(Yes--I know the plural of chad is chad. But it sounds funny. I'm therefore being colloquial, here.)

We don't have the media, left leaning or right wing, count our ballots here in America to determine our elections. We have county workers do it in each state. You can malign, ridicule, scapegoat and verbally abuse the process all you want but, that is your right. But don't stop the ballots from being counted like the conservatives on the US Supreme Court did. It creates illegitmacy.

Apparently you people in Amerika don't watch the news.
The rest of us, in America, saw the results of the complete state-wide count performed by the media (unbiased? more likely left-leaning) itself.

Results: BUSH WON!

Speaking as someone "here in America" the US Supreme Court did NOT "stop [a] count [of] every vote in a close election". It stopped a *partial* recount in which many counties were using *different* standards. The Court was on solid legal ground; the Florida Supreme Court was not. (And I am a lawyer, though not a Floridian or an election-law specialist.)

Yes, there was much silliness throughout, from both Republicans and Democrats, and from many but not all of the courts involved. Yes, there are reasonable grounds for disagreeing with the US Supreme Court's ultimate decision. But they were given very little time to clean up a mess created by Florida's high court and Florida's mediocre laws on this issue.

And speaking of silliness, Paul Krugman's call for pre-emptive paranoia and greater reliance on iffy exit-polls (inherently less accurate than an actual "count of every vote") takes the prize. It would multiply the problems of 2000 manifold.

I'm not sure what nationalty you are but here in America we believe that unless we count every vote in a close election the 'winner' is questionable.

The US Supreme Court first stopped the ballots from being counted then a few days later, at 10pm at night, ruled that Florida could finish it's recount - by 12 midnight. Any results turned in past their arbitrary deadline of midnight would not be recognized.

Since it was clear that any win by Gore would be reversed the the Supreme Court it seems senseless to proceed. But with the ballots never completely counted it is clear Bush never legitimately won the office of the presidency. At least that is how it looks to us here in America.

Bush won the initial count. He won the mandated recount. Both of them closely. The third recount, ordered by the Florida Supremes, clearly violated not only the state's election laws but also federal law. Had the results come out differently on the third count, it would certainly have delegitimated the process--especially if the federal courts later overturned that result.

And, contrary to Democratic mythology, the Supremes didn't hand Bush the election, they merely stopped the selective recount orchestrated by the Democrats. Which, ironically, would still have given the election to Bush, as we later learned from the non-binding media recounts.

Then Scalia stops them cold with his order to cease all activity in the state-wide comprehensive recount by saying that counting the ballots would jepordize the legitimacy of the Bush presidency. Well duh? Since the conservates on the USSC were planning to award the election to Bush all along, regardless of the actual vote in Florida, of course Bush would be illegitimate.