Florida election recount
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The Florida election recount of 2000 was a period of vote re-counting that occurred following the unclear results of the 2000 US presidential election, specifically the Florida results.
The National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, sponsored by a consortium of major U.S. news organizations, conducted a Florida Ballot Project comprehensive review of all ballots uncounted (by machine) in the Florida 2000 presidential election, both undervotes and overvotes, with the main research aim being to report how different ballot layouts correlate with voter mistakes.
The media companies involved were:
- Associated Press
- The New York Times
- The Wall Street Journal
- CNN
- St. Petersburg Times
- The Palm Beach Post
- The Washington Post
- Tribune Company
Although the NORC study was not primarily intended as a determination of which candidate "really won", analysis of the results, given the hand counting of machine-uncountable ballots due to various types of voter error, indicated that they would lead to differing results, reported in the newspapers which funded the recount, such as The Miami Herald (The Miami Herald Report: Democracy Held Hostage) or the Washington Post [1].
The findings were reported by the media during the week after November 12, 2001.
All of the various county-by-county recounts had been requested by Gore or Bush. Neither Candidate had formally requested a total statewide recount.
The recount also showed that the only way that Al Gore could have tallied more votes was by using counting methods that were never requested, but that may have been applied if the USSC-mandated standards had been implemented, and which included "overvotes" — spoiled ballots containing more than one vote for an office. This means that, based on the recount, it appears highly likely that more people voted for Al Gore than for George Bush in Florida. While some of these ballots recorded votes for two separate candidates, a significant number (20% in Lake County, for example) were cases of a voter voting for a candidate and then also writing in that same candidate's name on the write-in line. A judge supervising the recount told the Orlando Sentinel that he had been open to the idea of examining the overvotes, and had been planning to discuss the matter at a hearing when the US Supreme Court stopped the recount.[2]
| Candidate Outcomes Based on Potential Recounts in Florida Presidential Election 2000 (outcome of one particular study) |
||
| Review Method | Winner | |
|---|---|---|
| Review of All Ballots Statewide (never undertaken) | ||
| • | Standard as set by each county Canvassing Board during their survey | Gore by 171 |
| • | Fully punched chads and limited marks on optical ballots | Gore by 115 |
| • | Any dimples or optical mark | Gore by 107 |
| • | One corner of chad detached or optical mark | Gore by 60 |
| Review of Limited Sets of Ballots (initiated but not completed) | ||
| • | Gore request for recounts of all ballots in Broward, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, and Volusia counties | Bush by 225 |
| • | Florida Supreme Court of all undervotes statewide | Bush by 430 |
| • | Florida Supreme Court as being implemented by the counties, some of whom refused and some counted overvotes as well as undervotes | Bush by 493 |
| Unofficial recount totals | ||
| • | Incomplete result when the Supreme Court stayed the recount (December 9, 2000) | Bush by 154 |
| Certified Result (official final count) | ||
| • | Recounts included from Volusia and Broward only | Bush by 537 |
According to the NY Times, the Palm Beach County Butterfly ballot cost Gore a net 6286 votes, and the Duval County 2 page ballot cost him a net 1999 votes, each of which would have made the difference by itself [3].
| United States presidential election, 2000 |
| General election results • State results • Florida results |
| Key figures |
| Al Gore (presidential campaign) • George W. Bush (George W. Bush campaign) • Katherine Harris • Theresa LePore • David Boies • Joseph P. Klock • Theodore Olson • James Baker |
| Election Day |
| Florida Central Voter File (scrub list) • Volusia error • Chads • Butterfly ballot |
| Aftermath and legal proceedings |
| Florida election recount • Brooks Brothers riot • Palm Beach County Canvassing Board v. Harris (Harris I) • Gore v. Harris (Harris II) Bush v. Gore |
| Reaction |
| The Best Democracy Money Can Buy • The Betrayal of America • Fahrenheit 9/11 • Supreme Injustice • Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election |
