Karl Rove Steals Elections

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The basic argument is that the networks called Florida for Gore at 7:50pm EST, with the polls closing at 8:00pm EST. However the panhandle part of florida is in the central time zone, so the polls didnt close there for another hour. the panhandle is heavily conservative. Some people think that a lot of bush voters ended up staying home because the election had already been called for gore.

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I found this National Review article by John Lott. (The "Controversy" section of his Wikipedia entry is pretty funny.)

Anyway, Lott concludes "that Bush received as many as 7,500 to 10,000 fewer votes than he would normally have expected."

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4. DON'T FORGET THE EARLY MEDIA CALL

Florida polls were open until 8 P.M. on election night. The problem was that Florida's ten heavily Republican western-panhandle counties are on Central, not Eastern, time. When polls closed at 8 P.M. EST in most of the state, the western-panhandle polling places were still open for another hour. Yet, at 8 Eastern, all the networks (ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, MSNBC, and NBC) incorrectly announced many times over the next hour that the polls were closed in the entire state. CBS national news made 18 direct statements that the polls had closed.

Polling conducted after the election indicates that the media had an impact on voter behavior, and that the perception of Democratic wins discouraged Republican voters. Democratic strategist Bob Beckel concluded Mr. Bush suffered a net loss of up to 8,000 votes in the panhandle after Florida was called early for Gore. Another survey of western-panhandle voters conducted by John McLaughlin & Associates, a Republican polling company, immediately after the election estimated that the early call cost Bush approximately 10,000 votes.

Using voting data for presidential elections from 1976 to 2000, my own own empirical estimates that attempted to control for a variety of factors affecting turnout imply that Bush received as many as 7,500 to 10,000 fewer votes than he would normally have expected. Little change appears to have occurred in the rate that non-Republicans voted.

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People like Palast aren't interested in what actually happened during the election, they are interested in promoting one side.

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Why do you conclude that Palast "[isn't] interested in what actually happened during the election" and that he is "only interested in promoting one side"? In a prior post I linked to an audio interview Palast's site described thusly:

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Palast explains the oil game in Iraq, the deal behind the U.S. attorney scandal, Hillary Clinton’s shameful corruption and her husband’s pardon of arch-criminal Mark Rich, and the deal struck by Republicans to impeach Bill only for the silly sex scandal instead of his felonious relationship with the Indonesian Riady family billionaires as long as the Democrats promised not to expose the Republican’s felonious connections to the American Koch family billionaires.

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I've read and watched a lot of Palast's work, and he is an equal-opportunity investigative reporter. He's first and foremest skeptical of people in power, be they Republicans or Democrats. He doesn't tend to frame things as Republicans vs. Democrats, but rather in terms of power structures and behind-the-scenes shenanigans that otherwise go largely unreported.

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He may actually be right about what Rove did, I don't know, but either way I don't give him very much credibility.

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I'm not sure why you'd not "give [Palast] very much credibility." Can't you just look at his claims and evidence as objectively as you can and come to your own conclusions?