We define the public will to be that mark that appears most frequently on the pieces of paper collected at the voting booth. Even that number, of course, is open to argument: How do we count a partially punched ballot, the so-called hanging chad? What to do with votes mailed from overseas military bases, some of which couldn’t be certified as having been cast on or before Election Day? And to what extent were Florida counties to recount the ballots in an attempt to get as precise a reckoning as possible of the actual votes?
