03/11/01 09:38 AM: His “Accidency” It seems as

His “Accidency”

It seems as though Governor Bush won the 2000 Presidental Election all because of the silly little “Butterfly Ballot.” A study conducted by the Palm Beach Post shows that Former Vice President Al Gore lost 6,600 votes in that county due to the confusing ballot. This was found by looking at the “overvotes” or ballots which had more than one mark for President. As an Associated Press article says:

The newspaper’s review of the overvotes found 5,330 Palm Beach County residents invalidated their ballots by punching chads for Gore and Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan. The hole voters punched for Buchanan was located just above Gore’s on the two-page ballot.

The ballots showed another 2,908 voters punched Gore and Socialist David McReynolds, whose hole appeared just below Gore’s. Buchanan’s and McReynolds’ names appeared on the right page of the ballot, while Gore’s was on the left.

The confusion hurt Bush, too: 1,631 people punched Bush and Buchanan, whose hole was below his on the ballot. But Gore was the bigger loser: the two Gore combinations, minus the Bush-Buchanan votes, totaled 6,607 lost votes for Gore, the Post found.

It has finally been confirmed what we have been saying for a while, more people came out of voting booths in Flordia believing they had voted for Al Gore, and not George W. Bush. This, in conjunction with the fact that more people total in America wanted Gore and not Bush completly erases this “mandate” that Bush believes he has. How can he wake up in the morning and feel good about being an illegtimate President? Oh yeah… I forgot… he wakes up in the afternoon.

Dave Stroup