Theresa LePore
Posted on 08/22/2004 6:19:53 PM PDT by demlosers
Critics Say Palm Beach County Absentee Ballot Even More Confusing Than One Used in 2000 Election
The Associated Press
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. Aug. 22, 2004 — Palm Beach County has introduced an absentee ballot that requires voters to indicate their choices by connecting broken arrows, sparking criticism that it is even more confusing than the infamous "butterfly ballot" used in the 2000 election.
Theresa LePore, the elections supervisor who approved the 2000 butterfly ballot, opted for a ballot design for the Aug. 31 primary that asks voters to draw lines joining two ends of an arrow.
Critics say the new ballot is not an improvement.
"People do the craziest things when they're asked to connect the arrows," said Stephen Ansolabehere, former director of the Voting Technology Project, a collaboration between the California and Massachusetts Institutes of Technology.
LePore said she selected the ballot after tests showed it was easier for voters. Indian River County elections supervisor Kay Klem said she went with arrows for the same reason.
LePore said she would be criticized no matter what she picked. "If I had used circles, they'd complain about the circles," she said.
Her butterfly ballot split the names of 10 presidential candidates across two pages, with spots in the middle to be punched by voters. The names of George W. Bush and Al Gore were on the upper left side of the ballot, and Pat Buchanan's name on the upper right.
Some voters complained that they punched the card for Buchanan by mistake when they meant to vote for Gore in a race decided by only 537 votes statewide. A total of 5,304 Palm Beach County ballots had marks for both Gore and Buchanan.
Election supervisors say the demand for absentee ballots is shattering records because of get-out-the-vote drives and distrust of touch-screen voting machines. Palm Beach County received 30,752 absentee requests by Friday, nearly three times the number requested before the 2000 primary.
Never overestimate the intelligence of a democrat.
Only in government would this moron still have a job following the 2000 debacle.
This woman shouldn't be trusted with the 10PM-2AM shift at the bowling alley snack bar, much less the supervision of an election.
Oh for crying out loud!! I moved from Oklahoma in January and just completed a Florida absentee ballot (for Leon County). I thought it would be easier and more time efficient than standing in line. The absentee ballot is very easy. geez
That's how the absentee ballots are in Maricopa County in AZ... they're easy as pie to figure out...
P.S. - not mentioned in the story, the DEMOCRATS are still in charge of elections in that county.
..and attempt to steal an election by lawsuit?
Democrats do learn.
I honestly thought this was a satire post.
Welcome to Leon County, the armpit of the panhandle!
(I can say it, I'm a native Leon Countian.)
Mind-boggling.
Only she's an independent now.
More layong of groundwork to file suit against the outcome of the 2004 vote.
If you can't follow the arrow from ALGORE to the proper hole to punch......
B/S I thought it was easy/
Now, what exactly would make the ballot NOT confusing? Perhaps... broken purple hearts, where you connect the ribbon to the medal?
I saw this ballot demonstrated on TV in a news story about ballots. A professor was saying that this is the easiest, most conceptual ballot available. Basically, you have an arrow pointing to a candidate's name, with the middle of the arrow blanked out. To vote for a candidate, you fill in the middle of the arrow to make one continuous line.
I bet that the problem the "critics" have is that if the ballot is too easy, it will undermine their claims of ballot tampering and confusion. If the Florida electorate can't understand this ballot, then how can they understand road signs with curvey arrows, split arrows, merging arrows, u-turn arrows, etc?
-PJ
Cover for a complicit press? Or is there a part of the story we don't know?
Put them all in a concentration camp. Hand them an arrow ballot. "Do you want to leave the concentration camp?" The answers are "yes" "no" and "Pat Buchanan".
Anyone who successfully answers "yes" can leave and go about their regularly scheduled lives. The rest should be turned into Soylent Green.
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