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Ironically, a tougher standard of counting only cleanly punched ballots advocated by many Republicans would have resulted in a Gore lead of just three votes,

Not actually true. More Media make believe. What the Bush Campaign was advocating was NO re-re-re-recount. By Florida Law after 2 recounts the vote stands. The standard CNN refers to was the one argued for AFTER the Gore campaign contributers on the Florida Supreme Court orders a re-re-re-recount. So it was a Republican standard argued for only AFTER their original argument was rejected by a court with direct conflict of interests. So CNN is deliberately misreporting this.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/politics/content/news/election2000/election2000_both_win.html

The Miami Herald has managed to do what no other review of Florida ballots has done: Declare both George W. Bush and Al Gore the winner.

Under one complicated scenario in which ballots in only 68 counties are tabulated, Bush wins, the newspaper said in Wednesday's editions.

Under a second, equally complicated scenario, in which ballots from all 67 Florida counties are counted, Gore wins.

* * *

According to the Herald Gore wins. Gore wanted to only recount some counties instead of a complete recount, done the way Gore wanted he would have lost, but done properly he would have won. At least according to the Herald.

thanks for the link.

The CNN story is so futzed up, or the newspaper's recount was, that it's impossible to discern what the heck it means:

MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- If a recount of Florida's disputed votes in last year's close presidential election had been allowed to proceed by the U.S. Supreme Court, Republican George W. Bush still would have won the White House, two newspapers reported Wednesday.
The Miami Herald and USA Today conducted a comprehensive review of 64,248 "undercounted" ballots in Florida's 67 counties that ended last month.
Their count showed that Bush's razor-thin margin of 537 votes -- certified in December by the Florida Secretary of State's office -- would have tripled to 1,665 votes if counted according to standards advocated by his Democratic rival, former Vice President Al Gore.
"In the end, I think we probably confirmed that President Bush should have been president of the United States," said Mark Seibel, the paper's managing editor. "I think that it was worthwhile because so many people had questions about how the ballots had been handled and how the process had worked."
Ironically, a tougher standard of counting only cleanly punched ballots advocated by many Republicans would have resulted in a Gore lead of just three votes, the newspaper reported.
The newspapers' review also discovered that canvassing boards in Palm Beach and Broward counties threw out hundreds of ballots that had marks that were no different from ballots deemed to be valid.
The papers concluded that Gore would be in the White House today if those ballots had been counted.

huh?