I know its kinda old but there must be millions of voters in Florida how come such a big deal is made over 19,000 out of XX millions who can't see a simple arrow pointing to the hole to vote for their candidate....is it really that difficult or what!

News Article:


  Newspaper: Gore Might Have Won



                                                              Updated 11:02 PM ET March 10, 2001


  WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - A ballot design that confused voters into
  chosing two candidates cost Democrat Al Gore 6,607 votes in Palm Beach
  County, The Palm Beach Post reported in its Sunday editions.

  The newspaper counted more than 19,000 overvotes, or ballots on which more
  than one vote was recorded for a presidential candidate. It concluded the net gain of votes for Gore would
  have been 10 times more than he needed to erase Republican George W. Bush's slim margin of 537 votes in
  the state.

  Many voters had complained that the butterfly ballot was confusing because candidates' names appeared on
  both sides of the punchcard with holes in the middle. They expected the holes to select Bush and Gore to be
  the first two choices as required by Florida statutes, but instead found Buchanan, on a facing page, located
  between them.

  According to the newspaper's review, 5,330 ballots were thrown out because voters punched chads for Gore
  and Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan, whose name appeared just above Gore's.

  Another 2,908 voters punched Gore's name and Socialist David McReynolds, the candidate whose name
  appeared just below Gore's.
[CONTINUED]

  Bush lost 1,631 votes because people selected both Bush and Buchanan. Buchanan's name appeared just
  below Bush on the ballot.

  The two Gore combinations, minus the Bush-Buchanan votes, add up to 6,607 lost votes for Gore.

  "What it shows is what we've been saying all along there is no question that the majority of people on Election
  Day believed they left the booth voting for Al Gore," said Ron Klain, Gore's former chief of staff and his lead
  legal strategist in Florida.

  Former Montana Gov. Marc Racicot, a vocal Bush supporter, dismissed the findings.

  "You're trying too hard to find a correlation here," Racicot said. "You don't know these people, you don't
  know what they intended."

  The Post reported that even if 1 percent of the 6,607 votes were intended for Buchanan or McReynolds -
  more than their combined percent of Palm Beach County's total vote - Gore would still have received 6,541
  votes.

  Three-fourths of the overvotes had punches for two candidates, most of which experts said can be attributed
  to the ballot design. The rest were for three or more candidates, which experts called voter error, not a design
  problem.

  There were 5,062 voters who punched three or more choices for president. Twenty-eight voters selected all
  10 presidential candidates.

  The newspaper's review of overvotes was conducted between Jan. 17 and Jan. 29.

  In a story published Saturday, The Post reported that Gore would have gained 784 votes in Palm Beach
  County if every ballot that had a hanging chad, pinhole or dimple was counted.

  Had The Post's standard been used and its tally applied without any changes in counting procedures in
  Florida's 66 other counties, the tally also would have erased Bush's victory margin in the state.

  In Palm Beach County's official 10-day manual recount, Gore gained 174 votes. Those were not counted in
  the statewide tally because the county canvassing board missed the deadline by two hours.

  The newspaper looked at the 9,150 ballots that county officials said had no vote for president - commonly
  called "undervotes" - and found that 5,736 had a mark for either Bush or Gore. There were 462,350 ballots
  cast in the county, which Gore carried by an almost two-to-one margin.

  During its manual recount, the Palm Beach canvassing board members - who were all Democrats - struggled
  over which ballots should be counted, so board Chairman Charles Burton went to court in hopes of having a
  firm standard set.

  But Circuit Judge Jorge Labarga ruled that the board should judge every ballot on its own merit and count
  those where the voter's intent could be determined. The board counted very few dimpled ballots.

  The newspaper's examination of ballots the board rejected broke them into three categories.

  The paper found that Bush would have had a net gain of 14 votes if the canvassing board had counted the 62
  undervotes that had a hanging chad. That's where a candidate's square is partially detached or is hanging from
  the ballot.

  But, the newspaper found, Gore would have had a net gain of 25 votes if the canvassing board had also
  counted the 313 ballots where light could be seen through the perforations or through a pinhole in the square.
  None of the corners of these chads were detached.

  Finally, the paper found that Gore would have had a net gain of 78

  Burton pointed out a problem with The Post's method. If the canvassing board had counted dimpled chads as
  votes, it would have had to reject the ballots where voters made a clear punch for one candidate and made a
  dimple for another because that would have reflected an overvote. It is unknown how many ballots would
  have been disqualified if that had been done.

  The Post is not the only newspaper reviewing Florida ballots. Two groups are conducting examinations in all
  67 counties.

  The first group, which consists of The Miami Herald, its parent company Knight Ridder, and USA Today, had
  completed its examination in 65 of 67 counties as of Wednesday.

  The other group consists of The Associated Press, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, The
  Palm Beach Post, St. Petersburg Times, The Wall Street Journal and Tribune Publishing, which owns the
  Orlando Sentinel and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. As of Tuesday, it still had 20 counties remaining.

  --

  On the Net:

  Palm Beach Post: http://www.gopbi.com/partners/pbpost/

This can be found at excite.com



[SORRY for all of the messages, this was kinda long and couldn't post it in two post]

The Republican's got lucky; therefore we got lucky.
Maybe someone from up above rigged it?

[:D]I love America![:D]

A place where justice *can* prevail.

Those idiots were not qualified to vote and were more than proud to put their stupidity on display.  The presidency should never hinge on a few thousand morons and they were pretty arrogant in thinking that it actually would.

If they would go through it all and throw out all of the people who voted illegaly and dem result tampering then the vote would not be close at all.  That wouldn't even take into account dems in poling stations.

I feel sorry for the good citizens of Florida that your state was portrayed as being chuck-full of idiots (my state didn't see that there was any real rush in getting out the results either - the product of public schooling in action).

...Over vote...under vote...chads...butterfly
ballot...woulda...coulda...shoulda...handwringin
...wailing...moaning...groaning...

I prayed, I voted, I prayed some more, a lot
more. My prayers were answered. I give thanks
every day. Who says God does'nt have a sense
of humor and irony. BEHOLD

Stupid clusterfucks that never played connect the dots.

What about the issue of certain people being intimidated at the polls?

Ya sure.  I saw National Guard troops in riot gear making sure they couldn't get in.

Scary German Shepherds too!!!!  Wearing bullet proof doggy vests.