WHO did you say really win that election?
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Analysis of Florida votes
backs Bush
INTERRUPTED RECOUNT OF `UNDERVOTES' WAS
HEADING GOP'S WAY, REVIEW SHOWS
BY MARTIN MERZER
Knight Ridder
MIAMI -- President Bush's victory in Florida, which gave him the White
House, almost certainly would have endured even if a manual ballot recount
stopped by the U.S. Supreme Court had been allowed to go forward.
In fact, a comprehensive review of 64,248 ballots in all 67 Florida counties by
the Miami Herald; Knight Ridder, the parent company of the Herald and the
Mercury News; and USA Today found that the 537-vote margin of Bush, a
Republican, would have increased to 1,665 votes under the counting standards
advocated by supporters of Democrat Al Gore.
The newspapers' recount project was conducted by the public accounting firm
BDO Seidman. It was designed to answer a question asked by many
Americans and certain to be examined by historians:
What would have happened if the U.S. Supreme Court had not halted the
sweeping manual recount of ``undervotes'' -- ballots without presidential votes
that could be detected by the counting machines -- that was ordered by the
Florida Supreme Court on Dec. 8, a month after the presidential election?
The answer under almost all scenarios: Bush still would have won.
But, in one of the great ironies of the 2000 election, Bush's lead would have
vanished if the recount had been conducted under the severely restrictive
standards that some Republicans advocated.
The examination of ballots also provides ammunition for Gore supporters who
contend that more Floridians voted for their candidate and he should have
been awarded Florida's 25 electoral votes and the White House.
A Gore victory
But for Gore to have won, two improbable things needed to have happened.
First, there would have had to be a statewide manual recount of all undervotes
in all counties, which wasn't what the Florida Supreme Court ordered.
Then, election authorities across the state would have had to use a very liberal
standard for judging a voter's intent -- essentially counting every mark, dimple,
pinprick or bit of hanging chad. The standard used most widely in recounts
around the United States is tighter and would not have given Gore the
election.
The Florida Supreme Court ordered a statewide manual recount, but excluded
Broward, Palm Beach and Volusia counties and 139 precincts in Miami-Dade,
where manual recounts already had been conducted.
This portion of the newspapers' project examined only the state's undervotes.
The Herald, Knight Ridder, USA Today and several other Florida newspapers
also are fully reviewing at least 110,000 ``overvotes'' -- ballots for which
machines recorded votes for more than one presidential candidate. That
project should be concluded within a month. Its results will not affect the
conclusions of the undercount review, because the Florida Supreme Court
excluded overvotes from the statewide manual recount.
Regardless of the reviews, debate is likely to continue over the outcome of last
year's election, the closest in 124 years.
Imprecision always an issue
While the ballot reviews underscore how imprecise the numbers released on
election night can be, election officials nationwide say the possibility of human
error is so great that it is almost impossible to hold a mistake-free election. That
imprecision is not an issue, they say, except when the results are extremely
close.
Here's what the ballot review found in the counties that were included in the
state court-ordered recount:
STANDARD: Every dimple, pinprick or bit of hanging chad on a punch-card
ballot is considered a valid vote, the most generous standard.
RESULT: Bush would have won by 1,665 votes.
STANDARD: Dimples were counted as presidential votes only on ballots that
had dimples in other races, suggesting a fault with either the machine or the
voter's ability to use it.
RESULT: Bush would have won by 884 votes.
STANDARD: A vote was counted only when a piece of chad was detached by
at least two corners, perhaps the most common standard applied nationally.
RESULT: Bush would have won by 363 votes.
STANDARD: A vote was counted only when a hole was cleanly punched, the
most restrictive standard.
RESULT: Gore would have won by 3 votes.
But Gore's advantage under that standard -- 0.00005 percent of the 5.9 million
votes cast by Floridians -- would have been so tiny that it still would have left
the outcome in question. In addition, it is produced by a highly unlikely
scenario.
Like the most generous standard, the severely restrictive clean-punch standard
is rarely employed. Among two dozen states that impose standards on manual
recounts of undervotes, only Indiana insists on cleanly punched chad.
Nevertheless, many Republicans have advocated that standard since the
newspapers began their ballot review more than three months ago.
``The context in which we viewed this entire recount is that, the election is
over, there is only one legal standard for a vote, the standard that was in place
when people went in to vote, and that was a clear punch,'' Portia Palmer, a
representative of the Republican Party of Florida, said recently.
The review found that the result would have been different if every canvassing
board in every county had examined every undervote, a situation that no
election or court authority had ordered. Gore had called for such a statewide
manual recount if Bush would agree, but Bush rejected the idea and there was
no mechanism in place to conduct one.
Here's what the review found in all Florida counties, including those that were
not part of the court-ordered recount:
STANDARD: Every dimple, pinprick or bit of hanging chad on a punch-card
ballot is considered a valid vote, the most inclusive standard.
RESULT: Gore would have won by 393 votes.
STANDARD: Dimples were counted as presidential votes only on ballots that
had dimples in other races, suggesting a fault with either the machine or the
voter's ability to use it.
RESULT: Gore would have won by 299 votes.
STANDARD: A vote was counted only when a piece of chad was detached by
at least two corners, perhaps the most common standard applied nationally.
RESULT: Bush would have won by 351 votes.
Tuesday, both parties claimed that the review validated their positions during
the protracted election dispute.
At the White House, press secretary Ari Fleischer said: ``The president
believes, just as the American people do, that this election was settled months
ago. The voters spoke, and George W. Bush won.''
Bob Poe, chair of Florida's Democratic Party, said the review shows that many
official tallies were incomplete and inaccurate.
``My feeling is still that more people went to the polls to vote for Al Gore than
went to vote for George W. Bush, and that some really bad things happened,''
Poe said. ``This tells us that the system has some major flaws that need to be
improved.''
Doug Hattaway, a former Gore campaign official, said: ``If you count every
vote, Gore wins. This study confirms that Florida's election system failed the
voters.''
Florida law says no ballot may be discarded if the intent of the voter is clear.
But the law is less clear on the obligations of canvassing boards to examine
discarded ballots to determine whether the intent of voters can be ascertained.
Examining for voter intent
The Florida Supreme Court ruled in 1998 that canvassing boards must examine
``damaged or defective'' ballots for voter intent and further defined the term
``defective ballot'' as ``a ballot which is marked in a manner such that it cannot
be read by a scanner.''
Five weeks ago, the newspapers reported that if Florida Secretary of State
Katherine Harris had allowed South Florida counties to complete manual
recounts before certifying the election, Bush probably would have won the
presidency outright -- ending the dispute before the Florida Supreme Court
ordered the statewide recount of undervotes.
And last month, the Palm Beach Post reported that 5,062 residents of Palm
Beach County voted for three or more candidates for president.
This review did not attempt to inspect overvotes. Florida's Supreme Court
order called only for the manual recounting of undervote ballots, leaving the
estimated 110,000 overvotes unaffected.
But the Miami Herald-Knight Ridder-USA Today reviewers saw numerous
overvotes, and it became clear that many could have been declared valid votes
-- if they had been examined in time.
For instance, in some counties that use optical-scanning equipment, people
managed to vote for Gore and then again for his running mate, Joseph
Lieberman, or for Bush and then again for his running mate, Dick Cheney.
Throughout the state, many people voted for Bush or Gore -- then did so again
in the write-in category.
All such votes were rejected by machines as overvotes. However, many
elections supervisors agree that some of those votes could have been
rehabilitated through manual recounts.
``It's sad,'' said Levy County Elections Supervisor Connie Asbell. ``These are
people who really wanted to vote for president.''
For more on the Miami Herald's coverage, see www.miami.com/election. |
