But he said the Gore team may have made a strategic mistake in limiting the number of witnesses they called.

"I think it goes without a doubt that the Gore side, by trying to base their case on two witnesses, ran the risk that they did not produce enough evidence to meet the predominance standard under Florida law," Baker said.

After the Florida State Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday, Nov. 21 that Secretary of State Katherine Harris had to include the results of manual recounts in her certification, Gore's ground operation was confident that they'd close the slim margin of victory that George W. Bush had obtained.

That confidence rested on several assumptions, one being that a full recount in Miami-Dade county would go their way, Campion said.

Campion's job was to serve as the Gore's campaign's connection to the Miami-Dade canvassing board, encamped in an office building in downtown Miami.

He saw his job as important.

Democratic and county estimates, he said, showed that nearly one in 60 votes in the county were so-called undervotes--either the machine didn't count them as having voted for president, or the voter didn't vote at all. That compared to a rate of barely one in 800 in nearby Manatee County.