We already know the New York Times can't spell. Today, the newspaper demonstrates it can't add.
The lead story on today's Times front page refers in its second paragraph to "the 1.16 million" ballots "that began arriving by truck in the state capital this afternoon." Later on, the article refers to the Republicans persuading a judge "to order all 1.16 million ballots" to be brought to Tallahassee from Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties.
But the same article refers to "463,000" Palm Beach County ballots and "654,000" Miami-Dade ballots. 463,000 plus 654,000 equals 1,117,000. That's 1.117 million, not, as the Times would have it, "1.16 million." (Note also that, without any explanation, the Times has added 1,000 ballots to its count of those in Palm Beach County; yesterday's Times article put the number at 462,000.)
A Times graphic today is more exact about the Palm Beach and Miami-Dade vote totals, claiming there were 654,044 votes cast in Miami-Dade County and 462,888 votes cast in Palm Beach County. 654,044 plus 462,888 equals 1,116,932. Again, that is not the same as "1.16 million." If you wanted to round it off to three places, you could call it 1.12 million. This isn't calculus; it's basic, elementary math.
If this complaint sounds familiar, you are right; the Times made the same error yesterday, and Smartertimes.com pointed it out yesterday, too. What's more, today's error occurs in the article that runs in the top right-hand corner of the front page -- the most prominent lead position in the whole paper. You would think some pretty important editors over at the Times would read the story that goes in that position pretty carefully before it goes into the paper. Those editors don't seem to have read and understood yesterday's Smartertimes.com, which said, "1.116 million is not the same as 1.16 million." If the Times editors had read and understood yesterday's Smartertimes.com, maybe they would not have repeated the math error again today.