Chuck: Looks like Gore won the election after all. Thank God we have a Republican majority on the Supreme Court or the Prez-Select would still be in Austin cutting ribbons for new shopping centers in El Paso.
Newspaper: Gore Might Have Won
March 10, 2001
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - Al Gore would have gained 784
votes in Palm Beach County if officials there had counted every ballot
that had a hanging chad, pinhole or dimple, The Palm Beach Post
reported Saturday.
Had The Post's standard been used and its tally applied without any
changes in counting procedures in Florida's 66 other counties, it would have been enough to erase George
Bush's 537-vote victory margin in the state.
In Palm Beach County's official 10-day manual recount, Gore had gained 174 votes. But those were not
counted in the statewide tally because the county canvassing board missed the deadline by about two
hours.
"It sounds like more science fiction to me," said former Montana Gov. Marc Racicot, who spoke for the
Republicans about the Post's examination. "It doesn't matter how many times there's a recount, there
seems to be a disparity in the analysis. The basis upon which you draw a conclusion is subject to
incredible impeachment."
Gore lawyer Dennis Newman said the newspaper's examination showed why the Democrats wanted every
discernible mark counted as a vote.
"We thought all along that those dents didn't get there on their own," Newman said. "We knew that Bush
would pick up votes also. We just thought that we would pick up more."
In Palm Beach County, voters cast their ballot by placing a card in a machine and using a pin or "stylus"
to punch out perforated squares that correspond with their candidate.
But problems arose. Some voters said the county's ballot was confusing and that they accidentally voted
for Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan rather than Gore. Others said the machines were defective and
they were unable to cleanly punch their ballots.
The paper looked at the 9,150 ballots that county officials said had no vote for president - commonly
called "undervotes" - and found that 5,736 had a mark for either Bush or Gore. There were 462,350
ballots cast in the county, which Gore carried by an almost two-to-one margin.
During its manual recount, the Palm Beach canvassing board members - who were all Democrats -
struggled over which ballots should be counted, so board Chairman Charles Burton went to court in hopes
of having a firm standard set.
But Circuit Judge Jorge Labarga ruled that the board should judge every ballot on its own merit and count
those where the voter's intent could be determined. In the end, the board counted very few dimpled ballots.
The newspaper's examination of ballots the board rejected broke them into three categories.
The paper found that Bush would have had a net gain of 14 votes if the canvassing board had counted the
62 undervotes that had a hanging chad. That's where a candidate's square is partially detached or is
hanging from the ballot.
But, the newspaper found, Gore would have had a net gain of 25 votes if the canvassing board had then
also counted the 313 ballots where light could be seen through the perforations of a candidate's square or
through a pinhole in the square. None of the corners of these chads were detached.
Finally, the paper found that Gore wold have had a net gain of 784 votes if the board had also counted the
5,361 ballots that had a dimpled chad, which means the chad had an indentation but no light could be seen
through a pinhole or its edges.
Burton pointed out a problem with The Post's method. If the canvassing board had counted dimpled chads
as votes, it would have had to reject the ballots where voters made a clear punch for one candidate and
made a dimple for another because that would have meant they voted for two candidates. It is unknown
how many ballots would have been disqualified if that had been done.
The Post is not the only newspaper reviewing Florida ballots. Two groups are conducting examinations in
all 67 counties.
The first group, which consists of The Miami Herald, its parent company Knight Ridder, and USA Today,
had completed its examination in 65 of 67 counties as of Wednesday.
Last month, the Herald announced the results of a review of 10,644 uncounted ballots in Miami-Dade
County showed Gore would not have gained enough votes to overtake Bush in Florida when combined
with results from Broward, Palm Beach and Volusia counties. Gore had requested manual recounts of
those four counties.
Gore would have gained no more than 49 votes in Miami-Dade, the Herald said.
The other group consists of The Associated Press, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN,
The Palm Beach Post, St. Petersburg Times, The Wall Street Journal and Tribune Publishing, which owns
the Orlando Sentinel and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. As of Tuesday, it still had 20 counties
remaining. |
