By John F. Harris
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 12, 2001; Page A11

Those Democrats who were outraged by the way the presidential election was determined in Florida last year will surely find a measure of vindication, however belated and however symbolic, in the results of a massive new effort to recount the vote. They will also find that the case for outrage has become a good bit more complicated.

At one level, the efforts of a consortium of news organizations to revisit the election controversy yielded a simple, even sensational, revelation: If there had been some way last fall to recount every vote -- undervotes and overvotes alike, in all 67 Florida counties -- former vice president Al Gore likely would be in the White House.

At the same time, the results puncture a principal reason Democrats were so indignant about what they say was Florida's unfair conclusion, imposed by the U.S. Supreme Court. If Gore had gotten everything he asked for last fall -- if every ballot his lawyers were asking to be recounted in the final days had been recounted -- he still would have lost to George W. Bush, according to the consortium's ballot analysis. Gore's election was not blocked by the high court, whatever one thinks of that intervention. Instead, Gore's unrealized victory exists only under a controlled set of circumstances that even he was not seeking with his strategy of recounting votes in selected counties.

And so months after most Americans moved on from the 2000 election controversies, the most comprehensive effort to date to revisit the Florida vote produced a wealth of data that will likely reinforce the views most people already held, rather than transform perceptions of what happened. A project that began with the hope of bringing clarity to a muddled and embittering election instead has produced another mixed verdict. These findings arrive, moreover, at a moment of national crisis when there is scant mood even among the most partisan Democrats for questioning President Bush's legitimacy. The once-consuming controversies of Florida have receded further from national attention than anyone would have dared predict when the election was settled 11 months ago with a 537-vote margin, after a 5-4 high court decision.

Once, people imagined that this coordinated effort by several news organizations to revisit Florida might itself pose a bracing challenge to national governance and the president's stature. Immediately after the election was resolved in Bush's favor, for instance, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) warned: "There's no question that there's scar tissue. There's going to be a recount, one way or another. It's going to show that Al Gore did in fact win the state."

In retrospect, the skeptics underestimated how much deference, and agenda-setting influence, flows to any president -- even one elected under disputed circumstances while losing the popular vote. Even before Sept. 11, Bush had the leverage he needed to pass a large tax cut over deep Democratic doubts. And since the national mobilization that followed the terrorist attacks, Bush's standing has risen dramatically.

A Gallup survey this month found that voters, if they had to decide the 2000 election today, would favor Bush by 61 percent to 35 percent for Gore. Five weeks before the attacks, the same question found voters split 48 to 48.

The same survey showed, however, that voter attitudes about what happened in Florida -- whether they think the result and the procedures that produced it were fair -- has scarcely changed over time. This week, 47 percent of people said that Bush either "won on a technicality" or "stole the election" -- down just three percent from those with that view in December 2000.

Even so, Florida is not now the potent rallying point it once was even with the Democratic base, if for no other reason than that party leaders are choosing not to stoke anger. In February, Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe signaled at his acceptance speech that he would make redressing Florida grievances a major theme of his tenure. After Sept. 11, McAuliffe still talks about election reform, but in toned-down rhetoric, and he has said he will cease remarks that could suggest Bush is not the legitimate president.

This rhetorical shift away from grievance could have implications for Gore, if he chooses to run for president again in 2004. The results plainly suggest that more Floridians intended to cast votes for him than Bush, and that under most standards for counting ballots by hand he would have won in a statewide recount.

But, since his legal team never chose vigorously to pursue a statewide strategy, Gore will find it harder to present himself as a man who should be president save for the machinations of Bush's legal team and the U.S. Supreme Court.

In fact, the four-county strategy Gore and his team tried to pursue, the data suggests, would have sent him to defeat if it had been allowed to proceed uninterrupted. Gore's legal team has said that there was never a legal avenue to pursue a statewide recount; their goal was instead to find as many votes in the localities where there was evidence that machine counts had missed votes.

There could be other problems with fueling a political movement on the proposition that the wrong person is in the White House. The same Gallup survey that suggests nearly half the electorate believes Bush won through electoral legerdemain records somewhat diminished urgency about it. Given sample descriptions of the Florida situation a year ago, 64 percent of people said it represented a "major problem" or "constitutional crisis." Now, just 42 percent of respondents say that, and 55 percent say it was a minor problem or no problem at all.

For future politics, the question is whether Democratic resentments that have cooled can flare again under the right circumstances.

Stephen B. Cobble, a political analyst with the left-leaning Institute for Policy Studies who followed the recount controversy closely, has concluded that "Americans are a practical people," with many voters concluding that Bush "may have gotten to the presidency unfairly, but they don't care that much."

An exception may be among blacks, for whom Cobble said polling suggests "it is an article of faith" among many that Bush's election was an ill-gotten victory. And he predicted the dormant argument about Florida "may re-enter the conversation" next fall, when both Bush's brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), and Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris will be on ballots in the Sunshine State (Bush running for re-election and Harris for a congressional seat).

If popular perceptions about Florida won't be radically transformed, there are still some clear surprises in the data. One is the paramount significance of overvotes -- those ballots where a machine cannot read a ballot because there appear to be two choices selected. Much of the controversy focused on undervotes, where a machine registered no vote for president, but the consortium analysis made clear that counting overvotes would have been key to a Gore victory. The inherent subjectivity of Florida's vote assures that it will prompt debate for years to come. Still unclear is whether those debates will be largely academic, or whether the last election will exert pull over future ones. Harvard University government professor Harvey J. Mansfield, a Bush supporter, said Florida will live "in the textbooks," but that Democrats cannot reasonably argue that the Supreme Court robbed Gore of victory. "The system required a decision, and the court did the right thing," Mansfield said.

Jack N. Rakove, a Stanford University historian who recently compiled a book of essays on the election, said if Bush succeeds most people will care little about how he won, he said. But if he proves unequal over time to the current crisis, he added, "The circumstances that brought him to office might still be worth considering. . . . It's much too early to know that."