Ultimately, a media consortiumβcomprising The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Tribune Co. (parent of the Los Angeles Times), Associated Press, CNN, The Palm Beach Post and the St. Petersburg Times[78]βhired NORC at the University of Chicago[79] to examine 175,010 ballots collected from the entire state, not just the disputed counties that were recounted; these ballots contained undervotes (ballots with no machine-detected choice made for president) and overvotes (ballots with more than one choice marked). Their goal was to determine the reliability and accuracy of the systems used for the voting process. Based on the NORC review, the media group concluded that if the disputes over all the ballots in question had been resolved by applying statewide any of five standards that would have met Florida's legal standard for recounts, the electoral result would have been reversed and Gore would have won by 60 to 171 votes. (Any analysis of NORC data requires, for each punch ballot, at least two of the three ballot reviewers' codes to agree or instead, for all three to agree.) For all undervotes and overvotes statewide, these five standards are:[7][80][81]
Prevailing standard β accepts at least one detached corner of a chad and all affirmative marks on optical scan ballots.
County-by-county standard β applies each county's own standards independently.
Two-corner standard β accepts at least two detached corners of a chad and all affirmative marks on optical scan ballots.
Most restrictive standard β accepts only so-called perfect ballots that machines somehow missed and did not count, or ballots with unambiguous expressions of voter intent.
Most inclusive standard β applies uniform criteria of "dimple or better" on punch marks and all affirmative marks on optical scan ballots.
reply
share