<http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,450264,00.html> Recount shows Gore had won
Special report: the US elections
Martin Kettle in Washington Monday March 12, 2001 The Guardian
Fresh evidence has emerged in Florida that Al Gore might have won last year's presidential election under a less contentious voting system, and if the US supreme court had not stepped in to stop the recount. A comprehensive new survey of "undervotes" in Palm Beach county shows that Mr Gore would have gained 784 more votes than George Bush if every excluded paper bearing some kind of mark next to a candidate's name had been counted.
The butterfly ballot, which has candidates' names on opposing pages with a row of punch holes in the middle, confused thousands of voters in the Democratic stronghold, which was one of the areas at the centre of the post-election recount battle.
Those Palm Beach votes would have been enough on their own for Mr Gore to overtake Mr Bush, who was declared the winner in Florida by a statewide margin of 537 votes.
The Palm Beach recount figures came too late to be included in the official tally of votes certified by the Florida secretary of state Katherine Harris 19 days after the November 7 election.
The new survey, conducted by the Palm Beach Post, looked at all the 9,150 disputed undervotes of all kinds, including 5,736 which contained marks next to the names of Mr Bush and Mr Gore and which Judge Burton ordered should not be counted.
The researchers found that these dimpled chads held the key to Mr Gore's chances.