[Alberta's Child]

Someone posted an article on FR last year that included a link to a great weblog article about the Florida election. The author of that article speculated that the "Pat Buchanan" votes in Palm Beach County were actually the result of fouled-up attempts at voter fraud.

Basically, his point was that Bush was originally in the #1 spot on that "butterfly ballot" and Gore was in the #2 spot, with Buchanan in the #3 spot. The way the butterfly ballot was laid out on either side of a center margin, the odd-numbered slots were on the left side and the even-numbered slots were on the right side -- so that #3 was directly below #1, #4 was directly below #2, etc. Bush was in the #1 position because the candidates were arranged in the order their party had finished in the last state-wide election (which I believe had been Jeb Bush's 1998 victory). Buchanan, then, was moved "up" from the #3 spot to the #2 position -- the top slot on the right side of the ballot.

After the original ballot was approved, the Democratic Party in Palm Beach County had Al Gore moved from the #2 spot to the #3 spot so his name would be directly below Bush's name instead of on the opposite side of the sheet parties did have the option of moving their candidate to a LOWER position, but not a higher one) -- they thought this would make Gore's name more visible to voters.

The author of that article postulated that most of those 3,000 Pat Buchanan votes in Palm Beach County were actually cast when a Democratic Party election official (or someone in the Gore campaign) was attempting to give additional votes to Gore but did so based on the original layout of the Palm Beach County ballot instead of the final one.

Pretty fascinating stuff, I thought.

[KC_for_Freedom]

The other muse I heard about that election was that democratic operatives were suspected of passing a thin rod through a stack of ballots voting for Gore while at the same time making votes for Bush and Buchanan double punched and therefore invalid. This would also make a Gore vote out of a no vote and provided an easy way to make small changes in the outcome of the election. Especially if this were done in heavh Gore areas, and if not done on all the ballots. Of course, this would also create some hanging chads.

I am glad to see the punch card ballot going the way of the punch card computer input system. The new scanners will give a voter a chance to correct double votes, (something that will allow more careless voters votes to be redone.) But on the whole will make poll place vote fraud harder to get away with.