March 12, 2001. Copyright 2001. Graphic News. All rights reserved.

PALM BEACH BUTTERFLY BALLOT COST GORE Ð REPORT

LONDON, March 12, Graphic News: A controversial butterfly ballot cost Al Gore about 6,600 votes in FloridaÕs Palm Beach County, more than enough to have given him the presidential election, a newspaper reported on Sunday.

The butterfly ballot, which has candidatesÕ names on opposing pages with a row of punch holes in the middle, confused thousands of voters in Palm Beach County, a Democratic stronghold and FloridaÕs third most populous county.

A ballot-by-ballot review of 19,125 discarded ÒovervotesÓ -- ballots on which a voter punched holes for more than one candidate -- found that 8,238 Palm Beach voters invalidated their ballots by punching holes for Gore and either Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan or Socialist David McReynolds, the Palm Beach Post reported.

The names of Buchanan and McReynolds were the top two on the right page of the ballot while GoreÕs was the second name on the left.

Allowing that one percent of the overvotes were intended for Buchanan or McReynolds -- more than their portion of the countyÕs total vote -- Gore still would have had more than 6,600 extra votes, enough to beat BushÕs winning statewide margin of 537 votes, the paper said.

ÒWhat it shows is what weÕve been saying all along -- there is no question that the majority of people on Election Day believed they left the booth voting for Al Gore,Ó Ron Klain, GoreÕs former chief of staff, told the Post.

The greatest concentration of the double-punched votes came from African-American communities, around 15 percent of the black vote in the county was disqualified.
/ENDS
Sources: Reuters, Palm Beach Post