The Miami Herald's tally of Florida undervotes fails 
to yield a clear victor -- yet another reason the Gore team should have actually tried to "count every vote."

By Jake Tapper

April 4, 2001 | The Republicans controlling the Florida Legislature and governor's mansion have managed to stop the media from examining the autopsy photographs of NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt, but they haven't been able to stop reporters from poking around the coroner's report on Vice President Al Gore. Media recounts of the state's disputed "undervotes" and "overvotes" have been going on since November, even before the disputed election was effectively declared fini by the U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 12. 

The latest organization to slice up the results is the Miami Herald, which -- with parent company Knight Ridder and USA Today -- released its tabulation of the state's 64,248 "undervotes" Tuesday night. The Florida Supreme Court ordered those ballots reexamined, but the U.S. Supreme Court put an end to that process on Dec. 9. But the Herald numbers -- crunched by the accounting firm BDO Seidman -- do little to answer questions as to who really won Florida. 

While the Herald headline reads, "Review shows ballots say Bush," the story shows that in fact, depending on the ballot assessment method, and how many counties might have been ordered to examine their undervotes, the results according to the Herald could have ranged from a Bush win by 1,655 votes, or a Gore win by 393. 

Ironically, according to the Herald, if the 40,000 or so unexamined undervotes had been reviewed by the punch-card standard the Gore attorneys argued for (the most generous standard, in which every dimple, pinprick, hanging chad and the like was construed to be a vote) Bush would have picked up 1,665 votes. 

Using the Bush standard -- the most restrictive method of analysis, in which only cleanly punched chads from the ballots were counted as votes -- Gore would have eked out a victory by three votes. Counting dimples on those ballots where the voter failed to punch through on more than one race, leaving a pattern of dimples, Bush would have won by 884; counting chad with no more than two corners attached, Bush would have won by 363 votes. 

More favorable to Gore, however, was the Herald's reexamination of all the undervotes statewide, including what can only be called a re-re-examination of those from Broward, Palm Beach, Volusia and Miami-Dade. In this review, which went above and beyond what the Florida Supreme Court ordered, a loose standard would have given Gore a victory of 393 votes. Again, counting dimples on those ballots where the voter failed to punch through on more than one race, Gore would have won by 299. Counting chad hanging by two corners or less, Bush would have won by 351 votes. A strict standard would have given Bush a victory by 416 votes. 

These numbers, as well as those pending from a media consortium that includes the New York Times, are, of course, legally insignificant. Since Florida law dictates a county-by-county assessment of the ballots -- with each disputed ballot assessed by each county's canvassing board -- it is irrelevant how anyone other than members of those canvassing boards judges a ballot. 

Predictably, the Herald's results have done little to change the familiar threads of spin coming from the Gore and Bush camps. "The president believes, just as the American people do, that this election was settled months ago," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told the Herald. "The voters spoke, and George W. Bush won." 

Former Gore spokesman Douglas Hattaway told the Herald, "If you count every vote, Gore wins. This study confirms that Florida's election system failed the voters." 

Many Democrats are hoping to create a hailstorm out of any media analysis that shows that Gore could have won the state of Florida's 25 electoral votes -- and therefore the presidency -- had any additional ballots, unread by tabulation machines, been examined. Every few days, press releases arrive from the Democratic National Committee with the latest news from the land of media recounts. 

"Al Gore would have picked up more than enough votes to win Florida and the presidency ... [had] Republicans not delayed and ultimately ended hand recounts of ballots," DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe said in one typical example. 

McAuliffe could not be reached for comment Tuesday evening, though no doubt some Democrats will make hay out of the Herald's muddled results.