All Florida Counties that used the butterly ballot should re-vote

[64bitloopy]

It's sad that we let lawyers make choices for us.

Yeah, lets re-vote. That's a great solution. It'll just make America look stupid, that we can't even get the election right.
Face it, the vote did not go the way intended and if people were so stupid they can't figure out how to punch a hole in the right place, they probably should not vote.

Is this also suggest that the stupid people in florida support Gore.

Give it up. Sometimes it just doesn't make sense to support stuff like this.

Let the recount do its thing. Whoever won, won, and whoever did not, well....too bad.

 

[DainBrammage]

I see another whiner that is whining because of failure to follow simple intructions. Butterfly ballot or none. FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS

 

[chess9]

BlkDragon6:

Palm Beach County is largely retired and Jewish. As I said before, if Buchanan got ONE vote, it was from a relative. Every vote for Buchanan in Palm Beach County should be stricken unless they have someone who will step forward, at his peril, and claim it! j/k

I know the area well. Buchanan may have gotten a couple of votes, but not many. Most of those folks think Buchanan is an anti-Semite. (I won't be that hard on Pat)They loathe him. No way Buchanan should have very many votes. That should be easy to check I would think.

Re-vote will be ordered. You heard it here first.

 

[BigSmooth]

64bitloopy, I think the fact that the mere possibility that the people of America could vote for one candidate and get another already makes us look stupid, no matter who wins.

People in this country think our electoral college system is bad, what must people in other countries think about our "democracy"?

 

[BlkDragon6]

chess9,

I completely agree. People that are questioning the uncertainty of the ballot in Palm Beach Count should take a look at those numbers.

 

[Thanatopsis]

When I first heard about this, it seemed that the ballot was designed so that a vote for Buchanan put in a vote for Gore, even though the person pressed the Gore button. Now that I've seen a pic of this "questionable" ballot, I'd like to say a damn monkey could figure it out when you have arrows pointing directlyto each thing to press. I say, the person must have zeroed out all other parts of the paper except for the part that said Gore.

I guess the lesson is to never underestimate the stupidity of the populace.

 

[ride525]

<< Bore lost. Get over it. >>



Not yet. It ain't over 'til it's over.....

Actually, Gore leads BOTH the popular vote and electoral vote right now, with Oregon and Florida undecided at this time......

 

[JellyBaby]

chess9,

Why not just call Nov. 7th a wholesale loss and re-vote at the national level?

One things for certain: our entire voting process has come under long-overdue scrutiny. Those in power will spin, twist and strafe to maintain the status quo but our next president will get extreme and incessant criticsm from yours truly if something is changed to prevent this nonsense from ever happening again.

 

[KingHam]

Courts helping the little guy for once? Seems like all the courts do these days is let the stupid inherit the earth. I'm a victim, I spilled coffee on myself so I deserve several million dollars. I'm a victim, I didn't know that inhaling smoke that made my cough and feel like crap was bad for me. Plus the evil, greedy, cigarette manufacturers made it looks so cool and fun.

I'm sick of hearing about these people!

KingHam

 

[goog40]

I'm sure the Republicans would be saying the same thing if the tables were turned. Right...

Oh well, if Bush does get to be President, we have yet another person to laugh about in history class. Didn't get elected by the people, gets elected by the electoral college but even that was by accident

 

[vi edit]

<-- Harry Browne supporter, so I'll try to give an unbiased opinion here...

I didn't use the machines/ballots in question, and neither did most of you who write off the mistake as being ignorant. But, couldn't some of the confusion come in to play with the way the machine punched the card? I may have misread the articles, but didn't the &quot;puncher&quot; not line up with the line that the voter wanted? If that is the case, then even the most effective layout would prove to be ineffective.

But, I could be totally off, and misread the article. My take on it was that it was a lining up problem.

Also, for those of you who say that the elderly who voted the wrong are dumb, old, senile, altheimers patients, just remember that you'll be there someday as well. Their vote is no less as important as yours.

I'm sure most of us have witnessed a senior citizen mistaking a Barn for a driveway, but still, does that make their vote any less important than any one of ours?

Just a thought.

 

[JellyBaby]

Can anyone link me to that ballot? Let's see if a college grad with a degree in BS can work through it.

 

[KingHam]

I do agree that our voting system is vastly antiquated and needs to be updated. The only possible reason that I can see for keeping things the way they are now is because it's easier to commit fraud. Which is hardly an argument for the status quo.

KingHam

 

[chess9]

Thanatopsis:

Do you also believe women can read a map? <ducks flying sauce pans, keyboards, and soiled clothing>

This really is a moderately gender based issue, because many guys can't read a map either. For tech guys, who are very graphically oriented, and sometimes even graphic, it is hard to understand. But graphic symbols can be very misleading and what is clear to you might not be clear to an 80 year old woman. I have a pretty strong symbolic aptitude, but I wrestled momentarily with the ballot.

By the way, this ballot has not been used in all Florida counties. In fact, my wife, who is out of town, just told me she didn't use it Saturday when she voted, but I used it at my precinct. Wierd. Probably old machines. Anyway, I wonder how many counties will be affected. So far, I've only heard of two.

 

[Spoooon]

Presidents have been elected before without having the mandate of the people and have been relatively successful. I agree that it's time to revamp the voting process, you can't do it in the middle of deciding who won the election. There is no way to prevent further corruption of the process. The ballot looked simple enough to me, and I'm just a humble undergrad...

 

[etech]

Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore, a Democrat, insisted any confusion was unintentional and defended the layout of the cluttered ballots as necessary to get all the presidential candidates on facing pages while making the type large enough for voters to read.

&quot;I was trying to make the print bigger so elderly people in Palm Beach County can read it,&quot; said LePore.

She also said that if it was so confusing, someone should have pointed it out to her earlier. &quot;We sent out sample ballots to all registered voters, and no one said a word,&quot; she said.


article

Russ puts it so well, get over it.

 

[juiio]

Here is the &quot;difficult to understand&quot; ballot.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/vote2000/ballot/images/main.gif

It would take a college de....no....high school diplo....no...ummm second grade education to understand this.

 

[chess9]

JB:

At your age you'd just get confused.

The ballot on the web has much bigger type than the one used. The type is teeny-tiny and poor ink quality.

I agree about voting reform. My son's fiance just told me the State of Virginia lost her motor voter registration and refused to let her vote. She raised cain, so they gave her a provisional vote. Big deal! Anyway, I would think this is one issue everyone, except the entrenched politicians, could agree on.

 

[SuperTool]

I think whoever wins the recount should have it. While it is not an intuitive ballot, it's not misleading either. It's like when you get a new keyboard and the &quot;\&quot; key is in a different place. It's up to the user to check where the key is, just like it is up to the voter to make sure they understand where to punch the ballot. So while it is unfortunate that the election was decided over this, it's really a roll of dice that fell the wrong way for Gore, and he should accept it as part of the game.
I am a Gore supporter, but I don't want Gore in the White House through litigation, and I don't think Gore wants that either. We would just have Republicans calling him a fraud for four years, and it will be even more partisan then it is now. I wish he would win Florida recount with absentee ballots in, but if not, then he should step down, and let it go. I think winning the popular vote sets him up well for a future presidential bid, especially if the economy takes a downturn int the next four years.

Just because there is a litigation path, that doesn't mean it should be exercised. Look at Ashcroft in MO. Lost to a dead guy and took it like a man. I respect that.

 

[chess9]

Etech: So the people have no basis to complain because the person who designed the ballot is defending their design? That's what General Motors said about the Corvair. I also have some Thalidomide I'd like you to take. In your case, large doses will be necessary.

Also, the design error is obviously unintentional and latent, as Buzz pointed out. That doesn't support the disenfranchisement of our elderly. Get a grip man. If you straighten out your life, you may make it to 65 and might want to be able to read the ballot.

Something else. Gore's name should have been at the top right hand side of the ballot, not Buchanan's. That was a big design mistake.

 

[goog40]

More fuel for the fire. For what it's worth, an article run by miamiherald.com had this in it:

Jesse Jackson and NAACP president Kweisi Mfume said they received complaints that blacks had difficulty voting. Jackson said some voters were told there were no more ballots, or that polls were closed.

 

[Viper GTS]

Great, now the NAACP is rearing their ugly heads.

God, can't they shrivel up &amp; die already? Race had nothing to do with this election, but leave it up to them to make it seem like it did.

:|

Viper GTS

 

[chess9]

Supertool:

As BlkDragon noted above, Palm Beach County has very few registered Progressive Party voters, yet Buchanan received over 3000 votes. Just walk into any Albertson's or Eckerd's down there and you'd know almost immediately that for Buchanan to get 3000 votes about 10,000 people would have had to have been uprooted from Kentucky or Texas and registered before the election. No way.

Once the judge gets the demographics, sees the voter registration lists, hears the testimony of the ladies, and looks at the ballot, it will be a slam dunk. We will have a revote unless Gore concedes, which I now have convinced myself is the wrong thing to do.

You heard it here first. Please send your $20 contribution to Bob's Bermuda Vacation Fund, c/o Banco Nationale de Cuba, Aruba, S.A.

 

[konichiwa]

As far as the merits of the mistakes...obviously people made mistakes. I don't rememeber the exact numbers, but someone in this thread quoted that an exponentially larger amount of people voted for Reform than who were REGISTERED as reform.
So like it or not, there was some confusion. And if you think the people who couldn't figure this out (seniors) shouldn't be voting anyway, then you might as well take Florida out of the union, and Arizona while you're at it. And go ahead and hand Gore the presidency. That's rediculous to say that someone who couldn't figure it out doesn't matter. They matter as much, if not more, than your feeble little mind.

And as for the ballot itself. Look at that USA Today picture. The line above Al Gore could've easily been mistaken as the line to where the hole for him is, and it points RIGHT to Buchannan's place. I'd bet you a hundred bucks that's where the confusion is.

 

[chess9]

Goog:

I would not be surpised if December 18 came and went without a resolution of this. Maybe we'll have four more years of Clinton!