Exclusive: Voter Error Not Limited to Democrat Counties

In Taylor County, voters selected their candidate of choice on a sheet of paper consisting of all the candidates' names. Voters selected their favorite candidate by filling in an oval next to the name with a No. 2 pencil.

Even though this ballot, similar to multiple-choice tests taken in school, was seemingly straightforward, 517 of the county's 6,800 ballots, or roughly 7.6 percent of all ballots, had to be thrown out due to overvoting. An overvote occurs when a voter casts a vote for more than one candidate in the same election.

According to William Blue, a lawyer who was part of the Taylor recount and soon-to-be chairman of the north Florida county's Republican Party, these overvotes had a variety of patterns. On some, nine of the 10 candidates were selected, leaving either the George W. Bush oval or Al Gore oval empty. On others, three, four or five candidates were selected, while on others, two candidates had been selected with one being crossed out. In some cases, voters selected Bush or Gore and then wrote the names in as well.

"We had people that voted for everyone but Bush or everyone but Gore or three or four candidates, with no discernible pattern as to why the mistakes are being made other than voter ignorance," Blue said. "In any given election in any county in the country, you're going to have between 4 to 8 percent of the ballots tossed out due to overvotes – just due to voter error, and that's clearly what it was."

Blue, as well as other representatives from the Republican and Democratic parties, went through these thrown-out ballots one by one. In each instance, everybody agreed on voter intent. Where voter intent wasn't discernible, they threw the ballot out.

Although the whole recount process in Taylor County was uneventful, it becomes significant in light of how it contrasts with the process being undertaken in the Democrat-dominated counties of Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade.

A big issue in Palm Beach, for example, was the alleged confusion of the butterfly ballots that evidently led to 19,000 overvotes in the county. Fear arose that people who thought they were voting for Gore actually voted for Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan.

Whereas more than 7 percent of Taylor County's total votes were overvotes, however, Palm Beach's 19,000 overvotes were only about 4.7 percent of its total. The butterfly ballots were not the problem.

"Apparently, that was not the cause of the confusion," Blue said of the butterfly ballots. "The confusion was inherent in the person when they cast their vote."

In Taylor County, it was clear which overvoted ballots would be counted and which would not. For example, those ballots with filled-in ovals for Gore or Bush as well as a write-in name matching the name selected at the top would count as a vote. A ballot with one name crossed out and only one other filled in was another clear vote. However, multiple selections of candidates for one office were thrown out because the voter intent was not clear.

"We tried to discern a pattern as to why these voters voted for more than one candidate, and very clearly, there was no discernible pattern. It did not favor Bush or Gore," Blue said.

Byrum Whitfield, chairman of the Democratic Party in Taylor County, said he didn't have any problem with how the overvotes were handled but was convinced that the ballot confused some of the voters.

"There were 10 candidates for president [on the ballot]," Whitfield explained. "Most of our people have never seen that many [candidates] before. Many of them apparently felt like they were voting in more than one race, and this was just confusion on their part [for] which there's no recourse.

"Now, we could have said, 'Well, the [voter] tried to vote for Gore and got confused and marked these other names,' " continued Whitfield. "And they may have [gotten confused], but there was no way of counting the ballot because they clearly marked two, three or four names."

Commenting on the issue of hanging, dimpled and pregnant chads in Palm Beach, Miami-Dade and Broward, Whitfield said, "If the [voter] punched out one and realized they made a mistake, of course they should have asked for another ballot, but apparently they did not. And then they punched out a second one.

"I don't really know how you could determine [voter intent]. If it was straight Democratic on everything else, that would be a good indication, but would it be overwhelming evidence? I don't know."

Even if the indications are good that a voter intended to vote for one candidate or another, Blue brought up the additional argument regarding the handling of the ballots.

"The problem with handling and rehandling the ballots used in Palm Beach makes the count less and less reliable each time you handle them," Blue said.

Although it is likely that every county in Florida – and across the whole country – has at least some overvoted ballots, Blue said it was absurd that the Democrats would be suggesting that a statewide hand recount be conducted. Putting time constraints aside, Blue said, there was no law that would authorize such a recount.

"It's an empty gesture to say let's recount all 67 counties. That's never going to happen," Blue said.

"It would have been just as activist for that liberal Florida Supreme Court to authorize a 67-county recount as it was to arbitrarily extend the deadline for certification," Blue added.

Blue told NewsMax.com he was contacted by three individuals who expressed concern they had accidentally voted for Gore when they meant to vote for Bush. However, Blue believes they were simply trying to make an "academic point," because they never followed up with a lawsuit.

When asked who they believed would end up being president, Whitfield and Blue were very partisan.

"I think if the ballots are counted, Al Gore will win," Whitfield said. "My opinion is that a majority of the people attempted to vote for Gore, but it was not an overwhelming majority by any means."

Countering Whitfield, Blue said, "I believe George Bush won the race. I believe that more people on the day of election went to the booth to vote for George Bush and in fact did do that.

"I am convinced that if there ever is a recount that changes that, the recount will have been accomplished through fraudulent intent but not fraudulent means."