Did Illegally Counted Overseas Absentee Ballots Decide the 2000 U.S. Presidential Election

摘要: Although not widely known until much later, Al Gore received 202 more votes than George W. Bush on election day in Florida. is president because he overcame his deficit with overseas absentee ballots that arrived and were counted after day. In the final official tally, 537 Gore. These numbers are taken from results released by Florida Secretary of State's office so do reflect overvotes, undervotes, unsuccessful litigation, butterfly ballot problems, recounts might have been allowed but not, or any other hypothetical divergence between voter preferences votes. After election, New York Times conducted a six month long investigation found 680 illegally counted, no partisan, pundit, academic has publicly disagreed their assessment. this paper, we describe statistical procedures developed implemented for to ascertain whether disqualifying these would changed outcome election. The methods involve adding formal Bayesian model averaging King's (1997) ecological inference model. Formal used political science especially useful when substantive conclusions depend heavily apparently minor indefensible choices, generalization feasible, potential critics partisan academic. We show how derived scholars can use make inferences purposes. also present variety new empirical delineate precise conditions under which elected president, offer evidence striking effectiveness Republican effort convince local officials count invalid counties them counties.