The Senator (or was it Representative) of PBC, the county in FLorida with the screwed up ballots, was on TV just a minute ago and said that his area is elderly, primarily Jewish, and fervently Democratic.
Comparable demographic and political areas had votes for Buchanan being in the area of 300-400. He claims that by a conservative count at least 3000 votes went to Buchanan when they should have gone to Gore.
They showed the disputed ballot on the tube. As I recall, to me it looked confusing, but not flawed. There were something like 9 candidates, and there names were printed on both pages of the booklet as you opened it up. Gore was on the left page, and Buchanan was slightly staggered on the right (appropriate?). So you had to be careful when choosing which hole in the middle to punch. Don’t know why these old folks got it wrong, but the way the booklet was presented on TV did not seem to constitute an “irregularity”.
Repots from Osceola County indicate that 'some of the paper punch card ballots 'did not line up with the guideline, and so some votes for the Democratic party/Gore may have been skewed towards the Libertarian party (the line above).
Also reported are ‘some irregularities’ (neither defined nor given examples) in Seminole County.
Orange County is recounting right now.
It’s a punch card system whth the holes in the center of the booklet. If the holes are misaligned, I could see how that would the wrong candidate your vote.
Here’s a link to the picture of the ballot, and take note of where the holes for each candidate are.
If I had read quickly downward, and missed the right hand side, I might have voted Buchanan also.
It’s not the best-designed ballot, but it seems clear enough to me that the arrows next to the names point to the circles. Dare I say that if someone is unable to figure it out, maybe they… never mind… that’s judgemental.
I do find the variety of ballot styles interesting. Reminiscent of the Simpsons episode: <flush>
Sorry, I can’t see how that second hole implies “Democrat” to anyone. Even if you’re not following the arrows, the second hole, on the Republican/Democrat side, aligns with the horizontal divider line…not with the word “Democrat”, not with Al Gore’s name…
Methinks someone just doesn’t want to admit that his district isn’t as liberal as he’d like it to be…
Then why are the actual voters complaining that the ballot was confusing?
Are they the secret Buchanan liberals people talk about?Democrats on line two, punch hole on line two, give it to machine, learn later that you were supposed to punch line three.
Yep, that’s fair.
Congressman Robert Wexler who represents the Dade County/Palm Beach area was interviewed on CNN this morning and he said he witnessed total voter confusion at the polls yesterday in southern Florida. He said that there were voters in his area who weren’t sure where to vote or if they selected the right hole on the ballot. He thinks 3,000 or so votes could have been affected just in his area. …Warren Christopher is heading down to Florida for the Gore camp to oversee this mess.
Are you suggesting that Differently Abled people should not vote? Will the next thing you suggest be a return of the Poll Tax?
Wait a sec…I’m a white, male, landowner. I’d come out alright if we returned to the voting rules of the 19th century!
No, I wouldn’t suggest that the differently abled shouldn’t vote, but I would suggest that they should be held to the results of their stupidity.
I just did a quick poll here in the office. I cleaned up the ballot what linked to above. I gave it to everybody in my office one at a time and told them to mark a Gore vote as quickly as possible. Every single one of them voted correctly in less than 5 seconds.
I don’t think the ballot design is the best but if you are too dim to figure it out you should have to live with the results.
Besides, just think of the anguish is must be causing these elderly Jewish women to know that they voted for Patrick “We Should Have Stayed Out of WWII” Buchanan. In a sick way it is kind of amusing.
Sterling North:
How many such complaints? A dozen? A few dozen? I know that Wexler has extrapolated that to several thousand mistakes, but that’s pretty self- (or party-) serving, so I’m very skeptical.
No, but they are far fewer in number than Democrats would have you believe. On top of that, no one gets to keep their ballot after they’ve voted. Quite possibly, many people who voted correctly, upon hearing about this “confusing ballot” thing, might have started wondering, “Hmmm, did I do that by mistake?” Sort of the way people always wonder whether or not they remembered to turn off the oven after they already leave on vacation.
Punch hole next to Democrats. Even without the arrow (which is pretty clear, at least to me), there’s nothing but that horizontal divider on the “Democrat” side of the ballot by hole # 2.
Chaim Mattis Keller
A mini-update, if I can jump into the fray for a moment -
According to news reports this morning:
I can’t wait to see how THAT one turns out!
I don’t question your skepticism, however…
I have a chart here graphing Buchanan vote by county. It’s also on the cover of Salon.com. Does that look right to you? Doesn’t that look statistically off to you? How many standard deviations is Palm Beach off from every other county? Does it even look logical that there are more Buck supporters in PB county, than in Dade County (with Miami)? Also the interesting fact that 19,000 of those ballots were thrown out because it was double punched. For Buck and Gore. And forget the fact that the ballot design is likely illegal.
The punch holes aren’t on the sample ballot. If you have poor eyesight (like most of the seniors), or if you don’t notice the right hand side candidates you could accidently assume that hole #2 is Al Gore’s punch.
The Today Show just interviewed a large roomful of people from Palm Beach County who claimed ballot confusion. Then they interviewed Pat Buchanan, who said that the majority of those votes were most likely not for him.
My favorite commentary was from Roe Conn and Garry Meier on WLS radio yesterday, suggesting Medicare benefits for seniors in Palm Beach be expanded to include eyeglasses.
Confusion or not, I don’t think there are provisions for “do-overs” in the election process. WHEN are people going to accept responsibility for their actions? If they were confused and didn’t ask for help, they have no one to blame but themselves. There were other voters who apparently were able to cast their votes for the candidate of their choice.
This also goes for kids who blacken in the wrong circles on standardized test, but that’s another rant entirely. Grow up and get over it.
Wow, a candidate for political office conceding votes. This has got to be an historical first!
FairyChatMom, I’d like to emphasize the phrase ‘likely illegal’ in my previous post.
Well, let me amend another part of that post.
“Also the interesting fact that 19,000 of those ballots were thrown out because it was double punched [possibly for] Buck and Gore.”
And one last thing. There are reports that the holes were misaligned. The sample ballot they give you out before you vote doesn’t have holes on it, just arrows! Look at the holes again. Imagine they are shifted down *one centemeter–not an extreme supposition. Add possible poor eyesight and some poll workers incorrectly telling people to punch the second hole down (which was reported), and yes it is possible for there to be an innocent screw up.
And with the count this tight, any goof can have a disasterous effect.
Of course this could be a good reason to find something more modern than a punch card, for cryin’ out loud!
No, it doesn’t. That also doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the ballot itself. As a matter of fact, the double punch issue truely has nothing to do with the ballot itself unless you are alleging that the ballot design caused two holes to be puched at once. That’s one claim I have not heard.
In addition, while 19,120 ballots were double punched for the Presidential race, only 3,783 people made that mistake on the Senate portion of the ballot. Huh? The design is the same on both sections, but the Presidential portion of the ballot caused over 5 times as many errors? Talk about statistically off. (BTW, I have seen no reports of which two candidates were double punched most often even though I have been trying to find out. Do you have a site for your Gore/Buchanan assertion?)
Yes, forget that because it is not a ‘fact’. This same type ballot has been in use in Plam Beach county in particular and Florida in general for many years. It was approved in advance by Democrat Theresa LePore, the county supervisor of elections. Do you think an ‘illegal’ ballot would not have been challenged before now? Even the lawsuit filed by 3 PBC residents claims the ballots were “deceptive, misleading and confusing”, not illegal.
One local election official was quoted by CNN as saying that the very reason the ballot was not even more clear was the fact that it was designed with large print specifically to help the elderly. You can’t use the ‘poor eyesight’ defense both ways.
No doubt, the Florida election was hosed. Neither candidate will be satisfied with the outcome and half the country will be royally pissed either way. I don’t think there is any way to fairly fix the problems at this point. A re-vote will certainly skew the results no matter if there were legitimate problems or not. People on both sides know the exact outcome needed. You want to see voter fraud? Re-vote PCB (or the whole of Florida, for that matter). IMHO, the recount results should be certified as is and all subsequent elections in the the state of Florida should be closely monitored at the federal level. Remedies for the lawsuits, should the plaintiffs win, should be limited to future election reform.
I was on the “How stupid couldja be” bandwagon at first, but then I visited the ATM yesterday and for about the 800th time hit the wrong button (there are four unmarked buttons to the right of the screen, and the arrows on the screen are supposed to point right to them… they don’t always, not precisely). Despite the allegations of some people on the SDMB, I’m not your usual brand of moron. 'Twas, for me, food for thought.
Like Fairy Chat Mom, a part of me thinks “If you are unsure, ask for help.” But then I recall my voting experience. It was a packed room. People were waiting to jump into my booth the minute it was vacated. The nice little old lady who handed me my ballot went over everything just like she’d said it 400 times already in the past hour. I had to ask her to repeat the directions for writing in candidates because ther canned spiel wasn’t clear. There were no reminders about what invalidates the ballot. No special assists. And there was absolutely no extra staff on hand to go to with questions. Every single polling worker had a line of dozens of people waiting to deal with them. I did have a quick question about where straight-ticket voting ended, but I decided there was no one to ask and just did things individually. That was no biggie in my case, but had my question been more serious? And I’d been too shy or intimidated to ask? Dunno. If Palm Beach was like my polling place, it raises a lot of questions, for me anyway.
I don’t know what provisions are for “do-overs.” I can’t think of too many plans that wouldn’t make me feel uncomfortable because of the vast potential for abuse.
