Keating makes a number of points worth keeping in mind. We're trying to figure out as completely as we can what happened. Even the question of how people ruined their ballots is worth answering. I've seen some instances where a voter entered a check mark for a candidate, then checked the write-in box and entered that same candidate's name in the blank. A further complication is that both over- and undervotes can be either intentional or accidental, though it's a good deal easier to understand how someone would decide not to make a choice for a particular office than to spoil his ballot by deliberately voting for two different candidates.
Nobody can be sure just what happened then.
But 100 years from now, if there should be another close election, there should be no mystery as to what happened back in 2000. That's why we didn't run to see how quickly we could get this thing completed. We opted instead to do as thorough a job as we can. Not in the least. News Jobs AP Shopping Archives Entertain.