I wasn't kidding when I said deHaven-Smith blames those evil Republicans for everything. It's the main point in the article's lede. Below, I'll prove that everything in the lede is a fallacy and has no basis in fact.

This assertion is utter nonsense. Florida could not possibly experience the same kind of election dispute witnessed in 2000. The election technology has been completely overhauled statewide and the entire system has been revamped in numerous ways. A rerun of 2000 is impossible.

deHaven-Smith does little to explain why errors might be found most often among Democratic constituencies and in urban areas where Democrats are concentrated. Later in the article, he mentions poor eyesight among the elderly, but that's as far as he goes in offering any explanation.

I guess deHaven-Smith simply wants readers to trust him on this point about an average error rate of about 1 percent. He cites no reference for this assertion nor any research to back it up. He also fails to tell us how old that information is. We'll just take him at his word, even though he later reports that Florida's error rate in 2012 was about three-quarters of 1 percent.

The issue of overvoting has been virtually eliminated in Florida. There are no more "hanging chads" or similar overvote issues experienced in the 2000 election because optical scan vote tabulators are required statewide. If a ballot contains an overvote, the optical scan tabulators are designed to spit the ballot back out when it's fed into the scanner (source: The Florida Sun-Sentinel). One would think that deHaven-Smith should know that.

This is where deHaven-Smith starts making errors of fact.

He writes about a manual recount provision in 2000 that was triggered by a certain margin of victory. Trouble is, there was such a thing in Florida law in 2000. Florida's recount law in 2000 spoke only about the requirement for a "recount," not a manual recount, based on a certain margin of victory. The only requirement for any ballots to be counted manually in 2000 was in cases where individual ballots were damaged or defective and could not be tabulated mechanically, and that was required for the initial vote tabulation, not for a recount.

The law in 2000 also authorized manual recounts if a candidate officially protested the election results and requested a manual recount, but a manual recount was not required, under any circumstances. Whether such a manual recount took place was completely at the discretion of the county canvassing board and had nothing to do with margin of victory.

Aside from his errors of fact, deHaven-Smith also complains about the threshold for a recount being too low in 2000. He can blame only the Democrats for that. The one-half of a percent threshold was put into Florida law in 1977 under section 26 of chapter 77-175, Laws of Florida, while Democrat Reubin Askew was governor and Democrats controlled the Florida House and the Florida Senate — a fact that deHaven-Smith fails to point out. Republicans didn't gain control of the Florida Legislature until the mid 1990s. (By the way, I wonder if deHaven-Smith realizes that the Democratic governor for which his employer is named was complicit in creating the recount threshold that deHaven-Smith seems to hate.)

This is where deHaven-Smith's article really goes off the rails. In the best-case scenario, he has a grossly erroneous and misleading concept of Florida election law, both during the 2000 election and after the law was changed in 2001.

Prior to 2001
In 2000, the margin that triggered an automatic recount was indeed one-half of a percent or less of the votes cast. But, the statute at that time did not say whether "recount" meant that ballots should be run through the tabulating machines again or whether the ballots should be inspected by hand, i.e. a manual recount. Also, county canvassing boards in 2000 could authorize manual recounts if a candidate protested the election, but they were not required to do so.

These were all major factors in the confusion and controversy in 2000. The law also said each county canvassing board was responsible for ordering an automatic recount, which the boards interpreted to mean that they could decide for themselves how to do a recount and that the Secretary of State could not force them to recount in any specific way. From all this, chaos ensued in 2000. And, in light of deHaven-Smith's misguided and unjustified attacks on Republicans in his article, we should keep in mind that all the chaos that ensued during the 2000 election was because of law enacted by Democrats, not Republicans.

After the Law Was Changed in 2001
deHaven-Smith writes that "the election law passed by the Legislature and signed by Bush in 2001 actually made the recount trigger lower."

That claim is entirely false. The recount trigger for the initial recount was one-half of a percent before 2001, it remained that way in the 2001 law, and it remains that way today. (See section 102.141(7), Fla. Stat.)

deHaven-Smith then writes that "a manual recount is authorized only if the returns indicate that the election has been decided by one-quarter of 1 percent of the total votes cast." That claim is misleading, on two fronts. He makes it sound like Republicans lowered the threshold for manual recounts, but, in fact, the prior law did not even have requirements for manual recounts. Secondly, he fails to tell us that the law enacted by Republicans not only “authorizes” manual recounts in tight races but actually requires those manual recounts.

Let's examine what Republican lawmakers actually did in 2001, while recognizing that some of the 2001 provisions were amended in subsequent years. Republicans in 2001 created new provisions of law for manual recounts that did not previously exist. Here's how the recount triggers worked under the 2001 law enacted by Republicans:

• If the initial vote tabulation has a margin of one-half of a percent or less, an automatic recount is triggered, and the county canvassing board is responsible for running the ballots through the tabulating machines again, after testing the equipment to make sure it's working properly.
• After that initial automatic recount is completed, if the margin is one-quarter of a percent or less, then a manual recount of the overvotes and undervotes is triggered automatically, in which case a manual recount is required.
• In cases where the manual recount did not get triggered automatically, and the margin after the initial recount was still one-half of a percent or less, Republicans created an additional opportunity for a manual recount. In such a case, a candidate, the candidate's party, or a political committee supporting a ballot measure in question was entitled to a manual recount of overvotes and undervotes upon request. If such a request was made, then a manual recount was required.

These provisions were all created by Republicans in section 42 of chapter 2001-40, Laws of Florida.

Note: In 2005, after two election cycles had passed since the 2001 rewrite, the state legislature revisited the law for tweaks and fine-tuning. At that time, the provisions for requesting a manual recount (in the final bullet above) were found to be unnecessary and were removed from statute. In their place, the legislature created requirements for a mandatory manual recount of overvotes and undervotes anytime the margin was one-quarter of a percent or less, following the initial recount that was required if the margin was one-half of a percent or less, unless the number of overvotes and undervotes is less than the number of votes needed to change the outcome or the losing party requests that a manual recount not be performed. The original provisions were deemed unnecessary due to the efficiencies and efficacy of optical scan voting equipment that had been required statewide.

The Differences
So, what we had in 2000 was no statutory requirement for a manual recount. The law in 2000 simply required a "recount" if the initial tabulation had a margin of one-half of a percent or less, and county canvassing boards were authorized to conduct the recounts in the manner of their choosing, under their own authority. Did ballots with overvotes or undervotes qualify as being "defective or damaged" and therefore trigger the need to be counted manually in a recount? That was a matter of opinion in 2000, especially since the high volume of overvotes and/or undervotes in the heavily disputed counties made tabulating the votes at any point very difficult.

And, as we saw in 2000, the manual recounts were indeed very difficult, time-consuming, controversial, and, in some cases, dangerous, which are all reasons why many canvassing boards in 2000 didn't want to do them. This was all due to law enacted by Democrats.

Under current law, enacted by Republicans in 2001, a manual recount is not only authorized, but required, if the margin is one-quarter of a percent or less, as described above. There was no requirement at all for a manual recount under the law enacted by Democrats. Current law is infinitely more fair and beneficial to everyone involved and was created by those evil Republicans that deHaven-Smith's article attempts to defame.

A Vast, Right-wing Conspiracy? Nope
Given all that, can Dr. deHaven-Smith (or anyone) explain how the recount law enacted by Republicans embeds an electoral advantage for Republicans in closely divided statewide elections? ... Anyone? ... Anyone? ... Bueller? ... Oh, wait. Keep reading. deHaven-Smith tries unsuccessfully to do that below, but his argument is nullified by his own factual errors.

Remember, according to deHaven-Smith, Republicans are guilty of inserting this "bias" into elections with the 2001 law. He writes that not only did they fail in 2001 to elevate the threshold for recounts from one-half of a percent to some higher percentage, but he also tries to convince his readers that Republicans actually lowered the threshold and thereby made things even worse for minorities and seniors, which hurts Democrats more than Republicans, as he claims. He implies that the Republicans did this on purpose.

Well, readers of this critique now realize that deHaven-Smith is recklessly wrong on that point. Republicans did not lower the threshold for recounts; they actually created requirements for manual recounts to be conducted under certain conditions, where no such requirements existed under the law enacted by Democrats.

It's true that Republicans did not raise the threshold for triggering a mandatory recount. They left it the same as it was prior to 2001 (one-half of a percent or less). However, even that preexisting threshold (enacted by Democrats) isn't good enough for deHaven-Smith.

deHaven-Smith asserts that the higher tabulation error rates in "Democratic strongholds," i.e. counties with high percentages of seniors and minorities, create a disadvantage for Democrats unless the law requires manual recounts whenever deHaven-Smith thinks it should, i.e. whenever the winning margin is lower than the supposed error rate for optical scan tabulators (which could be one percent or three-quarters of one percent — we're not sure). Here are a few points readers should consider along those lines:

1. As pointed out above, the problem of overvotes has been diminished to virtual irrelevancy because of the way optical scan tabulators handle them, thanks to Republicans. Overvoting was cited by deHaven-Smith as causing two-thirds of the rejected ballots in 2000 to be rejected. In that light, Republicans have already eliminated virtually two-thirds of the problems experienced by minorities and seniors in "Democratic strongholds," and they did so without creating the need for more recounts. How come the article contains no love for Republicans on this point?
2. Voters have a duty to fill out their ballots properly. Click here or here or here to see the very clear instructions printed at the top of a 2014 sample ballot in Florida, which include the following: "To vote, completely fill in the oval next to your choice. If you make a mistake, don't hesitate to ask for a new ballot. If you erase or make other marks, your vote may not count." (emphasis added)

   Voters who fail to follow these instructions are, with full disclosure, submitting a potentially invalid vote, due to their own actions. If they need help with their ballots, officials at the polls can help them. There's really no excuse for Florida voters to goof-up their ballots in this day and age.

3. Manual recounts are no small thing, especially if they're statewide. They can be difficult, time-consuming, expensive, and can sometimes cause more controversy and problems than they solve, as in the 2000 Florida recounts. It would not be good public policy to create the need for more manual recounts, the way deHaven-Smith wants, if they are not necessary.

   The debacle of 2000 that deHaven-Smith says Florida could easily relive was caused not simply because the vote was extremely close. The main problems were the key-punch voting machines and their hanging chads, poorly-designed ballots in some counties, and ambiguities in Florida law that meant different things to different people while giving no one statewide authority over a recount. All of those problems have been eliminated... by Republicans.

4. Regarding deHaven-Smith's claim that ballot errors by senior citizens are harmful to Democrats, I can only assume that deHaven-Smith has failed to keep current with the latest news about which party seniors now align themselves.

   On March 26, 2014, Gallup reported that "U.S. seniors have realigned with the Republican Party" and that seniors have shifted from a reliably Democratic voting bloc to a reliably Republican voting bloc. So, if deHaven-Smith believes there's an embedded "bias" in the law that harms any political party because of a high error rate among ballots cast by seniors, that alleged "bias" would harm Republicans, not Democrats. Oops.

Off the rails again. There were two in-depth reviews of Florida ballots following the 2000 presidential election.

1. A months-long study was commissioned by eight news organizations, including the Associated Press, The New York Times, and CNN. These news organizations enlisted the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago to look at each rejected ballot. This is the study cited by deHaven-Smith.

   The study found that Bush would probably have still won even if the U.S. Supreme Court had allowed the limited statewide recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court to be completed. The study also found that Bush would probably have still won if the state had conducted the limited recount of only four heavily Democratic counties that the Gore team asked for. The study further found that Gore would probably have won by less than 171 votes if a broad recount of all disputed ballots had been conducted statewide, which was something Gore had not requested.

   Note the word "probably" in the descriptions of all these findings. How the findings were determined is described by FactCheck.org as "something of a muddle."

2. Another study by a different consortium of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, USA Today, and Knight Ridder, produced results that led USA Today to report that "George W. Bush would have won a hand recount of all disputed ballots in Florida's presidential election if the most widely accepted standard for judging votes had been applied," but that Gore might have narrowly won if more lenient standards were used.

To say that the findings are something of a muddle is an understatement. For deHaven-Smith to claim that the University of Chicago study found that Gore received more legally valid votes than Bush is disingenous, especially when he left out all the factors that indicate otherwise. Click here for a more complete explanation from The New York Times.

Floridians do not need to understand or believe something that's not true. Not only is there no evidence supporting deHaven-Smith's claim, but, as this critique points out, the evidence points in the opposite direction, i.e. that deHaven-Smith is completely wrong in his assertion that the Republicans lowered the threshold by which recounts get triggered. That's not a matter of opinion; it's simply a matter of reading the law. Without that point on his side, deHaven-Smith cannot make a valid claim that Republicans did anything along those lines because the facts prove otherwise.

It's also easy to see that Republicans improved the law tremendously, even if they left the recount threshold the same as it was before. You can argue either way as to whether the threshold is too low, but even if you believe it's too low, the fact remains that the threshold is the same now as it was when Democrats dominated Florida politics, and that the Republicans did not change it. If deHaven-Smith is such an eminent scholar on these issues, shouldn't he understand that? Why doesn't he? Or, perhaps we should ask that if he does understand that, then what was his motivation for writing this op-ed in the first place?

A couple of final items for this critique regarding The Tallahassee Democrat:

1. I realize deHaven-Smith authored a guest editorial for the newspaper and that he's not an employee of the newspaper. However, at what point does the newspaper take responsibility for ensuring some degree of accuracy in a guest editorial? We don't know how much effort the newspaper put into that in this case, but it seems like the editors did very little along those lines, given the number of inaccuracies. Perhaps a lot of leeway was given to deHaven-Smith, in deference to his "expertise" in Florida politics, but it's that sort of deference that allows "experts" to spew inaccuracies with impunity. Someone at the newspaper needs to grow a pair and challenge crap like this.

   I found several other news stories over the past few days from other Florida news outlets that delve into how close this year's gubernatorial race is and how it's dredging up ghosts of the 2000 election in some people's minds. (See here, here, here, here, and here.) However, those other stories fail to contain all the inaccuracies that appear in deHaven-Smith's op-ed, and at least two stories contain input from both Democratic and Republican officials and politicos who insist that a repeat of 2000 is not in the cards. That makes The Tallahassee Democrat look pretty lame by printing deHaven-Smith's tripe.

2. Also, some of you might be wondering about the name of The Tallahassee Democrat. According to the newspaper itself, the name has nothing to do with the Democratic Party. When the newspaper was founded in 1905, the original owner reportedly called it The Weekly True Democrat in honor of "the tried and true doctrines of old time democracy of the fathers," presumably the nation's founding fathers. On the surface, that sounds reasonable.

However, it seems very odd that the newspaper's original owner would fail to realize that the founding fathers created this nation as a republic, not a democracy. I can't help but wonder that if the original owner had named the paper The Weekly True Republican, in honor of how the nation was actually founded, would the newspaper now be called The Tallahassee Republican? (Note: See Update #2 below for an interesting development along these lines.)

By the way, The Tallahassee Democrat officially endorsed Democrats in the three highest-profile Florida races this year: the races for governor, for U.S. House, District 2, and for state attorney general. The paper did endorse Republicans for state chief financial officer and commissioner of agriculture, but those two Republicans are not facing serious opposition and are likely to coast to victory easily. The newspaper also urged voters to approve a state constitutional amendment legalizing medical marijuana and to continue imposing a local-option sales tax for 20 additional years. Sometimes actions speak louder than words.