Something fishy going on in the election?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I think there’s something REALLY fishy going on in this election! VERY fucking fishy!

First, a very strong Democratic section of Missouri was given a longer time to vote today, possibly illegally.

Second, Florida was Gore… no, Bush! No, Gore! Wait! Huh?

Third, Bush had a STRONG lead with 96% of totals, but then, oddly, as we have upped to 97% of totals, Gore gained a THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND vote lead on him!?

Okay, granted, these may have been Democratic districts coming in late, but seriously. Democratic enough to a) close the gap, b) take the lead and c) take it by 300,000 votes?!

Fourth, suddenly, all these people are complaining that they ‘accidentally’ voted Buchanan?! COME ON! I’ve seen the ballot in question, and I think you’d have as much chance of aiming for Bush and hitting Buchanan as you would aiming for Gore and hitting Buchanan.

I don’t like Bush, but I hate Gore worse.

I honest to God think there’s something VERY wrong with this election! Is ANYONE else suspcious?! This election is NOT sitting well with me, morally or intellectually. Something is very wrong here. I see portents of bad, bad things. Republicans, Democrats, Independants; gays, straights, bi-s; man, woman, child; religious, atheistic, undecided; black, white, asian, hispanic, native and indian; hug your family. Something bad is going to happen. Maybe not tomorrow, but the way the nation is so dramatically split, the questions and concerns of the nation… this seems bad. Very bad.

–Tim

2

They did get a court order. Now, whether or not the court was right in granting the order is up for grabs. The Republicans got it overruled, but it’s still pretty ugly, that one will have to be sorted out in the courts.

**

All of the networks screwed the pooch on that one.

**

According to CNN, those were (mostly) returns from California, particularly in and around LA County. That hadn’t been counted. California had gone strongly Democratic early in the evening and hadn’t had the total votes talied. Even at 5:30 am, there are still 6% of the precincts that haven’t finished reporting.

Actually, there had been complaints starting in the afternoon. One of the Election supervisors was on CNN and mentioned that there were reports starting in the afternoon, although he didn’t explain exactly how that confusion happened other than mentioning that they were ‘punch ballots’.

3

I had heard that there was some problem with the ballot forms being misaligned and so when the voters were selecting Gore, it was actually marking Buchanan–the next one down, I guess. That’s just what I heard.

4

from what i just read on abc news, the ballot in question had one punch for bush, and then there were 2 holes next to each other for gore and buchanan. they have a picture of it on abcnews.com. the complaints started very early in the day. they even had a hot line number for people who believed that thier vote was incorrect. buchanan votes are very high in the areas that have complained. can you say: run off election?!?!

5

There will not be a run-off election. If the states can’t handle their own damn problems soon, the question of how to decide it will go to Congress, just like in 1878. I gotta wonder about the popular vote swinging that much, though. I hadn’t heard any indication that Gore was at all likely to win that beforehand, and presumably they use the early returns to validate the exit polls in the area. Thus, either the networks weren’t paying attention on that one, or those precincts voted substantially more for Gore than the exit polls in the area indicated they would.

Granted, either scenario is quite possible, so I’m not going to make any accusations or anything.

6

Why do the close election results imply deep divisions among Americans? Might they reflect the fact that many Americans agree with some of the philosophies of both candidates?

I like the idea of smaller government and also believe that I’d rather see the “surplus” used to pay down the debt rather than go to tax relief. I firmly believe in better education for our children and also support greater environmental protection for our country’s natural national treasures.

When I weighed these and other issues, I decided to vote for Gore. Others may have weighed these and other issues slightly differently and voted for Bush. These minor differences in the weight assigned to a variety of important issues could well be indicative of a great similarity in view, rather than a great difference. The challenge for the new President and Congress will be to act on these similarities without allowing whatever differences in the electorate do exist to turn well-intentioned debate into partison rancor.

Eissclam

7

Apparantly, they just found what I presume to be a lost ballot box in a school in West Palm Beach, Florida. And the local news here is treating invaladating the entire state of Florida’s results and starting over again as a serious option.

8

Although there have been questions about how people managed to be confused by the ballots, if you take a look at the county by county breakdown of florida via the Florida Secretary of State’s election website, it shows that the count for Buchanan/Foster is 3,407, 3 times what it was in any other county in Florida.

Given that no one other county in Florida came anywhere close to that, I certainly think it’s a legitimate question about whether or not there were serious problems with the ballots. Palm Beach county is deep in the heavily pro-Gore section of Southeastern Florida.

(results from CNN, since the Secretary of State website is too busy to refresh at the moment)
Broward had 789 Buchanan votes, Dade 561, Monroe only 46 and martin (a county in which Bush won) 108. Fifteen hundred or two thousand votes from Palm Beach county could throw this election into even more chaos than it already is.

Just a thought.

That doesn’t of course, include what appeared to be a locked (and heavy) ballot box they found this morning in the preschool in Palm Beach.

9

They ‘found’ a locked and ‘lost’ ballot box, which will pretty much ensure a Democratic win?

“Well isn’t that special.”

“Paging Mr. Pendergast!”

–Tim

10

I think the ‘lost&found’ box was empty/unused.

11

“`I shook it. It was full, and it was very heavy,’ Francis added.”

12

http://www.pbcelections.org/Sample%20Ballots/g1.jpg
This is the ballot. As for it being “just as easy” to mistake buchanan for bush, I don’t see it. Why? Becuase Bush is the TOP circle. It’s pretty easy to know where the top is. I think a lot of people saw Gore as the second name and (people being the way they are, not usually reading directions or scanning the entire document) assumed the second circle was the Gore vote.

It was clearly an idiotic design, I mean if there is even a slight chance that it can be misread, then it needs to be done differently.

13

Especially if you think of Florida as a state of elderly people with poor eyesight…

14

it wasn’t a well thought out design. i know older people in my family would have had trouble with that ballot.

does anyone know what is going on in the county with the bad disk?

15

Update as to Palm Beach County ballots. I just received a phone call from a friend who works for a lawfirm in this area (which is made up of 8 lawyers, all Democrats) that they are working through the night tonight on a lawsuit on behalf of Palm Beach Democrats as to the confusing ballots in Palm Beach County. Interesting to note that one of the partners in this firm is a former Florida state representative who gave blow by blow updates on a local news channel last night.

16

I found similarly arranged part of my ballot, the part for judges in my area hard to read because the poll was to high and the ballot is fixed in place so after getting to the second page and realising that i had misvoted because the punch had been punched already and from then on i counted carefully. I complained tothe judge about it and that the flourescent light in the poll glared on the glossy ballot books making it hard to read at all. he said nothing could be done.

The angle meant that the apparent distance between choices was quite small.

17

Yes, the election here in St. Louis was screwed up royally. In one of my classes a guy said one of his friends was allowed to vote once for the city and once for the county (different polling places). There were reports of packs of cigarettes being handed out to the homeless so they’d vote for a certain candidate. Some people not registered for this area were also allowed to vote. Everything can be attributed to a lack of overall organization.

18

As a West Palm Beach resident and voter my $.02 is that, while I can see the possibility for confusion in the pictures of the ballot, when in the holder it didn’t look even vaguely confusing to me.

19
20

Alright, with 32 of 67 counties in, Bush’s lead has shrunk to a little under 1000 votes. But: Miami-Dade’s results are in; Palm Beach’s results are in; Broward’s results are in. These are all big Gore areas. Does this mean that Bush might start picking up votes as they move away from these areas? Incidentally, Broward is the home of the magical disappearing-reappearing ballot boxes that gave Gore 600 extra votes. If I were Bush, I’d have them look really hard for evidence of fraud there (and I’m sure they are).