On the morning of Nov. 8, I sat in The Miami Herald's cafeteria with three colleagues. Bleary eyed from watching Florida's presidential election returns roll in until 3 a.m., we talked over the results. Five hundred votes, in a state known for ballot fraud, would determine the presidency.
It seemed clear: We needed to take a comprehensive look at the Florida election. Who had voted? Did they do it legally? How had their ballots been counted (or discarded)? Were there signs of organized fraud?
Answering those questions would take us thousands of hours over the next four months. Over that time, we had cranked up a data collection and analysis effort of unprecedented scope.
Databases galore
We've gathered and analyzed more than 50 databases, including:
• Information from the Florida Secretary of State's office on each registered voter in Florida, and whether they cast a ballot on Nov. 7.
• Precinct-level election result files for all of the more than 5,000 precincts in Florida, including information on the number of undervotes and overvotes. These came in both electronic and paper format (that was then hand-entered) from county election supervisors.
• Databases from the court and police agencies in Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, identifying potential voters who were logged into jail as illegal immigrants, people who had vouched for their non-citizen status on jury selection forms and people declared incompetent to vote by the courts.
• A database from the Florida Department of Corrections identifying millions of people who had served state prison time after being convicted of felonies.
• A database of all convicted felons who had been granted clemency and had their right to vote restored by the Florida Office of Executive Clemency.
• A database from the Florida Department of Health of each person who had died in the past year in Miami-Dade County, along with databases from the Florida Secretary of State identifying voters who were targeted for removal from the rolls. They were being re-