response 57 of 409:

Nov 8 18:56 UTC 2000

Well yes, I would have consider his holding the office illegitimate even
if he had won by a landslide. 8^}

response 59 of 409:

Nov 8 20:21 UTC 2000

Wasn't it in 84 (or so) that Californians heard how vastly Reagan was 
winning so they literally got out of line and just didn't vote?

response 61 of 409:

Nov 8 21:53 UTC 2000

The news networks have gone so far as to refuse to call a state until it's
polls close.  In fact, at least half of the states could have been called a
week ago (barring huge October surprises).

I don't think the media screwed up.  I think the pollsters did a pretty good
job.  The problem was that the margin of error in the polls was significantly
bigger than Bush's (Gore's?) margin of victory.  No kind of exit poll is going
to correctly predict a margin of 1757 votes.  The mdia, like everyone else,
was not mentally prepared for a race as close as this.  Their past experience
misled them.

response 63 of 409:

Nov 8 22:59 UTC 2000

Properly marking / selecting a ballot candidate cannot be considered a spoiled
ballot.  It seems far fetched that someone could select the wrong candidate
on a clearly marked ballot, but even so, if discovered *while in the process
of voting*, I can't see the voter being denied a fresh ballot to start over
with.  But *after* voting has completed, to then suspect or discover that
somehow the wrong selection was made, and want to recall the ballot and redo
the voting, that "doesn't meet the standard" for me, and I don't consider such
a ballot to be spoiled.

response 65 of 409:

Nov 9 01:20 UTC 2000

I'm a little unclear on how all these people voted for Buchanan by accident.
The explanation I've heard was that Gore was on a different page, but I would
have expected that to just really confuse people, not to cause them to vote
for Buchanan.  Was there more to it than that?

response 67 of 409:

Nov 9 03:00 UTC 2000

I gather the order was more like:
        Bush
                Buchanan
        Gore
                etc
Since Bush was 1st, an off-by-one error was less likely for him.
Buchanan was on the other page (not just the other side of the current
page), so it apparently wasn't immediately obvious that he was part of
the problem.  There may also have been alignment issues - I know when I
voted in ypsi (punch card system), the pages were about 1/4 hole above
the actual holes.  I don't think I misvoted any because of that, but if
the alignment had been only a bit worse, it might have been a real
issue.

response 69 of 409:

Nov 9 14:29 UTC 2000

Okay, now imagine you're elderly, your eye-sight isn't so good, and the 
writing is so small (was that web page shown in actual ballot size?).  
That puts a different spin on things.

Given everything I've heard... I can't imagine that many people in a 
mostly Jewish community would vote for Buchannan.

response 71 of 409:

Nov 9 15:58 UTC 2000

re #61: William Bennett, interviewed on CNN late on Tuesday night, 
jumped all over the CNN crew because they announced their initial result 
for Florida (that Gore had won) before the polls closed in the western 
part of the panhandle, which is in the Central time zone.  The CNN 
people told Bennett they do not announce the totals for a state until 
75% of the polls have closed, not 100%.

USA Today on-line has a photo of the ballot which caused confusion in 
Palm Beach County, Florida:  
http://www.usatoday.com/news/vote2000/ballot/frame.htm

It seems clear enough to me.  But if people say they were confused, I 
guess they probably were.

There appear to have been other "irregularities" in Florida.  19,000 
spoiled ballots for president (compared to 3,700 for the Senate)...

There's some humor in the situation, too.

Richard Daley, mayor of Chicago, whose father overturned the popular 
vote in Illinois in 1960 and got JFK elected over Richard Nixon by 
counting the votes of thousands of dead people: "I assume the courts 
will take a serious look at what may be an injustice unparalleled in our 
history."  Unparalleled since 1960, but we don't want to mention any of 
that, do we, Mr. Daley?

Then there's the three people who want to have a court order another 
election, just for Palm Beach County.  How would that work?  I trust no 
court is going to throw out the election and have Palm Beach County 
elect the president on their own.

response 73 of 409:

Nov 9 16:31 UTC 2000

And without Texas?  I understand there were "voting irregularities" 
there, too.

I'm no expert on the 1960 presidential election.  I don't know what 
parts are true and what parts aren't.  It was a long time ago, anyway; 
before I was born.  Things turned out well enough over time.

response 75 of 409:

Nov 9 17:14 UTC 2000

re 62 and such:  All she had to do then was punch an additional hole to
spoil her ballot.

The paperboard ballots of Pittsfield Township get validated by the 
mechanism that draws them into the machine.  It allows the discovery
of a spoiled ballot while the voter is still there.  A rather nifty
addition to a people and machine readable form.

response 77 of 409:

Nov 9 18:28 UTC 2000

Re 71,72,73,74.  This is pretty much a myth that Republicans have been
repeating since 1960, that "Mayor Daley stole the presidential election." 

Well, first of all, Kennedy won the popular vote by a margin of over
100,000.  If Nixon won the electoral college, he would have done so
despite losing the popular vote, just as George W. Bush is about to do.
It's beyond fantasy to think that Kennedy benefited from 100,000
fraudulent votes.

Second, as Aaron pointed out, in the Electoral College, Kennedy didn't
need Illinois.  He had enough electoral votes elsewhere.  So nothing that
Daley did in Illinois could possibly have changed the outcome. 

Republicans, challenged on this point, immediately say, well, there's also
Texas.  But while Kennedy won Illinois by less than 9,000 votes, he won
Texas by more than five times as much.  I don't know much about what was
happening in Texas at the time, but I'm skeptical that somebody could have
stolen 50,000 votes without anybody noticing.  And blaming Mayor Daley for
Texas is a stretch, to say the least.

If Illinois was tipped to JFK by stolen votes, it would have taken a much
smaller number.  If Illinois and Texas were both tipped to JFK by fraud,
the Texas story should have been much bigger.  In truth, I doubt that
election fraud changed either state's outcome.

One of the things which aroused attention at the time was Kennedy's very
high percentage in black precincts, I think something like 75%.  Nowadays,
we would be surprised to see a Democrat getting only 75% in an all-black
area, but at the time, it was surprising.

But before the election, Martin Luther King was arrested in Atlanta, and
Kennedy phoned to offer support.  This act got enormous attention among
black voters nationwide, and it helped trigger the movement away from the
Republican Party that was already under way since FDR.  White Republicans
who thought of King as merely some Negro troublemaker probably either
didn't realize the significance of Kennedy's gesture or didn't like
Kennedy getting anything positive for consorting with a criminal. 

Either way, a lot of the hullabaloo over "vote fraud" in Chicago reflected
concern or anger that black voters were affecting the outcome.  Four years
later, the Republican Party nominated Barry Goldwater, who endorsed
states' rights to enforce segregation -- and the black community has been
over 90% Democratic ever since. 

What has been dropped from the Chicago 1960 election story that circulates
among Republican is that Chicago was both recounted and studied by
independent observers, and no evidence was found of any actual vote fraud.

The recount of Chicago's 1.7 million votes found a net gain of 312 for
Nixon.  The recount then moved to the Cook County suburbs, where paper
ballots were in use.  Counting paper ballots is not as simple as you might
think, because there are complex legal rules that apply to the ambiguous
cases, e.g., did the X cross inside the square.  With a scrupulous recount
of the paper ballots, directed by attorneys for both parties with
reporters and observers watching, suburb by suburb by suburb, Kennedy
gained over 2,000 votes, bringing his statewide margin from six thousand
to over eight thousand.  Before they were halfway done, the Republicans
called off the recount.

Recently, Seymour Hirsh wrote a book critical of JFK and Kennedy family
shenanigans.  The book got a lot of press attention because it detailed
Kennedy's unusual sexual activities, but it also discussed the various
underhanded things Kennedy did to win the 1960 nomination.  Note that
presidential primaries were a joke until Kennedy came along: nominations
were decided by party leaders in "smoke filled rooms."

One of the key turning points in the campaign was the West Virginia
presidential primary. In certain counties in West Virginia, you win a
primary by paying off the county officials, who control the outcome either
by leadership or intimidation of the handful of voters in a low-turnout
primary, or though outright fraud.  The Kennedys paid their money, didn't
ask questions, and won the primary. 

I mention this because the West Virginia primary is the one place where
Hirsh found Kennedy complicit in vote fraud.  As to Chicago, he documents
a previously undisclosed meeting a year before the 1960 election between
JFK's father Joe Kennedy and Chicago's Mafia leaders.  Some kind of deal
was made to make the Teamsters pension fund available to the Kennedy
campaign, and to pressure members of corrupt labor unions to vote for
Kennedy.  Not something that reflects well on the Kennedys, certainly, but
pressuring someone to go to the polls is not vote fraud.

The lie about Illinois in 1960 has been repeated for so long and so often
that most people assume it's true.  It's like the old line that "Mussolini
made the trains run on time." -- he didn't, but everyone now assumes he
did.  A lie repeated often enough becomes truth.

Well, now the Democrats have their own myth to harp on for the next forty
years.  Unlike Illinois in 1960, Florida really DOES determine the
Electoral College winner.  And JFK's 1960 margin in Illinois was more than
ten times higher than GWB's current lead in Florida.  Though I personally
doubt that the most exacting recount of Florida's votes could change the
outcome, the feeling is going to persist that because of "irregularities," 
in a state drenched in drug money, led by the candidate's brother, Bush
won the presidency on fraud.

Add that to the fact that, unlike Kennedy in 1960, Bush really did lose
the popular vote.

Decades from now, when Bush's name comes up in conversation, people will
say, "Bush?  Oh, right, you mean the guy who stole the election."  And no
matter how often it gets debunked, people will keep repeating it.  Another
lie will turn into truth.

And history will suffer.

Today's Republicans should think about this the next time they're about to
glibly repeat the Chicago lie.

response 79 of 409:

Nov 9 19:29 UTC 2000

Re 78.  Which other state was as close as Florida?

response 81 of 409:

Nov 9 19:56 UTC 2000

I found this position clear and concise so I pass it along to you..

MEINTEXAS
1. In Florida, all ballots must be printed publicly in the paper prior to the
election. Additionally, all voters are sent a sample ballot for their careful
review and consideration prior to the day of the election. NO ONE had any
grievances about the so-called butterfly ballot in the West Palm Area prior
to the election. A little known fact regarding this ballot is that it was
created by a DEMOCRAT who supervises the elections in that area. This was not
a right wing conspiracy, folks. 
2. Last time I checked, it was a privilege to vote. If you are so lucky as
to be given the chance to express your right to vote, you should take this
responsibility seriously. It is that person's RESPONSIBILITY to be diligent
in how they mark their ballots. The sample ballots explain in detail that if
a mistake is made, the voter simply must request a new ballot and one will
be given to them. Why is there people in West Palm CRYING that they voted for
the wrong person? Why didn't they request a new ballot when they noticed that
an error had been made? Maybe they did vote for the right person, but now wish
they had voted for someone else. Who will ever really know? The press is
making a big scene about all those ballots in that area which had been
disqualified because multiple candidates for the same position had been
punched. This is human error. The ballot had large print to facilitate seniors
being about to read the ballot and also had an ARROW pointing to the
appropriate punch. How much simpler can this get, people? I for one believe
that if you couldn't take the time to responsibly vote for your candidate,
then you blew your chance. This is not anyone's fault but the voters. Yet
another example of certain segments of our society blaming ANYONE else other
than themselves for their personal transgressions. Get over the whining and
accept that you blew it. Blah blah blah...Maybe you will be a little more
careful next election. If you don't, oh well.... 
3. I am absolutely incensed that the media has played off their meddling with
this election as just "technical difficulties" with their statistical models
which chose projections. What hogwash!!!! Anyone that knows anything about
statistics knows that you cannot project final results from a miniscule sample
size of six precincts reporting. I, for one, think that the press should be
blacked out until every poll in the US is CLOSED. No projections or biased
accounts of what will happen need to influence voters in any other area of
the country. I was sitting at a GOP party in Hillsborough County Florida at
7:45 pm when Fox called Florida for Gore. People were incredulous. How could
they accurately predict anything with no information? The answer...they
couldn't!!!! So why did it take them two hours to say that Florida was too
close to call? Did anyone else check their watch and notice that west coast
polls were about to close? If those desperate people in West Palm Beach get
a revote (the most insane suggestion I have ever heard in my life), then every
other citizen who had a possibility to vote after the first media outlet
reported that Florida had gone to Gore and virtually given him the electoral
college should stand up and ask for a new election for themselves. Also, the
fact that a multimillionaire from NY who is one of Gore's supporters showing
up in Minneapolis to bribe the homeless should be investigated. She was giving
out cigarettes to them in exchange for absentee ballot votes for Gore. Oh,
yes, and what about that Democratic judge in St. Louis county who kept open
the polls in a predominantly Gore precinct? What about the 4000 count
difference in Wisconsin or the 6000 count difference in other states that went
to Gore? Let's just redo the entire election and show every other country in
the world that democracy cannot work and so they shouldn't even bother risking
their lives. This insanity is going to cause a constitutional crisis in this
country which is unprecedented. 
At times in the past two days, I have questioned the process. Yet one thing
I am sure of is this: I voted for the right person on Tuesday. There is no
doubt in my mind that I voted for the only person in this election who really
has any integrity left. Bush will concede to Gore if the votes come out
against us. He will not jeopardize our system by challenging the voice of the
people. While I am still very confident that we will prevail, it only
reinforces my choice when I watch Bush. I really can't take four more years
of Clinton/Gore.