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Just Count the Votes, Florida! Just Count the Votes! by Mobolaji E. Aluko, PhD Burtonsville, MD, USA
The Gore-Bush saga continues in its twists and turns! Presently, Republican George W. Bush leads Democrat Al Gore by 537 votes in the overall vote (Bush 2,912,790 to Gore 2,912,253), which includes certified vote tallies as submitted on Sunday November 26, 2000 by 16 of Florida's 67 counties. Prior to that last certification, election returns reported by the counties after overseas ballots were counted and before the weekend showed Bush leading by 930 votes. At that time, Bush had 2,911,872 votes while Gore had 2,910,942. For that last certification, the Florida secretary of state Kathleen Harris had rejected the results of a hand recount submitted by Palm Beach County as being late and hence only a partial count. The incomplete results by Palm Beach County would have added a net gain of 180 votes for Gore. If those returns had been accepted by the secretary of state, Bush's overall lead would been cut to 357 votes. However, yesterday December 8, 2000, the Florida Supreme Court, on appeal by the Gore legal team, ordered a manual recount of all undervotes statewide, not just the selected counties as demanded by Gore. Fair enough, one should say! It also said the Florida vote should include 215 additional votes for Gore resulting from a full manual recount in Palm Beach County, along with an additional 168 votes for Gore that were produced by a partial manual recount in Miami-Dade before its canvassing board halted the count, cutting Bush's lead to a mere razor-thin 154. There are 67 counties in Florida. There are at least 43,432 undervotes statewide in as few as 51 counties that have not yet been counted. Broward, Volusia and Palm Beach have already counted their undervotes. Miami-Dade has counted 1,750 out of 10,750 undervotes. What follows is a list of all Florida counties, the county-by-county tally (which reflects the most recent returns certified by the state, including all previous machine counts, hand counts and overseas absentee ballot results), and their number of undervotes. If a zero is listed, then there are no undervotes. "Unavailable" is listed where undervote information was not available by the county. Gore's plea, with which I agree: just count the votes, even if George W. Bush wins! Let the undervotes counting begin. May the person with the more total votes, chad or no chad, dimple or no dimples, win. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bush Gore Orig. No. of County Bush Gore Change Change Winner Undrvts ------- ------ ------ ------- ------- ------- ------- Alachua 34,135 47,380 - - Gore 225 Baker 5,611 2,392 - - Bush 94 Bay 38,682 18,873 7 5 Bush 529 Bradford 5,416 3,075 - - Bush 40 Brevard 115,253 97,341 14 6 Bush 277 Broward 177,939 387,760 579 1,146 Gore 6686* Calhoun 2,873 2,156 - - Bush 78 Charlott 35,428 29,646 - - Bush 168 Citrus 29,801 25,531 1 - Bush 163 Clay 41,903 14,668 13 1 Bush 100 Collier 60,467 29,939 25 10 Bush 2082 Columbia 10,968 7,049 - - Bush 617 Dade 289,574 328,867 - 6 Gore 10750** (9000) De Soto 4,256 3,321 - - Bush unav. Dixie 2,697 1,827 - - Bush unav. Duval 152,460 108,039 44 24 Bush 4967 Escambia 73,171 40,990 45 9 Bush unav. Flagler 12,618 13,897 - - Gore 55 Franklin 2,454 2,047 - - Bush 70 Gadsden 4,770 9,736 - - Gore 122 Gilchrist 3,300 1,910 - - Bush unav. Glades 1,841 1,442 - - Bush unav. Gulf 3,553 2,398 - - Bush 48 Hamilton 2,147 1,723 - - Bush 0 Hardee 3,765 2,342 - - Bush 85 Hendry 4,747 3,240 - - Bush 39 Hernando 30,658 32,648 - - Gore 101 Highland 20,207 14,169 - - Bush 489 Hilsboro 180,794 169,576 - - Bush 5531 Holmes 5,012 2,177 - - Bush unav. Indianrv 28,639 19,769 - - Bush 1058 Jackson 9,139 6,870 - - Bush 94 Jeffrson 2,478 3,041 - - Gore unav. Lafayete 1,670 789 - - Bush 0 Lake 50,010 36,571 - - Bush 245 Lee 106,151 73,571 - - Bush 2017 Leon 39,073 61,444 - - Gore unav. Levy 6,863 5,398 - - Bush 52 Liberty 1,317 1,017 - - Bush 29 Madison 3,038 3,015 - - Bush unav. Manatee 58,023 49,226 16 12 Bush 111 Marion 55,146 44,674 - - Bush 2455 Martin 33,972 26,621 - - Bush unav. Monroe 16,063 16,487 - - Gore 83 Nassau 16,408 6,955 125 73 Bush 195 Okaloosa 52,186 16,989 2 1 Bush 85 Okeechobee 5,057 4,589 - - Bush 84 Orange 134,531 140,236 - - Gore 966 Osceola 26,237 28,187 - - Gore 642 Palm Beach 152,964 269,754 - - Gore 10582* Pasco 68,607 69,576 12 6 Gore 1776 Pinellas 184,849 200,657 2 1 Gore 4226 Polk 90,310 75,207 4 3 Bush 228 Putnam 13,457 12,107 - - Bush 83 St Johns 39,564 19,509 - - Bush 426 St Lucie 34,705 41,560 - - Gore 537 Sntarosa 36,339 12,818 29 8 Bush unav. Sarasota 83,117 72,869 - - Bush 1089 Seminole 75,790 59,227 - - Bush 219 Sumter 12,127 9,637 - - Bush 593 Suwannee 8,009 4,076 - - Bush 42 Taylor 4,058 2,649 - - Bush 82 Union 2,332 1,407 - - Bush unav. Volusia 82,368 97,313 - - Gore 155* Wakulla 4,512 3,838 - - Bush unav. Walton 12,186 5,643 - - Bush 133 Washington 4,995 2,798 - - Bush 292 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Totals 2,912,790 2,912,253 918 1,311 [Difference <-- 537 --> <-- 393 --> = 930] Adv. Bush [Add Palm Beach -215 } Latest Florida Supreme [Add Miami-Dade -168 } Court Ruling --- -383 [New Difference 154] Advantage Bush ----------------------------------------------------------------------- * Broward, Palm Beach, Volusia: already counted, will not be recounted. ** Miami-Dade: 10,750 undervotes, but 9,000 yet to be counted unav. - unavailable Sources: AOL website, CNN website |