Since so many conservative Dopers are big salon.com fans, I thought I’d pose further debate from information in an article appearing there.
Apparently the main reason for the now-infamous confusing ballots is a reform passed only two years ago (called Revision 11) giving just under unlimited access to anyone running for President under a specific party. Apparently, the laws were so restrictive before as to make it near impossible for anyone not in the two main parties to get on the ballot. This was the first election under the open policy.
The result: overcrowded punchcard ballots, leading to the double-punch and the mistaken vote. How? Some counties, such as Duval, opted for the two-sided approach to spread the names out, which may have led some (possibly dimmer) individuals to assume they could vote one name on each side, rendering the ballot to the throw-away pile. In Palm Beach, apparently, the butterfly form was adopted out of concerns that a single column would have printed names that were too small for the poor-sighted senior voters.
1.) So, it is possible, then, that the now-crowded ballots were simply very new to voters used to the formerly sparse ones. (Please note that I am not forming a defense so much as displaying yet another factor.) I am interested to know why the number of thrown-out votes in PBC was still proportional to the ones tossed in the '96 election and not substantially higher.
2.) It would also seem, then, that the all of the contesting and recounting is entirely justified, and that older laws (such as the deadline law) should be held in the light of the unproven new system.
Now, to combat the argument, “What about other counties? Why focus on these two?” It has been estimated that 40,000 votes were completely discarded in Duval and Palm Beach, yet only 130,000 were discarded in the other 65 counties combined.
So, is there discrepency in PBC discarded numbers compared to last election? AND Isn’t this whole mess worth overlooking the deadline?