Florida Ballot Bingo
Thought the recount in Florida's presidential race ended last year?
Well, yes and no.
Sure, the official recount of the Sunshine State's presidential ballots is over.
But ever since Al Gore conceded the battle for the White House to now President-elect George W. Bush, various reviews and analyses of disputed ballots - spearheaded by news organizations and other groups - have either taken place, or are now in progress.
The most recent example: Miami-Dade County, where reporters and other groups this week began the tedious task of inspecting more than 10,000 disputed ballots there.
"Be sure to call me right away if something interesting happens," County Attorney Murray Greenberg joked with county supervisor of elections David Leahy on Wednesday.
Conducting this batch of inspections were representatives from The Herald, The Palm Beach Post, The Nation magazine, the TV show Inside Edition, and the Republican Party, as well as the conservative legal group Judicial Watch.
In late November, the Miami-Dade board decided to stop counting just hours after it agreed to examine 10,750 disputed ballots among some 654,000 cast, dealing a blow to Gore's campaign.
This week, the mood in Miami-Dade was a little more low key than in Palm Beach, where the media ballot inspection began on Tuesday. There, the inspection runs for five hours with no breaks. In Miami, the inspection runs for seven and a half hours, but allows an hour for lunch and two 15-minute breaks.
Ballot inspections in Broward, Pasco, Osceola, Okaloosa, and Highlands counties were also conducted on Wednesday. Flagler, Martin, Okeechobee, Sumter and Santa Rosa counties were to start their inspections on Thursday. And ballots in several other counties were examined by media outlets before the holidays.
Last month, a Miami Herald statistical analysis concluded that if every discarded ballot in Florida had been counted in a glitch-free election, Gore would have won the Sunshine State by 23-thousand votes.
The Gore camp's response to that analysis at the time: compelling evidence". And the Bush team's take: "statistical voodoo."
In addition, an inspection of paper ballots by The Tampa Tribune in Hillsborough County yielded 120 "undervotes" - ballots that didn't record a vote for president - for Gore. Over in Lake County, a review of optically-scanned ballots there by The Orlando Sentinel found 130 "undervotes" for the vice president.
The cost of the various inspections vary from county to county. Palm Beach County is charging $125 an hour, divided by the number of organizations participating. Miami-Dade is charging a $400 deposit of each outlet, which includes a $10 an hour cost.
Republicans say they support the public records laws that allow these reviews to take place, but add the media is abusing those laws.
"We believe the media is using thpublic records laws to justify a media recount of the 2000 presidential ballots," said Mark Wallace, a Republican attorney. "Some media outlets may use this as an opportunity to cast their own ballots."