Newspaper analysis of votes gives Bush slight Florida edge

MIAMI (CNN) -- In a post-election analysis, The Miami Herald suggested George W. Bush probably would have won the presidency outright if Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris had allowed South Florida counties to complete manual recounts before certifying last November's election.

In a front page story and on its Web site, the Herald said Monday that Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore would have not have gained enough votes in the recount of "undervote" ballots in Miami-Dade and three other counties to overcome Bush's lead.

	MESSAGE BOARD
The Florida vote

A White House spokesman down played the significance of the story, declaring the election had been "settled a long time ago."

"We've never thought it's been in doubt," said White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer.

At the same time, Fleischer said Bush recognized the closeness of the race and the need to bring Americans together in its aftermath "It's going to be an ongoing part of his administration to continue to build one nation and to bring people together," Fleischer said.

The Herald reported that its inspection of undervotes, done by a public accounting firm, used the broadest possible standard "to decide when a mark is a vote."

Separately, a task force establish by Florida Gov. Jeb Bush recommended in a draft report that the state create a standardized statewide voting system for 2002.

The task force noted that the state has certified an optical reading voting system that meets those standards and recommended that counties not using it consider leasing it for the 2002 election cycle. It said Florida voters have lost confidence in punch card voting systems used in many of the state's most populous counties.

The task force also recommended a number of steps aimed at boosting the knowledge of voters and poll-workers. And it called for non-partisan elections of county election supervisors and prohibiting political involvement by canvassing boards.

The Herald review suggested that Gore would have gained no more than 49 votes if a recount of Miami-Dade ballots had been allowed.

"That would have been 140 too few to overcome Bush's lead, even when joined with Gore gains in Volusia, Palm Beach and Broward counties -- the three other counties where Gore had requested manual recounts," The Herald reported.

Mark Siebel, The Herald's managing editor for news, said a team of reporters and researchers examined 10,644 disputed presidential ballots from those counties.

Monday's story by The Herald is the latest in a series of stories the newspaper has published examining the presidential vote in all 67 Florida counties.

After the November election, Gore sought a recount in selected counties, saying thousands of ballots had never been counted. Republicans opposed that effort, saying the ballots had been counted by machines and some voters simply never made a clear selection for president.

Bush won the presidency five weeks after Election Day after the U.S. Supreme Court blocked Gore's efforts to have the disputed ballots counted by hand. Florida's 25 electoral votes decided the outcome of the presidential race.

A separate group of news organizations, including CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post, have joined to retain a nonprofit research firm to conduct an inventory of the 180,000 ballots from throughout Florida that did not register a presidential vote when they passed through machines. Those ballots include both ones that had no vote for president and those that had more than one.

The National Opinion Research Center, affiliated with the University of Chicago, will evaluate the ballots and classify the marks or lack of marks on each. The firm will not try to determine whether a ballot contains a vote, but will only describe the marks.

Other news organizations that are part of the inventory effort include The Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal, the Palm Beach Post, the St. Petersburg Times and Tribune Publishing.

When the effort was announced, organizers said it should be completed by April. The results will be released to the public.

The 12 recommendations made by the governor's Select Task Force on Election Procedures, Standards and Technology:

-- Establish a uniform and standardized statewide voting system for 2002.

-- Establish minimum standards for voter education.

-- Fund voter education and training programs.

-- Create and publish voter's bills of rights and responsibilities.

-- Strengthen student civic education.

-- Recruit more qualified poll workers.

-- Set up distance learning training for poll workers.

-- Improve precinct communication.

-- Provide voter comment cards and suggestion boxes.

-- Make the post of county election supervisor non-partisan.

-- Prohibit political involvement of county canvassing boards and state elections canvassing commission.

-- Allow appeal to the state of county decisions on budgets for elections supervisors.

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