The wrong man became president of the United States in January.

                   That isn't an opinion. It's a fact. History will draw its conclusions as to whether the
                   country benefited from the mistake.

                   In March, The Post published the most important ballot review from the 2000
                   presidential election in Florida. The paper reported that the "butterfly ballot" cost Al
                   Gore about 6,600 net votes in Palm Beach County because of confusion that resulted
                   in double punches. George W. Bush's margin in Florida, the state that put him in the
                   White House, was 537 votes.

                   Last Monday, The Post -- part of an eight-member consortium -- published a
                   statewide review of under-votes and over-votes that examined nine under-vote
                   recount scenarios. Mr. Bush won three, including the one in place before the
                   Supreme Court decided the election. Mr. Gore won six, including one based on
                   standards that the Republicans had said were acceptable.

                   Reviews of the under-votes, though, turn on educated guesses.
                   They matter because under-votes were the basis of the lawsuits.
                   They matter because of history and the need to modernize voting systems.
                   But this story began in Palm Beach County early last Nov. 7 with alarms about
                   over-votes and mistaken votes. Nearly 13 months later, over-votes and mistaken
                   votes still explain why George W. Bush and not Al Gore is leading the fight against terrorism.

                   Over-votes, Buchanan votes

                   The consortium's review said Theresa LePore's ballot cost Mr. Gore
                   about 6,400 net votes. That conclusion vindicated this paper's
                   independent reporting. Add to the over-votes at least 2,000 legal
                   votes mistakenly cast for Pat Buchanan, and it is clear that Palm
                   Beach County's elections supervisor altered history.

                   Not that she ever will admit it. Ms. LePore said the consortium's
                   review isn't reliable because it didn't examine every ballot
                   statewide. You could say that her refusal to acknowledge what
                   happened is understandable. You also could say it's denial, which
                   would be closer to the truth. Ms. LePore has fussed whenever
                   anyone or any organization has wanted to look at the ballots. But
                   the ballot was only one part of her catastrophic failure.

                   Let's dispel one myth. The county's Democratic and Republican
                   parties didn't "sign off" on the butterfly ballot, as Mr. Bush's
                   spinmeisters got away with claiming last year. The parties don't
                   have to approve the ballot. Democratic officials never saw the
                   ballot in the voting machine. The elections supervisor just has to
                   get the names right and in order. Other supervisors told The Post
                   that Ms. LePore never showed them her plan for putting all the
                   candidates on two pages, and that if she had, they would have
                   warned her about confusion.

                   Once the complaints began, Ms. LePore's office did nothing to make
                   certain that voters from both parties -- double-punches cost Mr.
                   Bush votes, too -- were sure of their choice. Calls to her office got
                   busy signals; I watched one poll worker try for 10 minutes. Ms.
                   LePore has spent more energy rationalizing since Nov. 7 than she
                   did responding on Nov. 7.

                   LePore wriggles, but she's on the hook

                   You could say that Ms. LePore is getting too much blame. After all,
                   Duval County's multi-page ballot -- the "caterpillar" -- caused many
                   first-time voters there to punch two names for president. Mr. Gore
                   may have lost more votes in Duval than in Palm Beach. As many as
                   40,000 more people statewide may have wanted to vote for Mr.
                   Gore than for Mr. Bush. Why single out this county?

                   The answer is that had Mr. Gore been credited with those
                   8,000-plus votes in Palm Beach County, there's a chance no one
                   would have looked at other counties. Mr. Bush might have been off
                   to mount challenges in other close states. When the networks first
                   called Florida for Mr. Gore, the general feeling in our newsroom was
                   that Ms. LePore was off the hook. But she isn't, no matter how
                   much she wriggles.

                   It took selflessness and patriotism for Al Gore to concede the
                   election, knowing that a majority of voters picked him. That spirit of
                   putting country before self will enable the U.S. not just to recover
                   from Sept. 11 but to make the world a safer place. Still, how many
                   times must Al Gore have wondered since Sept. 11 whether he still is
                   mad about the mistake or grateful? How many times must George
                   W. Bush have pondered the circumstances that put him in office?

                   And how many times since Nov. 7 -- and Sept. 11 -- must Theresa
                   LePore have thought about that ballot? If anybody hopes Mr. Bush
                   does well, she does.

                   Randy Schultz is editor of the editorial page of The Palm Beach
                   Post. Comments about the Opinion section may be sent to him at
                   schultz@pbpost.com