vision2020
Election Recount
I've been told the previous attempt to send this story got lost in the
translation. Let's try again. Also have been told NPR did carry it
although I still haven't heard anything on major networks.
Walter Steed
Dade ballot review finds gain of 6 votes for Bush
George W. Bush would have gained six more votes if all the dimples and
hanging chads on 10,600 previously uncounted ballots in Miami-Dade County had
been included in the totals, according to a review by The Palm Beach Post.
The Herald and its parent company, Knight Ridder, are conducting their own
ballot inspection in Miami-Dade as part of a comprehensive review in all 67
Florida counties. The Herald expects its review in Miami-Dade to be finished
by the end of this week.
Before Vice President Al Gore conceded last month, his camp had expected to
pick up as many as 600 votes from a Miami-Dade recount. The Post review
showed 251 additional votes for Bush and 245 more for Gore.
The review, concluded last week, also showed the vast majority of ballots
rejected as undervotes -- ballots where no vote for president was recorded
when counted by machine -- appeared, in fact, to cast no vote for president.
About 7,600 undervotes had no mark at all on the presidential column or, in
rare cases, included multiple votes. Most of the voters who did not indicate
a vote for president did punch choices in other races.
But at least 2,257 voters apparently poked at their ballot cards without
properly inserting them in the machines.
Of these miscast votes, 302 more would have gone for Gore than Bush, The Post
review found. Even if those votes had been cast correctly, however, it would
not have changed the outcome of a presidential election that turned on 537
votes for Bush in Florida.
Two Post reporters, each paired with an elections staffer, reviewed ballots.
The Post's categories included clean votes; chads with three, two and one
corner detached; dimpled or pregnant chads through which light could be seen;
and dimples where no light could be seen.
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