It makes all the difference. The fact that the electors are only bound by state is the only reason that the winner of the national popular vote can lose in the electoral college. That inequity is inherent in the way the states are allocated electoral votes. Some states have more electors representing fewer actual voters than others. So your single vote may count for more or less than someone in a different state.

Beyond that, the horrific gerrymandering of voting districts contributes greatly to predetermining the outcome, further diluting the value of an individual's vote. And let's not overlook the fact that some states (like TX and CA) are heavily slanted to one side or the other and there is very little chance for the state to actually choose the "other side". In those states, your vote is entirely meaningless.

The only legitimate way to make every vote count is to get rid of any system other than counting every single vote in the country and tallying up who the winner is.

According to every count that followed the rules of voting that were in place in Forida at the time.

I don't disagree that the ballots they used were terrible and the rules were bad. But you can't change the rules after the fact. Both sides agreed to use the ballots as they were designed before the election took place, knowing there were problems with the design. And they were counted according to the rules. There is nothing you can do to change the outcome that doesn't involve breaking the rules that were in place at the time. And counting ballots in violation of the rules may demonstrate how bad the rules were, but it can't change the rules. All you can do after the fact is show how the rules and ballot design are flawed and make changes going forward.

But given all that, even though there were bad rules and flawed ballots, there is no guarantee that a better system would have altered the outcome. The only thing that came from those illegitimate recounts was a deliberate obfuscation of the issue because every organization questioning the election after the fact had an agenda. Hell, the way you physically handle punch ballots while you're recounting them can change a chad from being dimpled to being partially removed or not. And partisan counters are good at handling ballots. Changing the rules and then doing a recount is not relevant for anything but proving how the rules needed to be (and have been) changed.

So yes, the rules were bad. The ballot was a flawed design. It's impossible to know for sure because of that what the true will of the people really was. But if you follow the laws and rules in place at the time of the election there is no question how the count came out. Fortunately, the rules changed dramatically and many of these problems went away moving forward. But there will always be a shrill fringe that would never be satisfied with anything short of a complete reversal regardless of the rule of law.

Could the election have been done better by having better balloting in place? No question.

Would it have changed the outcome? Hard to say.

Could a legitimate recount have changed the outcome? Not one that followed Florida election law.

From your own link:

The popular vote is irrelevant when it comes to the President. The electoral college decides who is President. Or didn't you learn that in civics class?

Besides, every single effort to recount the votes in Florida showed that Bush had an even larger margin of victory than at the time of the first count. This conclusively proved that he should have gotten Florida's electoral votes and therefore win the election. The Supreme Court didn't take anything from Gore and give it to Bush. He legitimately won the election according to the long established rules.

Now, the fact that we're still using the electoral college to decide who gets elected is something worth debating. While it had its place in the 18th and 19th century, the Electoral college has long outlived its usefulness. The entire concept of winner-take-all in most states means that only a few key states actually decide our election every time it comes around. And that means a vast majority of the votes people in this country cast are entirely meaningless. And that's something that needs to change. But until the rules change, that's how the system works whether you like it or not.

You say that as if soaking raw cane/beets in lime to get "raw" sugar is a natural process...

I buy CDs. I rip them so I can get a DRM free copy on my hard drive. I store the CD on a shelf as a backup. I don't give away or sell copies to anyone. I only use one copy at a time so I'm not violating any reasonable interpretation of fair use. I don't have to pay a subscription fee to anyone to listen to the music I have purchased. I don't have to rely on any cloud service to maintain a copy. I don't have to worry about having access to the music I have purchased (which is an issue when I'm in my Jeep in the mountains and I have spotty cell phone coverage).

The artists and producers have made a reasonable profit in supplying the music to me. I am in control of how I access the music I paid for with no reliance on any 3rd party. Everybody wins.

Easy peasy. https://support.google.com/web...

I'm not seeing how that's a failing of the search for an exact phrase. If that exact phrase is not used anywhere, the exact phrase match won't find it. And when you enclose your phrase in double quotes, Google will tell you when an exact match is not found right there up at the top of the result page. That probably means you need to change your exact phrase to something else that might be out there. In the case of LG G3 retailers, you should probably look for cell phone retailers and peruse their websites. It's unlikely someone has compiled a comprehensive list of who sells a particular phone.

It may be frustrating but sometimes the thing you're looking for just isn't out there.

That's a legitimate complaint. It's funny in an ironic way.

The solution, then, is to understand how Google treats punctuation within even a quoted string and modify your search accordingly.

and the first thing it told me was that there was no match at all for that exact phrase. A very useful response to searching an exact phrase. It then went on to try to give me something useful but only after being very informative by telling me it could not find what I was looking for.