Experts: Hand recount 'trick' inherently biased

By insisting on hand recounts performed only in heavily Democratic
counties, Vice President Al Gore's campaign will bias Florida's overall
vote count by not including similar recounts in Republican-leaning
counties, analysts say.

Edward Glaeser, a Harvard economics professor, blasted the selective
hand recount in his analysis published in the Wall Street Journal
yesterday.

"There is a well-known trick among statistical economists for biasing
your data while looking honest," Glaeser wrote. "First, figure out which
data points don't agree with your theory. Then zealously clean up the
offending data points while leaving the other data alone. The key to
maintaining academic dignity is to ensure that you do nothing to the
data other than eliminate errors."

"But while this approach may seem to improve accuracy, it actually
leads to biased results," he continued. "If you only clean the offending
data points, then you will disproportionately keep erroneous data that
agrees with your prior views."

TRENDING: Biden's choice: The anatomy of a cover-up

Glaeser believes the Gore campaign is using that tactic in Florida,
which will result in skewed vote counts in favor of the vice president.

"Hand counting ballots in only a few, carefully chosen counties is a
sure way to bias the results," wrote Glaeser. "Even if hand counting is
more accurate than machine counting, there is a clear bias introduced
because Al Gore chose which counties to hand count. Mr. Gore has
selected the state and counties where recounting has the best chance of
helping him."

A Minnesota state GOP delegate and former sociologist who
worked professionally with statistics echoes Glaeser's observations.

Far more important than the possibility of human error in the
recount, warns Roleigh Martin, is the inherent problem of "skewed
fairness" that will likely occur in Palm Beach County and other areas
where hand recounts are being performed in Florida.

"It would be skewed because the fairness is only occurring in an area
that is skewed to the Democrats," Martin said.

Should a hand recount be performed in predominantly Republican
counties, such as in Florida's conservative panhandle where Bush bested
Gore, statistics indicate the Texas governor would garner more new votes
than Gore in those areas. In other words, just as a visual examination
of ballots in pro-Gore counties will show a gain for the vice president,
a hand recount in pro-Bush counties would assuredly result in more votes
for the Republican candidate.

One such area is Duval County, which is as Republican as Palm Beach
County is Democratic. About 27,000 ballots there were disqualified
because either more than one presidential candidate was selected or no
candidate was marked. Susan Tucker Johnson, a spokeswoman for Duval
County Supervisor of Elections John Stafford, told the Associated Press
21,942 ballots were nullified when voters punched their ballots for two
candidates for president. An additional 4,967 did not vote for president
or did not punch the ballot hard enough for their vote to be registered,
she said. The disqualified ballots represent about 9 percent of the
291,626 cast last Tuesday.

Bush carried Duval County by more than 44,000 votes.

Mike Langton, chairman of the northeast Florida Gore campaign, said
he would have called for a recount in Duval County had he known how many
ballots had been disqualified there. Langton claims the county
supervisor of elections told him only 200 to 300 votes had been
disqualified. It is now too late for anyone to request additional hand
recounts in Florida, as such requests must be made within 72 hours of an
election.

RELATED: Absentee ballots the next battle

Glaeser says the only way to ensure hand recounts accurately indicate
the winner of the presidential election is to perform them in all of the
nation's states where the race was tight.

"If there is to be recounting by hand, it cannot be selective," the
economist wrote. "There needs to be total hand counting, not just within
Florida, but across the U.S. in any state that was close. One candidate
cannot be allowed just to choose where he wants the data cleaned."

Related stories:

'How Democrats steal elections'

Florida ballot not confusing to 4th-graders

Something smells in St. Louis

Congressman calls for military-ballot probe

Clinton term extended?

Fraudulent absentee ballots cast in Florida

More questions arise in Florida

Bacon denies WND military-ballot report

It's Bush! ... Or is it?

Non-citizens vote with 'Clinton card'?

California in frenzy over voter fraud