Media recount story set to break First stories on Florida ballot review will run Monday By William Spain, CBS.MarketWatch.com Last Update: 4:45 PM ET Nov. 8, 2001

CHICAGO (CBS.MW) -- Temporarily lost in the aftermath of Sept. 11, what could be one of the biggest news stories of the year is about to break.

Beginning in February, the National Opinion Research Center, working at the behest of a consortium of media companies, labored for months to tally uncounted votes in the disputed election that eventually led to George W. Bush's victory in Florida and, ultimately, to his presidency.

NORC's tabulation of 180,000 ballots that did not register votes during initial machine counts was complete before Labor Day and was slated for media release in mid-September. The data were held back at the behest of sponsors who felt they did not have the resources to analyze it properly with so many reporters busy covering the attacks. See full story.

However, NORC quietly turned over its findings early this week. The Associated Press said Thursday that its first coverage will go out on the wire Sunday for newspaper use the following day. Follow-ups begin Monday for use Tuesday.

A spokeswoman for the New York Times Co. told CBS.MarketWatch.com late Thursday that the company's flagship paper will run with its own story Monday.

Apart from the AP and the Times, companies contributing to the estimated $500,000 cost of the project were Dow Jones, Washington Post Co., Tribune Co., AOL Time Warner and a couple of independent Florida newspapers. Under the terms of the unusual agreement, the results would be given to all consortium members at the same time, with an agreed period in which to independently analyze them before going public.

Other news outlets have done their own recounts in Florida, with results showing everything from a larger margin for Bush to a slight edge for Democrat Al Gore, depending on how the ballots are interpreted.

-- Anonymous, November 08, 2001

Answers

Does anyone have info on the group that did the counting? Is this going to be more rehashing of questionable data?

My stomach can't handle this crud... :-(

-- Anonymous, November 09, 2001

well, yeah, it's rehashing of questionable data.

votes that were interpreted by the people who were supposed to interpret the ballots. Now this group is interpreting them their way.

I suppose that the idea is for their interpretation to be given more weight than any of the other recounts because of all the organizations involved.

I wonder though, would this group come out with a result that says Bush shouldn't be president at this time? If so, it could backfire on them most beautifully, or throw the country into a tizzy.

-- Anonymous, November 10, 2001

I think (hope?) that most people are happy with Dubya, no matter what.

-- Anonymous, November 10, 2001