that kind of floored me. She was the guest today on Charlie Sykes' podcast The Bulwark.

The two started talking about the election in Georgia yesterday. That led to a discussion about the potential nightmare scenarios for November's elections. In the course of the conversation, Whitman mentions that she went down to Florida to be in two counties (Broward and Dade) as the Bush representative overseeing that recount in 2000. She said "and let me tell you, that's a really lousy way to pick a President."

Whitman goes on to say she could tell the difference between a hanging chad and a dimpled chad, but that she couldn't tell between a dimpled chad and a pregnant chad. She said she was supposed to go behind the counters and ask why they put this one in Bush pile and that one in the Gore pile. After 20 minutes of that, she couldn't do it anymore. She said they were giving Bush votes that she wouldn't have even given him. Ones she would have thrown out. Then she finishes up by saying it ended up mattering significantly who the party sent as their observers to a particular voting district The more higher profile the observer sent, the more likely that counters would be more sympathetic to that party in their count.

Whitman said that's wrong and it's not how an election should work, but that "Republicans figured it out faster than Democrats, so it worked. We got President Bush and for that I'm grateful, for the ultimate outcome. But it's not a way to instill confidence in the electoral process. "

The story was told very matter of factly and both of them just transitioned to something else. I had never heard this theory before but maybe it's an open secret with Republicans at the level Whitman and Sykes operate. I've never been one that thought Bush didn't legitimately win the vote count in Florida. Is this a theory that is common knowledge and I've just missed it so these years?