Free Republic

Palm Beach County, Fla., created the controversial "butterfly ballot" in the 2000 presidential election that reportedly confused more than 1,000 Gore-Lieberman voters such that they wound up marking their ballots for a minor-party candidate. In February 2006, local education officials told the Palm Beach Post that too many of the county's high school students apparently knew answers on the statewide comprehensive test but were incorrectly marking the answer sheets. The multiple choice questions require only one circle to be darkened on the sheet, but other questions require darkening digits of an actual numerical answer, apparently bewildering students into darkening too...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- A state rule barring the 15 Florida counties with touchscreen voting from conducting manual recounts is at odds with state law, which requires hand recounts in some close elections, a judge ruled Friday. A coalition including a labor union, government watchdogs and other interest groups sued the state, arguing the law requires provisions for hand recounts in every county, no matter what voting technology is used. Administrative Law Judge Susan Kirkland agreed, writing that state law clearly contemplates "that manual recounts will be done on each certified voting system, including the touchscreen voting systems." With a primary...

So, it's the Florida election redux. But, unlike the Sore-Loser-Man, at least it didn't take Janet Reno weeks and a few court challenges to concede. Reno only kept people waiting a couple days. Remembering 2000, first the Democrats in Florida designed the "butterfly ballot." That style ballot worked fine in other states, just not in the Democratic strongholds of Florida. So they whined, cried and kicked up a big fuss because the very same punch card ballots used many places throughout the nation were somehow "unfair" for the people populating a few Florida counties. They got "hanging chads," and the...

Al Gore. State election officials ultimately declared George W. Bush the winner by a margin of 537 votes, but during and after the election dispute, questions remained about the uncounted ballots of 175,010 voters, ballots that had been rejected by error-prone tabulating machines employed in many Florida counties. Confusion and conflict, much of it generated by partisan intrigue, prevented these ballots from being counted during the election controversy. However, in 2001 every uncounted ballot was carefully examined in a scientific study by the University of Chicago, which concluded that when all the votes were counted, more votes had been cast...

Forgotten the dramatic details of the 2000 American presidential election? Download a map of the results, thanks to the US Geological Survey (USGS). The 2000 US presidental election is mapped out for all to see. This latest product on the five-year-old National Atlas website shows how markedly voting preferences have changed over the years. For example, you can watch the traditionally Democratic stronghold of the southeastern United States slowly changing to a Republican block over the course of three decades. The National Atlas website also offers a taster of the potential of online map making. Visitors can have fun creating...