A recount study of more than 175,000 Florida ballots from last fall's presidential election found that former Vice President Al Gore would have won Florida by the slimmest of margins'between 60 and 171 votes'had recounts occurred in all 67 Florida counties.
However, President Bush still would have won'by between 225 and 493 votes'if the U.S. Supreme Court had allowed the recounts to continue only in the counties that Gore had requested recounts in, according to the study commissioned by eight news organizations.
The University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center conducted the study. It did not include the approximately 8,000 butterfly ballot votes that Gore may have lost in Palm Beach County because confused voters marked two candidates on their ballots.
Bush officially won Florida by 537 votes last fall after the U.S. Supreme Court prevented the 36-day recount effort from continuing.
