The Florida Lesson: We need better voters, not better machines

Self-discipline and common sense are remarkable cure-alls but in politics their prescription is rare as, say, candor.

Florida 2002's Reno-McBride election mess was to be expected, because the solutions imposed after the 2000 fiasco were designed to reduce a voter's required qualifications to something below sentience. The solution Florida had thrust upon it by a guilt-spewing coalition of make-believe victims was a system so idiot-proof that any idiot could vote. It turned out, however, that not just any idiot could even find the on-switch. Complexity to create simplicity turned out to be as Orwellian in practice as on paper.

But to pick at the nits of the 2002 system is to ignore the fundamental problem that was too politically incorrect to say in 2000: People ought to be required to follow simple rules to operate a voting machine and, when they don't, their ballots ought to be disqualified. Aside from the occasional malfunctioning machine or cross poll worker, this was the root of the inexcusable delay in deciding the 2000 presidential election.

Americans have just about the right attitude on voting. For instance, low turnouts in democracies are usually a sign of civic health, since large turnouts occur most often when people sense that something is wrong and want to bring about change.

Other voters dwell on the ugly truth that one vote rarely makes a difference. They see that their assumption is right every time the sum of the individual choices that make up their personalities and lives are swept into the pollsters' rubric of "soccer mom" or "blue-collar suburbanite" or "working poor." A single vote in even a local election is almost literally nothing. Do the math: In a 20,000-vote race for town council, a population one-fifth that of tiny Green Bay, Wisconsin, check the winning and losing percentages on the 11 o'clock news. That 0.00005 is you -- five hundred-thousandths of the electorate.

As long as we're pile-driving individual insignificance, consider your vote in the 2000 presidential election, where 105,405,100 votes were counted. Here's your place in the percentage: 0.0000000096. Your vote is 96 ten-billionths of the whole thing.

However, Florida 2000 created a new reason not to vote among even those who do so religiously: It doesn't matter if you follow the rules, because those who don't will be indulged for any reason, causing days and weeks of delay toward an outcome. Careless or even malicious voters can tie the system in knots by not following the rules -- and the drivers of "reform" are shifting the system not only to accommodate but also to encourage such people.

In 2000, results were delayed not because of Republican or Democratic chicanery, but because a bunch of lazy people couldn't be bothered to raise their ballots to the light to make certain they completely punched out a hole in a sheet of paper.

The answer to the Florida problem was never spoken out loud, for fear of offending the hyper-sensitive who hold so much sway today: if a ballot isn't filled out by the rules, and if it takes a committee to figure out its intentions, that vote shouldn't count, and the voter who cast it most certainly shouldn't be allowed to waste the time of voters who did things right.

Right on!

I agree that we need voters that aren't confused by instructions pinted in simple English, but we also need better organization around the polling places. Surely, it should not be that difficult to store the ballots as they come in, certify the results, and deliver them to the state. If they could do just that much, we wouldn't hear these ridiculous stories of "uncounted" ballots being found in strange locations.

I disagree. I have seen too many elections hang on too few votes. I worked in a campaign a few years ago where the post was won by 21 votes. (A local Congresswoman). Especially in local races, just a few votes can make a great difference. And you can't know if your election is going to be the one that is that close - think of all the Gore supporters that wished they had voted in FL in 2000.

(Although in real life, the election was never that close - the Miami-Dade Palm Beach Broward vote machine manufactured all those "catch up" votes.)

The democrat lie of "every vote must count" was exposed by the atrocious way they treated the votes of our military personnel. Joe Lieberman as coached (as reported in The Washington Post) to spin his way out of this nefarious shenanigan, but even he could not bring himself to do it.

The democrats hired an army of lawyers (many of them worked for free---being loyal socialist slaves) to pick apart every military vote in Florida and to pick it apart on the slightest technicality. When they succeeded, they "Pumped their fists and high-fived one another"--as reported by Robert Novak during November 2000. This, after military personnel went to great pains to sign SF 176s, request absentee ballots, obtain addresses for local election boards, fill out more forms and ballots, and mail said ballots in difficult conditions overseas, and at times, at sea (including the USS COLE.

But, the democrat morons who could not punch a piece of paper were treated like aggrieved saints by the media.

It remains a disgusting mess--and as Ann Coulter said in the opening of her book:

"It's all the liberals fault.

A single vote in even a local election is almost literally nothing.

I also disagree with this statement. In the lastest mayor's race in a nearby town, only about 3% of those registered actually voted - approx. 200 of 60,000 people. Thus, less than 200 people chose the mayor for the entire town, but everyone has to live with him. In this case his share of the votes was plenty large, but in other cases a few votes either way could make a significant difference in the outcome.

Electronic voting machines are ripe for fraud. Some are equipped with Modems, which means they be read while the voting is ongoing, and also means that the software could permit altering of the votes from the outside.

The big problem with the errors in Florida was that there was no hard copy back up to resolve any problems in the dumb districts! Other districts had problems, but they had a hard copy back up and resolved all their problems and no one disputed the vote totals.

When a system is put in place to permit corruption, then it usually happens!

For those really interested, search for Electronic Voting and read the litany of problems and court cases on the subject.

I've been an advocate of voter competency testing for years. Since that has been denounced as undemocratic (as if that's a bad thing) or even racist, I have devised an alternative to get a better, smarter class of voters: Non-voting incentives!

The Elderly
The retired Yankee condo-commies in South Florida are largely responsible for the screw-ups, whether they try to vote for their favorite demoRAT or even "work" at the polls. As a reward for staying away from the polls completely, members of this group should be given free bus tickets to Atlantic City and $20 in quarters to play the slots. Then we can get candidates elected who could dismantle the Ponzi Scheme known as Social Security. And we could forget about providing free uppers and downers to these geezers.

Soccer Moms
This group favors security at any cost. "If it protects even one child" is their mindless mantra. Really what the want is not security but comfort. So install electric seat warmers into their SUVs and minivans, but only if they promise not to vote! Imagine schools safe for kickball and "Cowboys and Indians" games. Boys able to act like boys. It could happen.

We could extend this to other groups, such as illegal aliens, but one demoRAT voting block would be difficult to deter: the dead!

I live and have voted in Florida for 30 years. Never had a problem voting. The real problem here is two fold. One is uneducated voters. If you can't read it might be difficult to vote. Two is the very very old that seem to be everywhere here. It is really scary to see many of these 80 + year olds driving and always large vehicles like Mercury Marquis. The can't see and drive like crap. They often are foggy on details like how to vote. Got to admit it was hilarious to see all those retirees in W.P.B. who live in centuary village(a retirement Jewish enclave)voting for Pat Buchanan thinking they were voting for algore. No one held a gun in their faces, they just aren't quite clear on most things. Doesn't matter, just give them another 8 years on their driving privledges.

I have donned my flameproof suit, now EVERYONE HEAR THIS, the founding fathers knew what they were doing when they only allowed educated male property owners to vote. Women were disqualified because unfortunately more than half of them make their decisions on a purely emotional basis and there is no way to sort out which ones are which. People who were paupers were not allowed to vote because their vote is too easily bought and those who could not read, write and understand the constitution were barred for what should be an obvious reason. So long as the polls are open to anyone and everyone we will continue to have this farce that we have now. A large part of the population is adult only insofar as having reached the legal voting age but otherwise are no more mature than the average six year old. So long as these people are allowed to vote there is little hope for this nation.

Flame you? No, my FRiend, I'll embrace you instead. It just seems to me that when one's message, and the means used to disseminate it, are geared to the ignorant, ill-informed, gullible, and even the illiterate, slow-witted, and criminal, one ought not be surprised when the people who show up to vote for your agenda are too stupid to pull it off.

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