donald trump, in a rally in ohio on thursday, compared his reluctance to accept a possible loss in the presidential election to democrat al gore<u+2019>s fight over the 2000 presidential election. yet there are striking differences in the two cases. the wrangling over the 2000 election results came after mr. gore appeared to have lost florida by roughly 1,800 votes out of nearly six million ballots cast in the preliminary election-night results. the extremely narrow margin triggered an automatic recount under florida law, and that meant no winner could be declared because neither candidate had reached the 270 electoral college votes required to capture the white house. <u+201c>al gore conceded that time, un-conceded, and then re-conceded three weeks later,<u+201d> mr. trump<u+2019>s ex-campaign manager corey lewandowski said on cnn wednesday night. veterans of the 2000 presidential campaign of both parties say the biggest difference between now and then is that mr. gore didn<u+2019>t challenge the integrity of the voting system before election day. in addition, once the process played out and all his avenues for legal challenges were closed, mr. gore conceded the hard-fought election to george w. bush in a speech that was widely praised as unifying. <u+201c>it<u+2019>s ridiculous,<u+201d> said stuart stevens, a republican consultant who worked for mr. bush in 2000, of mr. trump<u+2019>s comparison. <u+201c>trump is arguing before he<u+2019>s lost an election that an election is only valid if he wins,<u+201d> said mr. stevens, who has been publicly critical of mr. trump. mr. stevens said that doubting the validity of election results was more befitting of authoritarian countries. carter eskew, who was one of mr. gore<u+2019>s top political advisers, said there was tremendous pressure on mr. gore from some of his supporters to publicly continue his fight even after 35 days of legal fighting over the recount and the procedures that governed it. the dispute<u+2014>and the 2000 presidential campaign<u+2014>ended when a closely divided u.s. supreme court ordered the florida recount to stop, essentially closing all of mr. gore<u+2019>s legal avenues to challenge the results. <u+201c>there was a lot of discussion within the campaign and certainly on the periphery of the campaign about whether he should speak out and challenge,<u+201d> mr. eskew said. but once the court decided, mr. gore <u+201c>accepted it in the most gracious, magisterial way,<u+201d> he said. <u+201c>if you read his concession speech, it was quite extraordinary.<u+201d> in that address, delivered one day after the court order, mr. gore urged all americans to close ranks behind mr. bush, the new president. <u+201c>this is america,<u+201d> he said. <u+201c>just as we fight hard when the stakes are high, we close ranks and come together when the contest is done. and while there will be time enough to debate our continuing differences, now is the time to recognize that that which unites us is greater than that which divides us.<u+201d> some republicans say the historical memory of mr. gore<u+2019>s eventual concession is overstated. the two parties engaged<u+00a0>in five weeks<u+00a0>of fierce legal battles that sharply divided the country and cast lingering doubts among many liberal democrats that the mr. bush<u+2019>s first term was legitimate, according to some critics. <u+201c>the deification of gore as someone who so graciously conceded for the good of the country seems like a rewrite of history to me,<u+201d> said katie packer, a republican consultant who has been critical of mr. trump. <u+201c>only after every single option was expired did he concede. i don<u+2019>t blame him. if i were him i would have done the same,<u+201d> she said. <u+201c>but he<u+2019>s no hero. that said, trump isn<u+2019>t either.<u+201d> the 2000 election wasn<u+2019>t the only campaign in recent memory where the outcome has been challenged. the 2004 election between mr. bush and democratic john kerry also contained conspiracies about the outcome. but as in 2000, those doubts among democrats crept up after election day rather than before. many democrats and supporters of mr. kerry cited election day problems in ohio, a state that would end up being the decisive contest in that election. congressional democrats examined the issues in<u+00a0>a 2005 detailing <u+201c>numerous, serious election irregularities<u+201d> in ohio<u+2019>s presidential vote, such as long lines at democratic-leaning polling places, problems with provisional ballots and other issues. in addition, the report detailed some errors in the computerized voting machines but couldn<u+2019>t substantiate whether they were glitches or the result of intentional tampering. no evidence of widespread fraud was ever documented. mr. kerry didn<u+2019>t contest the election results. other complaints about election integrity go back even further. the 1960 election between john f. kennedy and richard nixon brought reports of dead voters casting ballots in illinois.
donald trump draws 2000 election parallels amid vote challenge comments - wsj
byron tau