Gore's Victory
          http://www.consortiumnews.com/2001/111201a.html

                          By Robert Parry
                         November 12, 2001
 

So Al Gore was the choice of Florida's voters -- whether one counts 
hanging chads or dimpled chads. That was the core finding of the 
eight news organizations that conducted a review of disputed Florida 
ballots. By any chad measure, Gore won. 

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Gore won even if one doesn't count the 15,000-25,000 votes that USA 
Today estimated Gore lost because of illegally designed "butterfly 
ballots," or the hundreds of predominantly African-American voters 
who were falsely identified by the state as felons and turned away 
from the polls.

Gore won even if there's no adjustment for George W. Bush's windfall 
of about 290 votes from improperly counted military absentee ballots 
where lax standards were applied to Republican counties and strict 
standards to Democratic ones, a violation of fairness reported 
earlier by the Washington Post and the New York Times. 

Put differently, George W. Bush was not the choice of Florida's 
voters anymore than he was the choice of the American people who cast 
a half million more ballots for Gore than Bush nationwide. [For more 
details on studies of the election, see  Consortiumnews.com stories 
of May 12, June 2 and July 16.]

The Spin

Yet, possibly for reasons of "patriotism" in this time of crisis, the 
news organizations that financed the Florida ballot study structured 
their stories on the ballot review to indicate that Bush was the 
legitimate winner, with headlines such as "Florida Recounts Would 
Have Favored Bush" [Washington Post, Nov. 12, 2001].

Post media critic Howard Kurtz took the spin one cycle further with a 
story headlined, "George W. Bush, Now More Than Ever," in which Kurtz 
ridiculed as "conspiracy theorists" those who thought Gore had won.

"The conspiracy theorists have been out in force, convinced that the 
media were covering up the Florida election results to protect 
President Bush," Kurtz wrote. "That gets put to rest today, with the 
finding by eight news organizations that Bush would have beaten Gore 
under both of the recount plans being considered at the time."

Kurtz also mocked those who believed that winning an election fairly, 
based on the will of the voters, was important in a democracy. "Now 
the question is: How many people still care about the election 
deadlock that last fall felt like the story of the century – and now 
faintly echoes like some distant Civil War battle?" he wrote.

In other words, the elite media's judgment is in: "Bush won, get over 
it." Only "Gore partisans" – as both the Washington Post and the New 
York Times called critics of the official Florida election tallies – 
would insist on looking at the fine print.

The Actual Findings

While that was the tone of coverage in these leading news outlets, 
it's still a bit jarring to go outside the articles and read the 
actual results of the statewide review of 175,010 disputed ballots.

"Full Review Favors Gore," the Washington Post said in a box on page 
10, showing that under all standards applied to the ballots, Gore 
came out on top. The New York Times' graphic revealed the same 
outcome.

Earlier, less comprehensive ballot studies by the Miami Herald and 
USA Today had found that Bush and Gore split the four categories of 
disputed ballots depending on what standard was applied to assessing 
the ballots – punched-through chads, hanging chads, etc. Bush won 
under two standards and Gore under two standards.

The new, fuller study found that Gore won regardless of which 
standard was applied and even when varying county judgments were 
factored in. Counting fully punched chads and limited marks on 
optical ballots, Gore won by 115 votes. With any dimple or optical 
mark, Gore won by 107 votes. With one corner of a chad detached or 
any optical mark, Gore won by 60 votes. Applying the standards set by 
each county, Gore won by 171 votes.

This core finding of Gore's Florida victory in the unofficial ballot 
recount might surprise many readers who skimmed only the headlines 
and the top paragraphs of the articles. The headlines and leads 
highlighted hypothetical, partial recounts that supposedly favored 
Bush.

Buried deeper in the stories or referenced in subheads was the fact 
that the new recount determined that Gore was the winner statewide, 
even ignoring the "butterfly ballot" and other irregularities that 
cost him thousands of ballots.

The news organizations opted for the pro-Bush leads by focusing on 
two partial recounts that were proposed – but not completed – in the 
chaotic, often ugly environment of last November and December.

The new articles make much of Gore's decision to seek recounts in 
only four counties and the Florida Supreme Court's decision to 
examine only "undervotes," those rejected by voting machines for 
supposedly lacking a presidential vote. A recurring undercurrent in 
the articles is that Gore was to blame for his defeat, even if he may 
have actually won the election.

"Mr. Gore might have eked out a victory if he had pursued in court a 
course like the one he publicly advocated when he called on the state 
to 'count all the votes,'" the New York Times wrote, with a clear 
suggestion that Gore was hypocritical as well as foolish.

The Washington Post recalled that Gore "did at one point call on Bush 
to join him in asking for a statewide recount" and accepting the 
results without further legal challenge, but that Bush rejected the 
proposal as "a public relations gesture."

The Bush Strategy

Instead of supporting a full and fair recount, Bush chose to cling to 
his official lead of 537 votes out of some 6 million cast, Bush 
counted on his brother Jeb's state officials to ensure the Bush 
family's return to national power.

To add some muscle to the legal maneuvering, the Bush campaign 
dispatched thugs to Florida to intimidate vote counters and jacked up 
the decibel level in the powerful conservative media, which accused 
Gore of trying to steal the election and labeled him "Sore Loserman."

With Bush rejecting a full recount and media pundits calling for Gore 
to concede, Gore opted for recounts in four southern Florida counties 
where irregularities seemed greatest. Those recounts were opposed by 
Bush's supporters, both inside Gov. Jeb Bush's administration and in 
the streets by Republican hooligans flown in from Washington. [For 
more details, see stories from Nov. 24, 2000 and Nov. 27, 2000]

Stymied on that recount front, Gore carried the fight to the state 
courts, where pro-Bush forces engaged in more delaying tactics, 
leaving the Florida Supreme Court only days to fashion a recount 
remedy.

Finally, on Dec. 8, facing an imminent deadline for submitting the 
presidential election returns, the state Supreme Court ordered a 
statewide recount of "undervotes." This tally would have excluded so-
called "overvotes" – which were kicked out for supposedly indicating 
two choices for president.

Bush fought this court-ordered recount, too, sending his lawyers to 
the U.S. Supreme Court. There, five Republican justices stopped the 
recount on Dec. 9 and gave a sympathetic hearing to Bush's claim that 
the varying ballot standards in Florida violated constitutional equal-
protection requirements.

At 10 p.m. on Dec. 12, two hours before a deadline to submit voting 
results, the Republican-controlled U.S. Supreme Court instructed the 
state courts to devise a recount method that would apply equal 
standards, a move that would have included all ballots where the 
intent of the voter was clear. The hitch was that the U.S. Supreme 
Court gave the state only two hours to complete this assignment, 
effectively handing Florida's 25 electoral votes and the White House 
to Republican George W. Bush.

A Third Hypothetical

The articles about the new recount tallies make much of the two 
hypothetical cases in which Bush supposedly would have prevailed: the 
limited recounts of the four southern Florida counties – by 225 
votes – and the state Supreme Court's order – by 430 votes. Those 
hypothetical cases dominated the news stories, while Gore's statewide-
recount victory was played down.

Yet, the newspapers made little or nothing of the fact that the U.S. 
Supreme Court's decision represented a third hypothetical. Assuming 
that a brief extension were granted to permit a full-and-fair Florida 
recount, the U.S. Supreme Court decision might well have resulted in 
the same result that the news organizations discovered: a Gore 
victory.

The U.S. Supreme Court's proposed standards mirrored the standards 
applied in the new recount of the disputed ballots. The Post buries 
this important fact in the 22nd paragraph of its story.

"Ironically, it was Bush's lawyers who argued that recounting only 
the undervotes violated the constitutional guarantee of equal 
protection. And the U.S. Supreme Court, in its Dec. 12 ruling that 
ended the dispute, also questioned whether the Florida court should 
have limited a statewide recount only to undervotes," the Post 
wrote. "Had the high court acted on that, and had there been enough 
time left for the Florida Supreme Court to require yet another 
statewide recount, Gore's chances would have been dramatically 
improved."

In other words, if the U.S. Supreme Court had given the state enough 
time to fashion a comprehensive remedy or if Bush had agreed to a 
full-and-fair recount earlier, the popular will of the American 
voters – both nationally and in Florida – might well have been 
respected. Al Gore might well have been inaugurated president of the 
United States.

Favored Outcome

But this outcome was not the favored hypothetical of the news 
organizations, which apparently wanted to avoid questions about their 
patriotism. If they had simply given the American people the 
unvarnished facts, the reality that the voters of Florida favored Al 
Gore might have bolstered the belief that Bush indeed did steal the 
White House. That, in turn, could have undermined his legitimacy 
during the current crisis over terrorism.

In its coverage of the latest recount numbers, the national news 
media also showed little regard for the fundamental principle of 
democracy: that leaders derive their just powers from the consent of 
the governed, not from legalistic tricks, physical intimidation and 
public-relations maneuvers.

It is that understanding that is most missing in the news accounts of 
the latest recount figures.

Presumably, the American people are supposed to accept that 
everything just turned out right – the Bush dynasty was restored to 
power, the proper order was back in place. Anyone who begs to differ 
is a "conspiracy theorist" or a "Gore partisan."


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