Documentation that Gore won the 2000 election

Documentation that Gore won the 2000 election

http://www.legitgov.org/index_hot_April5.html

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From Miami Herald Recount Study:

Q: In December, The Herald published a statistical analysis of overvotes and undervotes that suggested that in a flawless election Al Gore would have won by 23,000 votes. Did I hear the margin is now larger?

A: While it is clear that 97 percent of the state's overvote ballots could not be legally counted, there are clues that suggest that at least some of them were mistakes by people who intended to cast votes for either Bush or Gore. While speculation of how those people really meant to vote is just that, speculation, 46,000 more people marked Gore on their overvoted ballots than marked Bush.

http://www.miami.com/herald/special/news/flacount/docs/053048.htm

(now achived)

Published Friday, May 11, 2001

`OVERVOTES' LEANED TO GORE

But to win, he needed help of dimpled ballots or consideration of the thousands of legal democratic voters purged from the roles and not allowed to vote by the State Elections Office.

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. (unless legal overvotes which were mostly for Gore were counted-see below).

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.

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:

Statewide, the combination of votes for Gore and Pat Buchanan, the Reform Party candidate, represented the most common overvote, accounting for 10,234 botched ballots or nine percent of the total. Other common combinations: Gore and Libertarian Harry Browne, Bush and Gore, Bush and Buchanan.

A mark for Buchanan appeared on 36,757 overvotes, nearly as frequently as the marks for Bush. That probably was caused by Buchanan's proximity on ballots to both Bush and Gore, especially on Palm Beach County's now-notorious ``butterfly'' ballot.

Nearly 1,000 people voted for every candidate, disenfranchising themselves.

More than 3,600 voted for every candidate except Bush. More than 700 voted for every candidate except Gore.

``We could call these `anybody but him' voters,'' Salvanto said. ``One theory is that these are people who simply do not understand the voting process and are marking everyone of whom they approve. Just as long as the guy they don't like doesn't get in.''

Most of the overvotes in Florida came from punch-card counties, show clearly punched ballots for multiple presidential candidates and thus can never be rehabilitated.

In Palm Beach County, for instance, 5,237 people punched holes for both Gore and Buchanan, but no one can say precisely how many of them wanted to vote for Gore. Exactly 13,511 people cast other types of overvotes in Palm Beach County.

BUTTERFLY BALLOT

A recent statistical study by six political scientists from Harvard University, Cornell University, Northwestern University and the University of California-Berkeley found that Palm Beach County's butterfly ballot probably cost Gore at least 3,400 votes because of double punches and up to another 2,400 votes that were mistakenly cast for Buchanan.

Duval County, which includes Jacksonville, experienced an even larger, more astounding number of punch-card overvotes -- 21,888. Later, many voters there also complained about a confusing ballot, one that distributed presidential candidates over two pages.

Eighty-four percent of overvoters in Duval punched presidential candidates on both pages.

Regardless of ballot design, regardless of voting system, every county in the state reported overvotes.

VOTING DIRECTIONS

``I have directions printed on the ballot, directions with pictures, sample ballots with graphics sent to every household in the county, and the same thing goes in the [news]paper,'' said Pat Hollarn, supervisor of elections in Okaloosa County, which used the more modern and reliable optical-scan system but had 677 overvotes anyway.

``When we give them that much instruction, if they sent an absentee ballot that's marked double, then I can't tell what somebody meant by that. Nobody can. You can't guess what somebody meant.''

Still, The Herald's study confirms that many overvotes would have been accepted as valid -- if election officials had looked at them in time.

And in an election as close as the 2000 presidential race between George W. Bush and Al Gore, those ballots might have made a difference.

Herald staff writers Lila Arzua, Tyler Bridges, Tim Henderson and Jay Weaver contributed to this report.

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Yes indeed, the counting was halted (Saturday morning when the counting was set to be completed on Sunday, while the nefarious Dec 12 "deadline" loomed on the following Tuesday).Ostensibly, the idea was to get a count free of handcounts using differing standards. Did the USSC acheive this? No. The count that Katherine Harris "certified"...which turned out to be the count relied upon to award Bush the electors...contained MANY handcounted ballots. In other words, the "legal" count was one which was UNconstitutionally arrived at. At least six "Republican" counties and one "Democrat" county met the "deadline" to have their handcounted (by the Unconstitutional "differing standards") ballots included in the certification. The Republican counties added over 600 votes to Bush's total, by finding "handcounted" ballots for him, which if disallowed (as being unconstitutional) would have caused Bush to be BEHIND in the totals at certification time.Equal protection? For WHOM? Can you name ANYBODY, from among the voters in America, who received any MEASURE of "equal protection" from the ruling handed down in Bush v Gore?If so, I'd love to hear WHO, and why you think they GOT it.And on the question of "conservative vs. liberal" instead of "partisan" considerations being made by the Justices of the USSC, this idea is destroyed by the fact that the Rhenquist 5 had to violate their so-called "deeply held conservative principles" concerning the judiciary in many, many ways to arrive at their Bush v Gore ruling. They abandoned "state's rights", they set aside their stated (in writings) requirement for there to be both a specific harmed party AND a proven INTENT to harm that party before they would consider invoking "equal protection" (neither requirement was met in Bush v Gore), they abandoned Scalia's admonition that the Supreme Court has NO BUSINESS making "unique" rulings (Bush v Gore was "unique" in that the Rhenquist 5 said the ruling cannot be applied to any other future cases...is set NO PRECEDENCE WHATSOEVER). Further, Conservatives supposedly ABHOR "Judicial Activism", of which Bush v Gore was a textbook example.In short, if the Rhenquist 5 had adhered to CONSERVATIVE principles instead of PARTISAN considerations, they would never have taken the case in the first place. They abandoned their Conservative principles wholesale in order to install BUSH in office. From: jeffharrison3Date: Sun Jan 27 12:10 PM EST 2002******************

kuvasz1

the oddest thing about florida was the vote talley in one county

for a minor third party candidate of thousands of votes but only

a few hundred throughout the rest of the state. obviously, there

was a machine count error, but you never heard too much about it,

because if the votes had been recounted, the ratio of gore to

bush in that county (a democractic one)was such that gore would

have obtained hundreds more votes than Bush. But you can surely

bet Pig Boy on the radio would have been knashing his tusks and a

caravan of republican operatives would have invaded the county

like they did in miami-dade and palm springs.

History will reveal that bush was an illegitimate pResident. i

only hope he doesn't f*ck up the country too much more before he

is thrown out of office on his sorry a$$ like his Poppy.

jeffharrison3

What is obvious is that even AFTER the GOP and their operatives

nd their "machine" in Jeb's corrupt-to-the-gills state performed

every underhanded and anti-American, anti-voter, anti-democratic

trick they could think of, Al Gore STILL got more valid, legal

votes than Bush.

There is now absolutely no doubt whatsoever that more voters in

Florida wanted Gore as president. The only thing GOPers can argue

is sniggling technicalities, legal maneuvers, and distractions

like declaring Dem voters are "stupid". Problem is, none of that

covers up the fact that, if the votes had actually been counted,

GORE WON.

This was a triumph of trickery, fraud, bully tactics, vote

tampering masquerading as "honest mistakes", and partisanship IN

THE FEDERAL JUDICIARY, over the WILL of the PEOPLE. The GOP, the

Supreme Court, Bush, Cheney, Baker, and the whole Republican crew

have seething contempt for the American People.

I think the least I can do is second that emotion in return.

Berniew1 Quick statsAdded on Sat, Jan 26, 2002 8:22 AM Sat Jan 26 8:22 AM EST 2002

As the exit polls indicated, over 100,000 people more wanted to

vote for Gore than Bush, but their votes weren't counted. The

votes are still there for anyone who wants to check.

As the Newspapers analysis indicates, just by looking at the 3%

of the "overvotes"(where someone voted for Gore twice rather than

once due to the ballot layout and directions) if the clearly

legal votes had been looked at Gore won by over 30,000. But

looking at the 97% not considered here, its also obvious that

over 90% of these tried to vote for Gore, but due to ballot

design problems such as the confusing 2 page ballots with Gore's

and Buchan's buttons switched in order, many accidently voted for

Buchanan and other such situations.

The corruption and dirty tricks in Florida was huge and

pervasive. What I've talked about doesn't include the fact that

thousands of legal black voters were taken off the voting roles

prior to the election(blacks voted 90% for Gore) and thousands of

Democrats who signed up to vote in the Motor Voter program were

not put on the roles, while Republicans who signed up at the same

time were, and lots of voters in minority districts could not

vote due to problems in their polling places and faulty equipment

that didn't register their vote.

jeffharrison3Added on Sat, Jan 26, 2002 9:51 AM Sat Jan 26 9:51 AM EST 2002

erification of the election result by the Congress, but none is

set in stone. Before Election 2000, the guiding principle was the

determination, as best the law could discern, of how all the

legal, valid voters voted. The FSC honored that tradition, by

calling for recounts. The USSC relied instead on an arbitrary

deadline to NEGATE the valid, legal votes of "the People".

Now, Prag and Max, an "election knowledge" QUIZ for you guys.

Over 30 states have a "clear intent of the voter" standard for

manually recounting votes. Is this standard now UnConstitutional,

and illegal? Yes, or No?

1. Florida state law called for the certification of the election

within 7 days of election day, or Nov. 14, IF THERE IS NO

PROTEST. Legal protests were handled by a SEPARATE law, which

spelled out WHEN, under WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES, and HOW candidates

could demand manual recounts. IF the vote was so close it was

within one half of one percent difference, a machine recount was

mandatory. If the machine recount did not resolve the winner

OUTSIDE THAT MARGIN, then manual recounts could be requested

WITHIN SEVEN DAYS of the election.

Obviously, the State Legislature intended for the manual recounts

to be conducted, when the election was that close. The problem

is, it is a physical impossibility to manually recount within the

deadline for certifying elections that are NOT CLOSE.

So, the laws were in conflict. The secretary of state was given "

discretion" over the deadline, but Katherine Harris had no

inclination to follow the second law, since the first one would

give the election to Bush.

This conflict was taken to state court, as all conflicts in state

law SHOULD be and usually ARE, for the legal resolution.

The Florida Supreme Court overruled Harris (who, out of thin air,

decided only a hurricane could negate the first certification

deadline), and the FSC said her discretion should fall to

determining the ACTUAL winner, and the ACTUAL will of the voters,

rather than adhering to an arbitrary deadline meant for

unchallenged elections clearly won by one party or the other.

The problem in meeting the FIRST deadline is that it was intended

for votes which were NOT CLOSE. Elections so close they must be

manually recounted, according to state law, could not possibly be

expected to adhere to the first deadline.

2. The USSC negated state laws to make their decision to end the

vote counting. The law IN PLACE at the time of the election

called for manual recounts in close races. The law IN PLACE at

the time of the election called for the canvassing boards to

determine "the clear intent of the voter" by examining the

ballots. The USSC overruled these laws. Thus, the USSC changed

the laws in place at the time of the election. You say these laws

cannot be changed. The USSC changed them, or rather, set them

aside. On Nov 7, these laws existed in force. On Dec 12, they

were gone, as if they never existed. Can't change the laws AFTER

the election any more than THAT.

Yes, the USSC made some determiniations, citing "equal protection

". The recounts must be done, according to the USSC, statewide,

by a uniform and more detailed standard than "clear intent", and

must include ALL votes, including OVERVOTES. Following the USSC's

rules, the Consortium determined Al Gore got more votes, and

WOULD HAVE won the election.

And yes, the USSC said "time is up" to enact these procedures and

standards. They did so by saying that any votes counted after Dec

12 THEY would consider "unconstitutional". Why? Because if done

after Dec 12, then the slate of electors resulting from a later

count MIGHT result in a conflicting slate of electors sent by the

Florida State Legislature. This was the CONSTITUTIONAL way to

resolve the conflict, and should have been allowed to occur. Dec

12 was a "safe harbor" deadline, which was never meant to negate

the accurate counting of valid and legal votes. The USSC decided

NOT to follow the constitutional procedure, and instead decide

the election outcome themselves.

As a result, NOBODY was accorded "equal protection". Nobody at

all. But the USSC didn't care. Equal Protection was only the "

justification" they needed to hear the case. The USSC had no

intention of their intervention resulting in equal protection of

ANYBODY. The sole resulting beneficiary of this equal protection

invocation was one person: GW Bush.

3. There IS no "date certain" for election results. There are

deadline "triggers" for various conditions...certification,

meeting of electors, and v(continued in next response...)

kuvasz1Added on Sat, Jan 26, 2002 4:55 PM Sat Jan 26 4:55 PM EST 2002

I don't even know where to start, is it....

1. the use by republican operatives in county after county fixing

only republican registration forms in county clerks offices

against the law,

2. the use of a republican organization paid by katherine harris'

office to purge voter rolls of felons and have thousands of

non-felons purged from the voting registrations rolls.

3. the incredibly repugnant sight of paid congressional aids and

republican party operatives rioting before the vote count offices

in palm springs that shut down the recount in that county.

4. the GOP attcking Gore for questioning absantee military

ballots as un-patriotic in some counties while doing just that in

other places,

5. the fact that bush signed into law in texas the use of hand

counted votes as the final arbiter of elections tallies, and then

arguing againt it as a less reliable method, even when the man

who invented the machinery that counted the votes stated

uncatagorically that the hand count method was more reliable.

but I shall let the words of Justice Stevens be my final words on

this issue because no one said it better than Justice Stevens in

his dissent on the verdict in Bush vs Gore. It should be

inscribed on all 5 of the Justices tombstones that voted for

Bush.

<quote>

"The Constitution assigns to the States the primary

responsibility for determining the manner of selecting the

Presidential electors. See Art. II, Section. 1, clause. 2. When

questions arise about the meaning of state laws, including

election laws, it is our settled practice to accept the opinions

of the highest courts of the States as providing the final

answers. On rare occasions, however, either federal statutes or

the Federal Constitution may require federal judicial

intervention in state elections. This is not such an occasion."

<snip>

"One thing, however, is certain. Although we may never know with

complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's

Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly

clear. It is the Nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial

guardian of the rule of law.?---Justice Stevens 12/13/2000

Read the whole text.

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/elections/legaldocs/stevenstext121300.htm

And as to the self congratulatoy Judge Posner, if his latest book

on intellectuals and his methods area an indication of his

acumen, i would never consider him for advice.

http://hometown.aol.com/marklevineesq/myhomepage/election.html

Q: I'm not a lawyer and I don't understand the recent Supreme

Court decision in Bush v. Gore. Can you explain it to me?

A: Sure. I'm a lawyer. I read it. It says Bush wins, even if

Gore got the most votes.

Q: But wait a second. The US Supreme Court has to give a

reason, right?

A: Right.

Q: So Bush wins because h