That turns out not to be the case. Depending on the exact criteria for counting, either Gore or Bush could have won, with various margins of victory. But if you keep reading way down to the end you find that the absentee ballots from overseas military personel were counted in all of the scenarios, even though most of them lacked postmarks and were actually cast the day after the election. There were enough of those illegal absentee ballots that should not have been counted to change the result to Gore no matter which criteria you use for counting the punch-card votes.
The Gore campaign decided not to challenge that issue, but you can't really call it an election if some voters get a second chance to go to the polls after they discover that the election turns on a handful of votes.
Slashdot Mirror
That turns out not to be the case. Depending on the exact criteria for counting, either Gore or Bush could have won, with various margins of victory. But if you keep reading way down to the end you find that the absentee ballots from overseas military personel were counted in all of the scenarios, even though most of them lacked postmarks and were actually cast the day after the election. There were enough of those illegal absentee ballots that should not have been counted to change the result to Gore no matter which criteria you use for counting the punch-card votes. The Gore campaign decided not to challenge that issue, but you can't really call it an election if some voters get a second chance to go to the polls after they discover that the election turns on a handful of votes.