one of the commentators said that a reason for that design was for making
it easier to read ... for elderly voters who might have vision problems ...
i don't see any validity to that ... if anything, the butterfly design
would make it more visually confusing
almost all ballots around the country have candidates on the left down a
column ... and the place (punch and otherwise) you indicate your vote on
the right ... this is standard and habitual practice ...
in this case, evidently the local media in its pre election day information
lead voters to believe that the second one on the ballot was GORE ... so,
one might think that this would translate to doing the "punch thing" second
hole down if you were for gore ... but, that was actually the spot for
buchanan ...
HOWEVER, if you look at the ballot ... next to GORE's name is a clear
---->> arrow pointing to the hole you would punch if for gore ...
so, while the ballot seems clear enough (though irregular) ... the lingo in
the local press might have lead many to THINK that for gore, they punched
the second hole down ...
what i want to know is that how many of the 19,000 invalidated ballots were
because a voter voted for TWO presidential candidates ... and these would
have to be for buchanan AND gore to make this "confusion" argument have
legitimacy ... or were for other reasons ...
and why would a voter really vote for two presidential candidates? would
they not know that you can't do that? or, if they accidentally did this
having made a first mistake ... would they not call this to the attention
of the election official at the precinct?
no matter which side of the fray you are one ... this "case" deserves" a
more careful analysis to try to figure out why it happened in palm beach
county ... and evidently NOT in other counties ... or not nearly as often
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