LETTERS: RECOUNTS VINDICATE A GORE VICTORY IN FLORIDA VOTING

To the editor:

Readers of the Southeast Missourian can be forgiven for lacking information on the Florida vote recounts since results reported here have been rather one-sided.

According to the Palm Beach Post, a recount of the butterfly ballot revealed 5,330 votes for Gore and Buchanan, 2,908 votes for Gore and McReynolds and only 1,631 votes for Bush and Buchanan. This suggests a 6,607-vote edge to Al Gore, more than enough to overcome the slim Bush certified victory of fewer than 1,000 votes.

Even if 1 percent of the double-punched ballots were intended for the minority candidate, Gore would still have collected enough to overcome with ease the certified Bush victory.

An earlier analysis conducted by several news media revealed that, if counted completely, Orange County would have given Gore 200 additional votes, Lake County would have given Gore an additional 300 votes, while the undervotes (where no vote for president was recorded) in 15 counties would have netted Gore another 366 votes. The Palm Beach dimpled chads would have given Gore another 682 votes.

If the recount had been allowed to continue instead of being thwarted by a biased Supreme Court, Gore would have gained 1,617 more votes, enough to overcome the Bush certified victory.

An earlier Miami Herald analysis of voting patterns throughout Florida suggested that in a clean count of the ballots, Gore would have won by 23,000 votes. As conservative columnist Kevin Phillips suggested, there seems little doubt that we are now experiencing His Fraudulency the Second.

ALAN JOURNET

Cape Girardeau