Newspaper Review Shows 2000 Florida Vote Up for Grabs

A newspaper review of Florida’s more than 170,000 uncounted presidential ballots concluded that George W. Bush would have narrowly won a hand recount under the strictest standards for judging votes, while Al Gore would have won under the most liberal.

After a five-month review, USA Today and the Miami Herald reported in today’s editions that a statewide ballot review revealed no sweeping victory for either candidate.

USA Today, however, concluded that Al Gore probably lost between 15,000 to 25,000 votes--enough to have decisively won Florida and the White House--through mistakes made by Democratic voters that legally disqualified their ballots. The papers found that Gore’s name was marked on over-votes far more often than Bush’s name.

An under-vote is a ballot on which no mark or punch for president registered; an over-vote is a ballot on which more than one mark or punch registered.

More than any other conclusion, the review showed the depth of voter confusion, the newspapers said. “Ultimately, the lesson is the system we had in place caused so many people to misvote that the real result of the election isn’t known,” said Doug Pardue, projects editor for USA Today.

A group consisting of Associated Press, the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, the Palm Beach Post, St. Petersburg Times, the Wall Street Journal and Tribune Publishing, whose newspapers include the Los Angeles Times, is still analyzing all uncounted presidential ballots cast in the Florida election.