Bush Still Had Votes to Win in a Recount, Study Finds

The study found that Florida's uncounted optical scan ballots included as many as 3,527 such potentially valid votes. If those votes had been counted, Gore would have gained 2,206 votes and Bush 1,321--a swing of 885 votes for Gore.

Four examples:

* If Florida's ballots had been recounted using a restrictive standard that some Bush lawyers said they could accept, the study found that Gore would have won the state by 105 votes--as long as optical scanner overvotes showing clear intent were included. But if overvotes were left out of the count, the study found that Bush would have won by 908 votes.

* If the statewide recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court had not been interrupted by the U.S. Supreme Court, Bush would have won by 493 votes. The reason: Nine counties were including overvotes, but 58 were not. (The Times' analysis of this scenario recorded each ballot according to the standard each county said it was using or planned to use at the time.)

* If the recounts Gore initially requested had been completed in four heavily Democratic counties (Broward, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Volusia), Bush still would have won by 225 votes. Those recounts focused only on undervotes, not overvotes--and the uncounted undervotes were not enough to swing the election to Gore.

* If a recount had been performed under the standards of a 1996 Texas election law signed by then-Gov. George W. Bush, Gore might have won by 42 votes. The Texas law provides that a vote should be counted if it reflects "a clearly ascertainable intent of the voter," including dimpled chads and overvotes on optically scanned ballots.

Most states that have revised their election laws in recent years consider those "clear intent" overvotes to be valid. In Florida, for example, aides to Secretary of State Katherine Harris proposed new recount rules in September that consider an improperly marked optical scan ballot valid as long as officials can see "a clear indication of voters' intent." When Gore asked for recounts in four Democratic counties last November, his aides didn't realize at first that a potentially critical trove of overvotes lay elsewhere--in counties that used optical scanner ballots.

"We had a lingering suspicion that we would find more votes in the overvotes," said Ronald A. Klain, who ran Gore's recount operation. "But we were having trouble even getting those four counties recounted."