The allegedly confusing ballot

[Paul Finkelman]

I have voted in Florida, NY, Va, Cal., Ill., and most recently OK.  I am by most
standards, overeducated.  Only in Florida did I find the ballot confusing; most
states I l have lived in have machines, and with a machine vote it is usually
impossible to vote for two people at one; the machine locks you into the vote
you have cast; the Florida punch card system allows you to vote for two
candidates, thus inviting either confusion, or fraud.  Given the many
irregularities in this county election, is there any reason to believe that we
must rule out the possibility of outright fraud, in which county or state
officials (working after all, for the brother of the Presidential candidate!)
punched extra holes in ballots to spoil them?

Finally, this is directed to Michael McConnell from yesterday;  does the huge
number of ballots with two votes (in the same column) one for Gore and one for
Buchanan provide him with enough proof that people were indeed confused, and
that the ballot may have been intentionally set up to confuse people?

If Bush wins because he had the most electoral votes, that is the system, and
"hail to the chief," but if he wins on the basis of a stolen and fraudulent
election, of the kind the South used to run in the 1870s, with ballots
purposefully designed to confuse voters (especially minority voters -- and I
include the elderly as minorities, and in this case we might include Jews as
well as Blacks and Hispanics)  then what sort of presidency does that create? We
send troops to monitor elections in Bosnia and Haiti; do we need them in South
Florida?


--
Paul Finkelman
Chapman Distinguished Professor
University of Tulsa College of Law
3120 East Fourth Place
Tulsa, OK  74104

918-631-3706
Fax 918-631-2194

E-mail:  paul-finkelman at utulsa.edu



"Chambers Jr, Henry L." wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> 1) The ballot may not look confusing in part because we know what we are
> looking for.  However, context may be important.  If all a voter wanted to
> do was identify where Gore was on the ballot (second) and vote for him, the
> voter might go to the second hole on the right, punch it out and vote for
> Buchanan.
>
> 2)I have heard (insert disclaimer) that Florida law requires that there be a
> place to the right of the candidate's name that is clearly available for a
> voter to choose the candidate.  If that law is in place to prevent confusion
> as to who one is voting for, it seems that the ballot itself may violate
> Florida law.
>
> 3) If the ballot violates state law, it would make sense to invalidate it
> and revote, assuming Florida law does not expressly prohibit this.  Since
> the affected precinct(s) in question presumably have their voting rolls, we
> can limit the voters in the revote to those who voted on November 7.  The
> solution is far from perfect, but if it done only because the ballot at
> issue violates state law (rather than because we do not like the outcome),
> it hardly seems any less fair than counting the questionable votes as if
> they were really Buchanan votes.
>
> -Hank Chambers
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Frank Cross [mailto:crossf at MAIL.UTEXAS.EDU]
> Sent: Wednesday, November 08, 2000 5:11 AM
> To: CONLAWPROF at listserv.ucla.edu
> Subject: Re: The allegedly confusing ballot
>
> The ballot didn't seem all that confusing to me, but we can be pretty sure
> that a lot of people were in fact confused.  Buchanan got nearly 20%!
> There's a story that some official contributed to the confusion.  The
> problem is the remedy.
> Even if we can be sure that there was confusion, how can we know the
> precise number?  And perhaps shouldn't they bear the consequences of their
> confusion?
>
> The only scenario I can imagine would be having a judge call a new vote of
> that district.  Can you imagine the TV advertising?  I don't see it
> happening but I suppose that it's possible.
>
> Frank Cross
> Herbert D. Kelleher Centennial Professor of Business Law
> CBA 5.202
> University of Texas at Austin
> Austin, TX 78712