What really happened in Florida in 2000?

One of the talking points that Donald Trump is attempting to use to bolster his extraordinarily specious claims that the election is rigged in 2016 is what happened in 2000 in the state of Florida.  Let's take a look back at what really happened that night. 

The video below is ABC News at 8 p.m. EST calling the state of Florida for Al Gore, based on exit polling data.

But George W. Bush took an early lead in the actual counting of the ballots and five hours later, the media was looking at Florida as one of the four states remaining undecided.

The final tally showed George W. Bush winning Florida, but with a result that was so close, a recount was automatic.  Vice-President Gore sought a recount of the ballots in four Florida counties, counties that contained a much higher percentage of registered Democrats than registered Republicans.  Ultimately the Supreme Court ruled that the last ongoing recount was to be halted.

Did the Republicans steal the election?  Not according to a very extensive study, funded by eight media outlets.  That study claims that even if Gore's desired recount of just ballots in those four counties had taken place, he would still have lost, albeit by a smaller margin.

There are those who claim the Republican Secretary of State engaged in a conspiracy to rig the results, but there is no proof that this took place.  What did take place was that because of confusing ballots and too many presidential candidates on those ballots, over 113,000 ballots showed that the voter had cast a vote for either Bush or Gore, and one other "minor" candidate.  When there are two choices marked on a ballot, there is no way to conclude what the voter's intent was and such ballots have to be discarded.

The election of 2016 is nothing like that because Donald Trump is nowhere near that close to Hillary Clinton in the polls and the results will not be close enough to warrant a recount.  Except of course for the fact that Donald Trump is such a sore loser, he will undoubtedly insist on one.