A statistical analysis of the votes cast in Florida shows with 鈥渆xtreme confidence鈥� that Palm Beach County鈥檚 controversial ballot paper cost Al Gore at least 2,000 votes.
The latest unofficial result of the recount in Florida puts George W Bush just 327 votes ahead of his Democrat rival. However, the official vote result from Florida won鈥檛 be announced until 17 November. Whoever wins Florida will win the presidency.
Some Palm Beach voters have complained that the design of the ballot paper was confusing. They say this led them to unintentionally vote for Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan, instead of Al Gore, or to invalidate their paper by then also punching a hole beside Gore鈥檚 name.
Advertisement
A statistical analysis of the votes for Buchanan strongly supports the claims.
Buchanan won 3,407 votes in Palm Beach County. In other counties in Florida he won around 1,000 votes at most. 鈥淧alm Beach sticks out as an outlier from all of the other Florida counties,鈥� says Greg Adams of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
In the last presidential election in 1996, Palm Beach residents voted in a similar pattern as the rest of the state.
Adams drew up three simple plots: Buchanan鈥檚 votes against Bush鈥檚, Buchanan鈥檚 against Gore鈥檚 and Buchanan鈥檚 against the total votes cast in a country.
鈥淎ll of the plots, for all of the counties, except Palm Beach, follow a regular pattern,鈥� he says.
Craig Fox of Duke University performed a separate statistical analysis of Florida votes, and reached the same conclusions as Adams. 鈥淭here is a 97.5 per cent chance that Gore was short-changed at least 2008 votes,鈥� he says.