 0:45:19.319 it looks like you marked your ballot in an inconsistent way. 0:45:20.560 --> 0:45:23.120 Try again. And they did this in different counties in 0:45:23.160 --> 0:45:26.279 some counties in Florida, which it really helped. It led 0:45:26.280 --> 0:45:29.120 to an error rate of less than one percent. But 0:45:29.360 --> 0:45:32.080 in the only predominantly black county in the state of 0:45:32.120 --> 0:45:36.040 Florida at the time, Gadsden County, they did not allow 0:45:36.120 --> 0:45:39.400 them to remedy the ballots, and there was a twelve 0:45:39.440 --> 0:45:44.440 point four percent invalidated ballot rate compared to under one percent. 0:45:44.600 --> 0:45:47.600 So there's just hinky stuff going on all over the place. 0:45:47.840 --> 0:45:51.200 Yeah, and Bush Fi Gore is like a toxic zombie 0:45:51.280 --> 0:45:54.120 legal case that won't die and should have never happened 0:45:54.120 --> 0:45:56.560 in the first place. But there is a really strange 0:45:56.600 --> 0:45:59.839 appendage to that that we've talked about before, I think 0:46:00.040 --> 0:46:04.920 in our Supreme Court President Judicial Precedent's episode, Yeah, I 0:46:04.960 --> 0:46:07.160 think so, where they said that it's limited to the 0:46:07.200 --> 0:46:11.000 present circumstances. And as that Mark Boden guy wrote in 0:46:11.000 --> 0:46:14.000 the Nevada Law Review, they basically attached like a warning sign, 0:46:14.120 --> 0:46:17.880 like warning, do not use this as precedent. Essentially, Supreme 0:46:17.920 --> 0:46:21.160 courts just deciding the president here and this doesn't apply 0:46:21.239 --> 0:46:24.320 to any other ruling because it shouldn't have happened anyway 0:46:24.360 --> 0:46:27.400 in the first place, right, and yet it's still cited 0:46:27.440 --> 0:46:31.640 as precedent all over the places cited by both sides actually, 0:46:31.680 --> 0:46:35.080 even though it shouldn't be whatsoever. And that's just one 0:46:35.360 --> 0:46:39.480 of this kind of afterlife of the two thousand election 0:46:39.600 --> 0:46:40.600 that's still going on. 0:46:41.560 --> 0:46:45.600 Yeah, absolutely a lot of things have changed since then. 0:46:46.320 --> 0:46:49.520 Ralph Nader for the Green Party certainly did not win 0:46:49.560 --> 0:46:52.680 any friends on the left because he got close to 0:46:52.680 --> 0:46:55.239 one hundred thousand votes in Florida, you know, most of 0:46:55.280 --> 0:46:56.160 which probably would. 0:46:55.960 --> 0:46:57.520 Have gone to al Gore. 0:46:57.600 --> 0:47:01.680 And he ran again even though everyone was like, I 0:47:01.800 --> 0:47:04.880 love you, Nator, but stop screwing up the elections if 0:47:04.920 --> 0:47:07.480 you're a Democrat, and he was like, yeah, I don't care, 0:47:07.560 --> 0:47:09.000 you know, I believe in what I'm doing. And so 0:47:09.040 --> 0:47:12.719 he ran again in two thousand and four. You know, 0:47:12.800 --> 0:47:15.520 as far as mounting a third party bid, that it 0:47:15.680 --> 0:47:18.560 certainly put a damper on that. A lot of people 0:47:18.680 --> 0:47:20.800 say the two party system being so locked in stone 0:47:20.840 --> 0:47:24.040 is one of the big problems in this country. And 0:47:24.600 --> 0:47:28.759 another thing that happened was states immediately were like, oh boy, 0:47:30.000 --> 0:47:34.000 we can't do this again. Florida for sure, and other 0:47:34.040 --> 0:47:36.520 states were like these punch cards, like we got to 0:47:36.560 --> 0:47:38.200 get into the we got to get with the times 0:47:38.200 --> 0:47:41.120 here and have a more secure way of voting than 0:47:41.200 --> 0:47:43.560 just people punching a card like it's you know, eighteen 0:47:43.640 --> 0:47:47.839 seventy five, and you will see no more chads. All 0:47:47.880 --> 0:47:51.239 these changes sort of nationwide from state to state, culminated 0:47:51.280 --> 0:47:55.680 in the most recent twenty twenty election, where in Donald 0:47:55.719 --> 0:47:59.799 Trump's own Department of Homeland Security and Cybersecurity and Infra 0:48:00.000 --> 0:48:03.799 Structure Security Agency said was the most secure election in 0:48:03.840 --> 0:48:07.560 American history, with no evidence that any voting system deleted 0:48:08.160 --> 0:48:11.200 or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised. 0:48:11.760 --> 0:48:15.840 So thankfully, so many changes were put in place to 0:48:15.880 --> 0:48:17.600 make sure something like this didn't happen again. 0:48:17.760 --> 0:48:20.320 Yeah, and the electoral college is kind of this weird 0:48:20.360 --> 0:48:23.439 wonky thing that happened in the background in until two 0:48:23.480 --> 0:48:25.839 thousand and it really kind of brought to the flour 0:48:25.960 --> 0:48:29.759 like what a potent and also undemocratic institution this is. 0:48:30.320 --> 0:48:31.640 And so a lot of people are like, we need 0:48:31.640 --> 0:48:33.200 to get rid of this thing. And apparently, in a 0:48:33.280 --> 0:48:36.600 twenty twenty poll by the Pew Organization, fifty eight percent 0:48:36.680 --> 0:48:40.200 of American adults said they would support a constitutional amendment 0:48:40.280 --> 0:48:43.160 that said the electoral college is nil and void. 0:48:44.000 --> 0:48:45.760 Well, you're never going to get that on a ballot. 0:48:46.280 --> 0:48:48.920 I don't know, man, I don't know. I don't understand 0:48:48.960 --> 0:48:52.960 why it's not already. It is such an enormous problem. 0:48:53.520 --> 0:48:54.960 Yeah, I wish there were more what do you call 0:48:55.000 --> 0:48:59.600 those referendums, Yeah, where they would just let human the 0:49:00.120 --> 0:49:03.279 or and public vote on things rather than people to 0:49:03.400 --> 0:49:04.320 decide the things. 0:49:04.640 --> 0:49:07.359 Well, that's what's been going on with abortion access. They've 0:49:07.440 --> 0:49:11.799 been they've been strategically purposefully getting them on ballots that 0:49:11.960 --> 0:49:15.279 don't have other politicians right to get people to just 0:49:15.560 --> 0:49:18.680 vote on the one issue. Yes, yeah, and it is 0:49:18.719 --> 0:49:21.200 a great idea because then you actually see what the 0:49:21.200 --> 0:49:23.799 people actually think about it. You know, it's I think 0:49:23.840 --> 0:49:25.160 that's a great idea too, Chuck. 0:49:25.880 --> 0:49:30.040 Yeah, however, way any of it goes, let people decide, 0:49:30.640 --> 0:49:36.000 because I think we've all seen that elected representatives, you know, 0:49:36.160 --> 0:49:38.880 they don't always necessarily reflect the will of their people, 0:49:38.920 --> 0:49:39.640 you know what I'm saying. 0:49:39.719 --> 0:49:42.400 No, And another thing is, I mean pretty much everybody 0:49:42.400 --> 0:49:44.480 on both sides can point to Congress and be like, 0:49:44.600 --> 0:49:50.040 you guys, don't do enough these days. If voters voted 0:49:50.040 --> 0:49:53.680 on referenda, then you know, the voters could do the 0:49:53.719 --> 0:49:56.120 work that Congress is supposed to be doing passing laws. 0:49:56.520 --> 0:49:56.800 Yeah. 0:49:56.880 --> 0:49:58.440 Well, they don't want to do that because one of 0:49:58.480 --> 0:50:01.480 those first referenda would be term limits, and they're like. 0:50:01.480 --> 0:50:02.640 Oh no, let's not do that. 0:50:03.960 --> 0:50:04.759 You got anything else? 0:50:05.960 --> 0:50:06.160 Oh? 0:50:06.280 --> 0:50:08.920 Man, I got nothing else. Can't wait till next November. 0:50:08.960 --> 0:50:09.839 That's going me a lot of fun. 0:50:10.080 --> 0:50:14.240 I don't know if I can do it. Chuck, Well, 0:50:14.360 --> 0:50:16.680 since Chuck has laughed at my pain, I think everybody 0:50:16.719 --> 0:50:20.440 it's time for listener, ma'am. 0:50:20.600 --> 0:50:23.080 Oh, this one's a great one. This is from Dan 0:50:24.719 --> 0:50:28.440 Sheaflin and Dan Well, I'm just gonna read it. It's 0:50:28.440 --> 0:50:30.560 pretty amazing. I hope you saw this one. If not, 0:50:30.600 --> 0:50:33.280 you should go look it up. Okay, hey, guys, as 0:50:33.320 --> 0:50:35.840 I write you, I'm ensconced in the warm cab of 0:50:35.880 --> 0:50:40.239 a Caterpillar tractor, jostling along the snow covered Ross ice 0:50:40.239 --> 0:50:44.040 shelf on my way to the Eminson Scott South Pole station. 0:50:44.280 --> 0:50:46.000 I did not see this. 0:50:46.000 --> 0:50:46.520 This is cool. 0:50:46.560 --> 0:50:49.560 He included a picture of this caravan five days ago 0:50:49.600 --> 0:50:53.560 when we left McMurdo station on Ross Island the starting 0:50:53.560 --> 0:50:56.800 point in the South Pole traverse. We were one thousand 0:50:56.800 --> 0:50:59.160 and thirty eight miles from the South Pole. My current 0:50:59.200 --> 0:51:02.000 ground speed is seven point one miles per hour, which 0:51:02.040 --> 0:51:05.080 is a pretty good pace. Our speed can be much 0:51:05.120 --> 0:51:07.239 slower at times, depending on snow and a variety of 0:51:07.239 --> 0:51:10.360 other conditions. There are fourteen of us who embarked on 0:51:10.400 --> 0:51:13.440 this twenty five to thirty day journey, each in our 0:51:13.440 --> 0:51:16.920 own tractor. Are hauling mostly fuel to resupply the South 0:51:16.920 --> 0:51:21.560 Pole station, but also cargo and the living modules where 0:51:21.560 --> 0:51:25.600 we eat and sleep and use the bathroom. Our toilet 0:51:25.719 --> 0:51:30.200 is called the in Sinnolette and you guessed it. It's 0:51:30.239 --> 0:51:34.359 a turd burning rig, fairy glamorous. So they're in these 0:51:34.400 --> 0:51:36.839 tractors just slow rolling it to the South Pole. 0:51:37.280 --> 0:51:38.960 That's a make deliver supplies and fuel. 0:51:39.160 --> 0:51:40.600 That's really amazing stuff. 0:51:41.480 --> 0:51:43.520 He had a picture of this caravan is so cool 0:51:44.120 --> 0:51:45.600 as you can imagine. I have a lot of time 0:51:45.640 --> 0:51:47.040 sitting in this tractor, and quite a bit of that 0:51:47.080 --> 0:51:50.080 time as dedicated to listening to podcast yours included. I've 0:51:50.120 --> 0:51:52.840 been a faithful listener since twenty ten. We have a 0:51:52.840 --> 0:51:55.960 whiteboard inside our galley and a post I post daily 0:51:56.719 --> 0:51:59.960 a podcast recommendation and today I put up naked mole Rat. 0:52:00.040 --> 0:52:02.920 It's a face only a mother could love, because that 0:52:02.920 --> 0:52:05.360 one blew my mind. Guys, how can they be so interesting? 0:52:06.560 --> 0:52:08.839 And that's from Dan Shifflin, and he says big shout 0:52:08.840 --> 0:52:11.760 out to his wife Marcy as well as the guys 0:52:11.840 --> 0:52:15.080 on the traverse. So, man, you don't think about people 0:52:15.080 --> 0:52:18.239 out there doing these wacky jobs. But Dan and the 0:52:18.280 --> 0:52:20.160 gang out there on the on the slow train are 0:52:20.200 --> 0:52:20.520 doing it. 0:52:20.600 --> 0:52:22.759 That's really cool. Thanks a lot, Dan. Shout out to 0:52:22.800 --> 0:52:26.200 Marcy for putting up with Dan driving around the South 0:52:26.239 --> 0:52:30.320 Pole on a slow train. Yeah, and thanks for the 0:52:30.360 --> 0:52:32.360 picture too, Dan, I'm looking for I can't find it 0:52:32.440 --> 0:52:34.959 right now, so send it to me, Chuck. I will 0:52:35.320 --> 0:52:37.240 if you want to be like Dan and just blow 0:52:37.239 --> 0:52:40.200 our minds with a picture of where you are or 0:52:40.239 --> 0:52:42.640 some info about what you do. We would love that 0:52:43.200 --> 0:52:46.160 you can blow our minds by wrapping that information up 0:52:46.239 --> 0:52:49.000 into an email and sending it off to Stuff Podcasts 0:52:49.040 --> 0:52:52.719 at iHeartRadio dot com. 0:52:54.120 --> 0:52:56.439 Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. 0:52:56.920 --> 0:53:00.000 For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, 0:53:00.320 --> 0:53:03.240 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,