"[4] A physical mark on a ballot, at or near a designated target, is such an indication. Overall, the results were justtoo close to callon election night. And not in the minds of a generation of Americans who thought the White House should have gone to Gore. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. [19]:215221 According to a 2001 study in the American Political Science Review, the voting errors caused by the butterfly ballot cost Gore the election: "Had PBC used a ballot format in the presidential race that did not lead to systematic biased voting errors, our findings suggest that, other things equal, Al Gore would have won a majority of the officially certified votes in Florida. The decision was extremely controversial due to its partisan split and the majority's unusual instruction that its judgment in Bush v. Gore should not set precedent but should be "limited to the present circumstances". She was also an ally of Republican Gov. CNN.com, 2001. Print and broadcast media cited often contradictory exit-polling numbers, and the races in Oregon and New Mexico would remain too close to call for some days. You can specify conditions of storing and accessing cookies in your browser. In comparison, counties that used paper ballots scanned by computers at voting places (in order to give voters a chance to correct their ballot if it had an error) had just 1 in 200 uncountable ballots. Shouldn't the electoral college be scrapped then? It was ostensibly completed on November 10 in the 66 Florida counties that used vote-counting machines and reduced Bush's lead to 327 votes. Subsequent statements by Lewis and internal court documents support the likelihood that overvotes would have been included in the recount. By November 10 the machine recount was complete, and Bushs lead stood at 327 votes out of six million cast. [14]:89 On November 13, the federal court ruled against an injunction. The official result was finally decided by Katherine Harris, Florida's Secretary of State, when she was forced to certified the . The campaign No. Florida state law at the time allowed a candidate to request a manual recount by protesting the results of at least three precincts. Upon such an overvote, the entire vote for that office shall be void and shall not be counted. "Study concludes accurate election recount virtually impossible." The results of the 2000 U.S. presidential election are provided in the table. Preventing the canvassing boards from continuing to conduct recounts beyond the seven-day timeframe (specified in the law, but with ambiguity as to how firm it was intended to be), would "summarily disenfranchise innocent electors [voters]" and could not be allowed unless the recounts continued for so long as to "compromise the integrity of the electoral process."