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Gore edged ahead of Bush under all the scenarios for counting all undervotes and overvotes statewide
Drudge ^ | 11/11/2001 | Matt Drudge

Posted on 11/11/2001 3:00:48 PM PST by Sonar5

Gore edged ahead of Bush under all the scenarios for counting all undervotes and overvotes statewide... WORLD EXCLUSIVE: BIG MEDIA RECOUNT RESULTS REVEALED


TOPICS: News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: floridarecount
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To: Bubba_Leroy

161 posted on 11/11/2001 3:55:51 PM PST by kcvl
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To: Sparky760
All I have to say is Gore Lost! Bush Won! and God Bless America....

I second that Sparky760! The liberals really need to find a new hobby.

162 posted on 11/11/2001 3:55:52 PM PST by KansasConservative
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To: Libertarian_4_eva
"How the can you count over-votes and under-votes?"

O.B.V. outcome based voting, with commie-lib demoRATS, they get "multiple-guess"
when the votes are "counted"; we count INTENT...

163 posted on 11/11/2001 3:56:43 PM PST by hoot2
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To: Sparky760
With all that's going on I find myself nostalgic for a crappy ruling from the Fla. Supreme Court. (Or, at least a pre-announcement from their spokesguy)
164 posted on 11/11/2001 3:57:29 PM PST by rdax
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To: Sonar5
Richard Milhouse Nixon was the first US president whose name contains all the letters from the word "criminal." The second was William Jefferson Clinton.

Case made.

165 posted on 11/11/2001 3:58:17 PM PST by carpio
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To: Sonar5
My friends in NW Florida would have sued this media bunch for calling the election long before it was decided. In addition, this citizen would have sued because felons votes were illegally counted.

Gore would not have won.

166 posted on 11/11/2001 3:59:33 PM PST by boycott
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To: TLBSHOW
Isn't it true that Bill Clinton is running for President?
167 posted on 11/11/2001 3:59:36 PM PST by Buckeroo
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To: classygreeneyedblonde
AGAIN OVER VOTES ARE ILLEGAL AND AUTOMATICLY THROWN OUT OF ANY ELECTION IN FLORIDA

I am A LIVELONG FLORIDAN

168 posted on 11/11/2001 4:00:44 PM PST by scooby321
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To: hoot2
The problem is that most people that would vote democratic are too stupid too know how to properly vote. Therefore, the idiot's votes shouldn't be counted.
169 posted on 11/11/2001 4:01:16 PM PST by boycott
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To: ConsistentLibertarian
"Bush Is the Prez...case closed". I take it that the two claims are consistent. Ie there would be no contradiction in saying that Bush is President even though Gore recieved more votes in Florida.

Yes, there would be a contradiction. To think that there could be no contradiction stems from a gross misunderstanding of the term "votes".

Bush received more votes than Gore in Florida - PERIOD. Such was the finding of that state's Secretary of State on the deadline (both the legal one, and the non-legal one set by that state's Supreme Court). This is why Bush received Florida's electoral votes, which helped him win the Electoral College, which made him the President.

By any legal definition, therefore, Bush received more votes in Florida, therefore he is the President. Had he not received more votes in Florida, he wouldn't be President.

Counting these ballots, by whatever method, doesn't alter this tautology, since: (1) these ballots are NOT LEGAL VOTES, and (also, because): (2) the DEADLINE has passed.

The strongest statement you can make, I suppose, is that there would be no contradiction in saying that Bush is President even though the media have repeatedly attempted to cast doubt on the legitimacy of his election, by counting ILLEGAL VOTES and so on. But this is not exactly the most earth-shattering observation in the world, so I won't insult your intelligence by pointing it out. Best,

170 posted on 11/11/2001 4:01:22 PM PST by Dr. Frank fan
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To: scooby321


171 posted on 11/11/2001 4:02:05 PM PST by kcvl
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To: Buckeroo
THe rats just said Drudge is one of them! lolrof

WAIT TILL THEY LISTEN TO THE SHOW

172 posted on 11/11/2001 4:02:21 PM PST by TLBSHOW
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Call it twisted or sick or whatever but I hope something major happens tonight or tomorrow that will squash this story into the freaking ground. I personally hope Bush makes some kind of historic step tomorrow in something to shut this right the hell down.
173 posted on 11/11/2001 4:02:27 PM PST by My Favorite Headache
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To: mass55th
Gore lost the election by losing his home state....face it algore is just a LOSER
174 posted on 11/11/2001 4:02:44 PM PST by mystery-ak
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To: Sonar5; All
Folks, below is the reason this story is recycled garbage -- old news: The Miami Herald, back in MAY, after conducting their own ballot examination, concluded that Gore had lost if only legal votes were counted, and only "wins" if ILLEGAL votes are included.

`OVERVOTES' LEANED TO GORE

But to win, he needed help of dimpled ballots

BY MARTIN MERZER
mmerzer@herald.com

Democrat Al Gore might be president today if Florida's ``overvotes'' had been examined and counted -- but only if dimples on ``undervote'' ballots were accepted as valid votes, the first statewide review of overvotes shows.

Republican George W. Bush still would have prevailed -- even with the overvotes tabulated -- if undervotes had been counted under more restrictive standards, the review indicates.

The review, conducted by The Herald, its parent company, Knight Ridder, USA Today and several other newspapers, also shows that Gore's name was marked on overvotes far more often than Bush's name -- fodder for Democrats who insist that most Floridians intended to vote for Gore.

Overvotes are ballots rejected by counting machines because they show more than one vote for president. Undervotes are ballots without presidential votes detected by counting machines.

The findings produce an ambiguous conclusion to an unprecedented effort to examine more than 176,000 untabulated ballots in Florida's disputed presidential election.

VIRTUAL TIE

The bottom line: After study and analysis of 111,261 overvotes and 64,826 undervotes, the agonizingly tight 2000 presidential election still ends in a virtual tie.

And the outcome still depends on the standard used to gauge undervotes.

Gore wins narrowly under two undervote standards, by margins of 332 and 242 votes; Bush wins narrowly under two other undervote standards, by 407 and 152 votes. All are closer than Bush's official 537-vote margin.

And so, the new analysis of the election intrigued or irritated political partisans Thursday, depending on their point of view.

``These numbers certainly back up our feeling that more people turned out to vote for Gore than for Bush,'' said Doug Hattaway, a former Gore campaign spokesman. ``It's just a shame the system didn't count those votes properly. It's hard not to cringe when you think about the possibilities.''

Speaking for the Republicans, former Montana Gov. Marc Racicot said he never feared ballot reviews by the media.

``So what has changed?'' Racicot said. ``I always believed we would come to the same conclusion at the end as at the beginning. The election was not flawless, but it never is. The only count that really counts is the one conducted under the rule of law.''

The overvote study is the third examination of how the acrimonious 2000 presidential election might have ended if manual recounts had gone forward without court challenges and intervention.

In February, The Herald reported that Bush still would have won the presidency if undervotes in Miami-Dade County had been counted by hand, as Gore's campaign had asked.

The Miami-Dade canvassing board halted that recount after concluding that it could not be completed by a state deadline. The Herald's review found that Gore would have picked up, at most, 49 net votes in Miami-Dade, using the most liberal undervote standard.

Last month, The Herald reported that Bush's victory almost certainly would have endured even if a statewide recount of undervotes ordered by the Florida Supreme Court had not been terminated by the U.S. Supreme Court. By the most liberal standard, Bush's lead would have widened to 1,665 votes had that recount been completed.

FULL RECOUNT

Now, the study of overvote ballots indicates that Gore might have won the election -- if his campaign had requested and received a hand recount of every uncounted ballot in the state.

The Herald found that an astonishing 108,115 overvotes -- 97 percent of the total -- are lost forever. When a voter selects two or more candidates, the true preference cannot be deduced or assumed, so those votes are unsalvageable.

But the rest -- 3,146 -- bore markings that made it clear who the voter preferred, The Herald found. Generally, this occurred when voters chose a candidate and then cast a write-in vote for that same candidate.

``It's amazing to me how some people misinterpreted how to vote, but it's clear what they intended to do,'' said Ronald Legendre, chairman of Osceola County's canvassing board.

Most of those recoverable overvotes -- 1,871 -- were for Gore. Bush received 1,189 such votes. Other candidates received 86.

That net gain for Gore of 682, when coupled with the undervotes, would have been enough to carry the Democrat to the White House under two standards for gauging undervotes. Gore's margin would have been 332 votes if all dimpled ballots were counted. It would have been 242 votes if dimpled ballots were counted only when dimples also appeared in other races.

But if the undervotes were declared valid only when chads were detached by at least two corners, Bush would have come out on top by 407 votes. And if only cleanly punched ballots were counted, Bush would win by 152 votes.

Even so, there is ample room for argument that a significant plurality of Floridians intended to vote for Gore -- but more of them ruined their ballots by overvoting or undervoting.

One measure of that: Three of every four overvotes -- a total of 84,204 -- contained a mark for Gore; only one of three overvotes -- a total of 37,738 -- contained a mark for Bush. (Some overvotes show marks for both).

``Gore would likely have won if all overpunched ballots had been properly marked, based on measures of voter intent,'' said Anthony Salvanto, a political scientist at the University of California-Irvine who analyzed the overvote results.

This also seems clear:

At an early, crucial stage of the electoral impasse, Gore made a momentous strategic mistake by not asking for an official statewide review of every rejected ballot -- undervotes and overvotes. Instead, he requested a recount only in four counties.

His decision might have been a historic blunder. A statewide recount of undervotes and overvotes might have given Gore the vote lead and the political high ground -- before the legal brawl ever reached the Florida Supreme Court or the U.S. Supreme Court.

Hattaway, the former Gore aide, said the Democrats did not request a recount of that magnitude because it seemed too sweeping, too desperate and too unwieldly.

`NO PRECEDENT'

``There was no precedent for it -- until now,'' he said. ``It was discussed but the consensus was that we couldn't get it. There was a feeling the courts wouldn't give it to us.''

Interestingly, if Florida's new election law had existed last November, Gore would have been entitled to just such a review -- automatically.

Signed Wednesday by Gov. Jeb Bush, the law requires a recount of every undervote and overvote in the state when the victory margin is less than a quarter of one percent of the total votes cast.

The 2000 presidential election ended in Florida with a margin much slimmer than that -- 0.006 percent after the last complete machine recount.

DIFFERENT REVIEW

The Herald's review of the state's overvotes differed in several ways from the newspaper's previous undervote review. The entire project cost The Herald, Knight-Ridder and its partners about $825,000.

The undervote review was undertaken by a public accounting firm, BDO Seidman, LLP, under the sponsorship of The Herald, Knight Ridder and USA Today. An accountant reviewed each ballot and noted its characteristics.

All tabulations of undervotes were provided by BDO Seidman, based on those observations. Separately, a reporter also reviewed each ballot, but the results of that review were used only as a statistical check for variation.

Each overvote, however, was reviewed by one person only -- a reporter from The Herald, USA Today or six other newspapers: The Tallahassee Democrat, The Bradenton Herald, Florida Today, The Tampa Tribune, the Fort Myers News-Press and The Pensacola News Journal.

In 59 counties, reporters physically examined every overvote ballot and recorded what they found. In eight heavily populated counties, the newspapers used official computer tapes to identify combinations of candidates marked on overvoted ballots. In those counties, reporters then examined all ballots that contained handwritten marks that would not have appeared on computer records.

The results of the overvote review were assembled into a database, and the various combinations were examined.

The Herald then attempted to recreate the conditions of the election prior to any court action and before hand recounts in Volusia, Broward and Palm Beach had been added to the official count.

Machine counts certified by each county by Nov. 14 plus subsequently counted overseas absentee ballots and some recently identified undervotes from Orange County showed Bush leading Gore by 1,133 votes in Florida.

Gore's 682-vote net gain from overvotes would have sharply reduced that lead -- to 455. And that lead would have been overtaken had undervote ballots with dimples been included.

But no such statewide recount of undervotes and overvotes was mandated by law last November, so county election supervisors were not required to search for recoverable votes or even accept any they found.

In Lake County, for instance, canvassers happened upon some obviously valid overvotes -- ballots that contained double votes for Gore or for Bush.

The canvassing board voted 2-1, however, not to rehabilitate those ballots because the board planned no systematic search of all rejected ballots.

``I was whooping and hollering the whole night,'' recalled Donna Miller, the canvassing board chairwoman, who lost that battle. ``I was so frustrated. There was no question in my mind who they wanted. I could hardly sleep that night, I was so upset.''

OTHER FINDINGS

Among The Herald's other findings:


175 posted on 11/11/2001 4:03:06 PM PST by JohnHuang2
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To: Sparky760
That's right Sparky!

I've read the thread...and if I understand the law ... an overvote is an illegal vote ... Well..... what's the big deal???

176 posted on 11/11/2001 4:04:42 PM PST by Texas Yellow Rose
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To: JohnHuang2

177 posted on 11/11/2001 4:04:43 PM PST by kcvl
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To: hoot2
I am sick and tired of this s@%$. For those worms to publish their lies now is nothing short of treason. They seek to divide the country at this most critical juncture, to demoralize the commander in chief. And sadly it may work...so many people still want to believe that GORE won.
178 posted on 11/11/2001 4:05:04 PM PST by Deport Billary
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To: Sonar5; All
btw, here's the Google cached source link.
179 posted on 11/11/2001 4:05:14 PM PST by JohnHuang2
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To: Sonar5
Overvotes, undervotes, sidewaysvotes, twisted overheadvotes, sliding slightly hanging chads, implied chadless crumpled misaligned ballots. Swivel upside down old Jewish grandma triple punched ballots, black illiterate write in votes for Martin Luther King votes, blah! Blah! Blah!

Wonder how frayed all the so-called Florida ballots are after a year of numerous recounts and handlings by everyone and anyone?

Maybe the News Media’s next great revelation will be that Germany won WWII?

180 posted on 11/11/2001 4:05:39 PM PST by zbogwan2
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