- That Ballot is ILLEGAL.
- We must be more tolerant of those older folk who cannot see as well as us.
- Even freaken “Adolf” BUCHANAN says that ballot was unfair & he got votes “he was not entitled to”. Only the most radical of Bush supporters are trying to say that ballot’s fair.
1.) Sorry, Daniel, but unless you are a lawyer or judge in Florida, your opinion on the ballot’s legality does not carry a whole lot of weight. I’ve seen several posts where Dopers have alleged the ballot’s illegality, but it seemed to me that none of the board’s attorneys have weighed in on the issue.
2.) The elderly’s problems do not absolve them of reponsibility for voting correctly.
3.) Why the hell should any rational person care what Rabid Pat has to say?
Furthermore, I would not be surprised that Pat has an ulterior motive for his support. Gore’s ideas about trade may be closer to Pat’s than Shrub’s.
It is not just the Bush voters. I voted for Browne and I think the results should stand. Like it or not, votes are thrown out in every election; in fact, about 15,000 Palm Beach County votes were disregarded in the last election.
My opinion and four bits will buy a cup of coffee, but…
I don’t think the Palm Beach incident was fraud, just flagrant incompentence. Please re-read Karl’s excellent post. And I must respectfully quibble a bit w/ Daniel’s point that it’s the voter’s responsiblity to overcome ballot shortcomings. People with physical problems are no less citizens.
Here’s the fact: that ballot may seem obvious to many of us, but it was a piss-poor, stupid local choice where the population is on the elderly side. Eyes blur, hands shake, etc. with age but many older folks (and we’re all working on getting there!) are ashamed–or maybe too proud–to seek help over something “simple” like a ballot.
They aren’t stupid; the people who designed that ballot so poorly are the stupid ones.
That said, I can’t see opening a can of worms and allowing a “re-vote”. But my sympathies are wrung for those honest, involved citizens whose votes have been negated.
Veb
Just heard that the DNC claims that a Denny’s commercial that aired at 6:42 pm Monday night in South Florida had a 1/32 second subliminal message flash: “GEORGE W. BUSH WILL EAT YOUR GRANDCHILDREN. VOTE GORE/LIEBERMAN(#3 ON YOUR BALLOT)”.
My opinion on point “A”, lawyer or not, carries the same wieght as your opinion on point “B”. Or do you have a PhD in Ethics?
TVebelm: Umm, I think you got my opinion wrong.
Wait a minute…first off, why would the DNC be saying this about a Gore commercial?
Secondly, what exactly is the fps on Television? I thought it was something less than 32 (making 1/32 of a second impossible), but my days of being able to quote it offhand are a little behind me 
In the United States, we use 60hz alternating current. Since each frame of a television picture is made up of two “scans” (lines 1, 3, 5, 7, etc. are “drawn” followed by lines 2, 4, 6, 8, etc. after the first scan finishes), the frame rate on U.S. teevees is 30fps. (In Europe they use 50hz mains, so the frame rate there is 25fps.)
Right you are, Daniel, and abject apologies for muddling things up. You didn’t say, or imply, anything of the kind. I was referring to Peyote’s second point.
:
:
Even with the preview feature I messed up the attribution!
Which is just proof (sorta) that even literate, well meaning people can foul things up!
Nah. It was just a screw-up. ::sighs::
Veb
Screw victimhood.
You can’t tell me that, just because someone is elderly, they’re incompetent. (Well, you can, but you’d be wrong.)
They might not play racquetball, but they can read well enough to vote. The folks who can’t read well enough can ask for help. The folks that can read well enough but can’t follow simple directions, well, I wouldn’t want them voting anyway.
No sympathies.
I’ve heard (and let’s face it, there’s not much clear information out there) that the ballots do not in fact conform to the specifications in Florida law. I’ve also heard that the law allows for deviations from that standard, which would not be surprising, because there are plenty of laws out there like that.
I’ve also heard that this type of ballot is used in Daley’s home precinct. Ironic at the very least (are voters in Chicago smarter than those in Palm Beach?).
And what about the 19,000 morons who punched out two holes? “Gee, I’m not sure which hole is which, so I’ll punch out more than one to make sure.” As James Baker said, there’s not a jurisdiction in the country that wouldn’t throw those ballots out. More importantly, 15,000 ballots were thrown out in 1996 in Palm Beach for the same reason, with a lower turnout. So the 19,000 is not out-of-line with historical experience. And this type of ballot has been used for years there.
I think we can, nay, must lay a modicum of responsibility at the foot of the voter for voting correctly. If you are confused, speak to the election clerk. If you messed up your ballot, speak to the election clerk (unless you’re in a booth with levers or buttons, then I think you’re SOL, but use the damn sample one first!). And don’t take no for an answer. If you submit your ballot and leave the polling place, don’t whine after the fact.
And now we have hundreds demonstrating over this issue (with Jesse Jackson–what would a controversy be without his presence–and isn’t this the time when people should be calling for calm rather than whipping up potentially dangerous antagonisms?). All they’re really demonstrating is “Hey, look at me, I’m a complete idiot and can’t make sense out of a ballot, and too dumb to ask for help.”
I could go on…
Just showing how easy it is to fuck with people’s heads.
That was a joke! Myrr21…will you ever learn? Don’t believe everything you read.
I didn’t say they were victims or incompetent. All I said was the ballot was poorly designed. Hey, I’m far from elderly but have lousy eyesight; can’t remember not wearing corrective lenses.
It took some squinting–and prior knowledge–to sort out the arrows on the sample ballot reproduced locally. And that was under ideal lighting conditions.
I’m not saying that those badly designed ballots should be allowed to be re-voted. I’m not saying that the snafu was created by anything worse than incompetence.
This isn’t a mawkish, PC victimhood rant. The situation sucked but it wasn’t deliberate, and it can’t be retrieved at this point. But it pisses me off that something as elemental as a ballot was designed so poorly that people with even marginal eyesight got confused.
And it really pisses me off to have involved citizens written off as stupid. I don’t give a whoop in hell how they voted; they deserve respect for paying their dues as citizens.
The design was bad, okay?!
When did it become okay to mock old people just because they have the infirmities of age? If the political climate is so hateful we’d rather impute stupidity on our elders rather than make sensible future corrections on ballots then we are in far worse trouble than I ever dreamed.
Veb
What strikes me as odd:
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As the votes are recounted, Bush’s lead seems to diminish. Hello? Shouldn’t the recounted numbers be identical to the first count? If not, how often does this sort of thing happen in local, state and national elections? And if this is indicative of a typical election, it makes me not trust the election process. Who needs fraud when you have downright incompetence? Maybe I’m naive, but I always thought that the board of elections had their shit together enough that the numbers were 100% (or at least 99%) accurate!
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Palm Beach County voters are very politically active. They seem like sharp people. I have a very hard time believing that they couldn’t figure out which hole to punch based on the ballot that I saw. I wonder if they would have their panties about the confusing ballot had their man won?
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That being said, it seems odd to me that a report 19,000 votes in that county were thrown out because people punched more than one hole. Don’t know how many registered voters there are in that county, but it seems awfully high. Of course, I heard another report saying that the 19,000 figure was highly exaggerated. I’d sure be interested to know how many ballots are tossed out in any given election. And if it’s too far away from the standard deviation, I’d begin to suspect someone sabatoged the election.
Edit #2 paragraph to read “their panties IN A WAD…”
Carry on.
A picture of the ballot is here .
http://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/11/09/election.president/index.html
Seems pretty straight forward.
The Democratic National Committee says it will be filing suit against every American who failed to vote for Al Gore. “And write-in votes for dogcatcher won’t cut it,” a spokesperson warned.*
Since we’re on the topic, this is the ballot in question. I don’t see how it’s confusing to anyone who bothers to read the directions. Or, to put it another way, if the situation was reversed, the Democrats would laugh their asses off at the claims they are making.
*For those folks who failed Humor Recognition in school, this is a joke.
Updating my earlier post, that Florida law allows variance from the specified format:
"(1) The general election ballot shall be in substantially the following form:"
Is two columns of candidates with the vote punch in the center “sustantially” the same? You make the call–or find a district with a Democratic judge to make the call for you. This could obviously be litigated until the end of time. I should think DITWD may rethink his certainty on the issue–or at least his caps.
Further interesting tidbits from Florida law–
"[(4) The names of the candidates of the party which received the highest number of votes for Governor in the last election in which a Governor was elected shall be placed first under the heading for each office, together with an appropriate abbreviation of party name; the names of the candidates of the party which received the second highest vote for Governor shall be second under the heading for each office, together with an appropriate abbreviation of the party name.
(5) Minor political party candidates and candidates with no party affiliation shall have their names appear on the general election ballot following the names of recognized political parties, in the same order as they were certified.](http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=Ch0101/SEC151.HTM&Title=->2000->Ch0101->Section%20151)"
Seems to meet that qualification.
For the morons, and those who just screwed up their ballots–
"[(4) If the elector marks more names than there are persons to be elected to an office, or if it is impossible to determine the elector’s choice, his or her ballot shall not be counted for the office; but this shall not vitiate the ballot as to those names which are properly marked, and nothing in this code shall be construed to prevent any elector, at any general election, from voting for any qualified candidate other than one whose name is printed on the ballot.
(5) Any elector who shall, by mistake, spoil a ballot so he or she cannot vote the ballot may return it to the inspectors, who shall immediately detach the stub, destroy the ballot without examination, and give the elector another ballot. In no case shall an elector be furnished with more than three ballots or carry a ballot outside the polling room. The clerk shall keep a record of all ballots destroyed.](http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=Ch0101/SEC011.HTM&Title=->2000->Ch0101->Section%20011)"
Mmm mmm mmm. Florida is going to stew because a group of Jewish elderly people accidently voted for Buchanan. All I have to say is that if Gore supporters in Florida had concentrated more on telling voters how to vote properly on that disputed ballot form, instead of intimidating and threatening Nader supporters, this fiasco probably would not have happened.
johnson, thank you for those links. Since I had trouble viewing them, here are directions for anyone else who would like to check them out:
Go to http://www.leg.state.fl.us/ and click on “Statutes, Constitution, and Laws of Florida” (which should bring you here.)
Click on TITLE IX - ELECTORS AND ELECTIONS
Click on Chapter 101
Click on Section 191
(or click on other sections of interest)
IMO, the way this is presented on the website, it is totally unclear as to whether the “butterfly ballot” was legal. Actually, the direction I’m leaning is that it was illegal. (And I’m a Bush supporter.)
But I’m not even sure if these rules in Section 191 apply to ballots designed for machine tabulation. Section 151, “Specifications for general election ballot” only applies to “counties in which voting machines are not used, and in other counties for use as absentee ballots not designed for tabulation by an electronic or electromechanical voting system.” But it doesn’t mention voting machines in Section 191.
I have sympathy for those who punched twice- but their ballots could not be counted for Pres= the Law is the Law. However, several who “punched twice” asked for another ballot and were refused. Was there enuf of these? There would only have had to be some 1>2% of the 18,000 to change the election. Nope, it stinks too much- we need a revote.