Weblog
03/11/01 05:33 PM: While it’s true that had
While it’s true that had the election gone exactly as it did except for the “butterfly ballot,” Al Gore would be the president right now, you’re missing the big picture if you consider that to be the reason that Bush won. There are so many what ifs that it’s impossible to lay the blame on any single instance. For example, many states disenfranchise the prison population. In some of those states, a person’s voting rights are restored after they are released, while they are permanently disenfranchised in others. I don’t recall whether Florida restores voting rights after release or not, but they do not allow those currently in prison to vote. Obviously, voting rights for prisoners is a controversial subject. Personally, I think that as long as they are U.S. citizens, they should be able to vote. But that’s irrelevant to my point. The fact is that Florida prisoners would have been more likely to vote for Gore if they could have. Therefore, if they had been allowed to vote, Gore still would have won, regardless of the “butterfly ballot” fiasco. There are just so many variables and “irregularities.” The news coverage made Florida elections officials look like a bunch of bumbling morons. But do you really think that incompetence is limited to a few counties in Florida? The same sort of thing goes on all over the place, but the other places didn’t get national media attention because the race wasn’t so close or the state didn’t have enough electoral votes to make a difference anyway. They “didn’t matter.” This fashion-over-function ballot is a symptom, not the disease.
