A group of the nation's largest news organizations has retained the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago to conduct an in-depth inventory of uncounted ballots from the presidential race in Florida.

The group, which includes The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Tribune Publishing, CNN, Associated Press, the St. Petersburg Times and the Palm Beach Post, plans to produce a database that will describe in detail the 180,000 Florida ballots that didn't register a vote on machine counts – including both undervotes (no vote for president recorded) and overvotes (two or more votes for president). (Tribune, based in Chicago, owns the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Orlando Sentinel, and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, among others; Washington Post Co. owns the Post and Newsweek; The New York Times owns the Boston Globe, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, and the Lakeland Ledger, among others.)

NORC, a nonprofit survey research firm affiliated with the University of Chicago will view the ballots and abstract information about the marks, or lack of marks, on each. NORC will not attempt to assess whether any particular ballot contains a "vote" but simply describe the marks.

"The intention of the project from NORC's viewpoint is not to identify who got more votes but rather to examine closely the variabilities in the voting systems themselves," said Dr. Kirk Wolter, NORC's Senior Vice President for Statistics and Methodology. "This information will be helpful to State and local governments in selecting balloting systems that count ballots with a high degree of reliability," said Wolter.

The project will produce the definitive historical archive of Florida ballots that did not register a vote, using the highest standards of scientific accuracy and transparency.

NORC will screen and train teams of three independent coders to classify each ballot into categories based on the varying interpretations canvassing boards have confronted in manual recounts of machine-readable ballots. For instance, on punch-card ballots NORC's three coders will record independently whether a ballot's key chads were missing, hanging by one or more corners, or dimpled; whether light is visible around the dimple; and whether the rest of the ballot is similarly marked.

Each news organization will use the raw data to produce its own analyses and stories about what the uncounted ballots reveal. The data also will be released publicly within a few days after completion to allow academics, or any other interested parties, a chance to assess it as well.

The pool has invited other news organizations willing to share costs to participate. Organizations sharing costs will get the first crack at viewing and using the database. Plans call for the database to be complete within eight to ten weeks.

Use of three coders insures the highest level of accuracy and reliability in abstracting information from ballots. It makes it possible to guard against partisan biases and to judge the difficulty that canvassing boards encounter in trying to assess voter intent on machine ballots. Overvoted ballots may be viewed by one coder if an initial test using three coders shows that they are easier to read.

The pool has requested elections officials in all 67 counties to segregate all ballots on which machines could find no vote, or more than one vote for president. Most of those ballots were not included in the certified vote totals.

NORC, a self-governing non profit corporation founded in 1941, has pioneered the use of surveys in the study of health, education, alcohol and drug abuse, labor, crime, the environment and mental health. It has more than 50 projects of all sizes underway at any one time, and describes its mission this way: "To advance the methodology of public opinion surveys and provide accurate, well-focused survey data to inform and invigorate democratic decision-making. The ideals of quality, innovation and usefulness have been NORC's core values for more than half a century."

The study's cost has not been determined, but is expected to exceed $500,000.

Contacts:
Julie Antelman, NORC
773/256-6312
William Harms, University of Chicago
773/702-8356
w-harms@uchicago.edu