MSD

I think that the ballot itself was flawed in such a way that it was easier to make a mistake when intending to vote Democrat than when intending to vote Republican. Had the Republican and Democrat spots on the ballot been switched, I think that the same mistakes would have been made in favor of Gore.

The issue is that the ballot is poorly designed, and should be replaced with a system that is easier to understand at a glance, clearly displays which candidate a vote is cast for, and allows the vote to be changed before it is registered wihtout invalidating the ballot.

Quote:

More Fuel For Fla. Election Fire WASHINGTON, June 5, 2001 (Photo: AP) Blacks were nearly 10 times as likely as whites to have their ballots rejected. (AP) A divided U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has concluded that minority voters were unjustly penalized by the way the 2000 presidential election was conducted in Florida. A draft version of a commission report was made available to a number of news outlets Monday evening — prior to being provided to all commission members. Three newspapers said the report, which is expected to be formally released at a commission meeting Friday, criticizes Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Secretary of State Katherine Harris for not making sure election procedures — including the types of voting machines and ballots used — did not discriminate against certain voters. But the commission inquiry found no "conclusive evidence" that officials "conspired" to disenfranchise minority and disabled voters, the report added. The Washington Post, one of the papers that obtained an advance copy of the draft report, quoted R. Doug Lewis, director of the Houston-based Election Center, as saying Bush and Harris had little control of the 67 county voting supervisors in Florida and that the commission showed "a lack of understanding about how the process works." The two Republican appointees to the eight-member commission told The New York Times they had not been consulted and suggested that providing parts of the report early could overshadow the full report when it is issued later. One of the two, Russell Redenbaugh, told the Times the report's conclusions of discrimination were not supported by the evidence and that its early release of the report was intended to further the political agenda of the chairwoman, Mary Frances Berry, who supported former Vice President Al Gore in the presidential election. "There are a number of people who are so displeased with the outcome of the election that they would do almost anything to cast a cloud over the legitimacy of the election and the legitimacy of this administration," said Redenbaugh. "Sometimes people who believe that their cause is a correct one lose sight of the procedural violations and believe that the means they pursue are justified by the goodness of the ends they desire." A spokesman told the Times that Berry declined to comment, saying she could not discuss the report before its formal release, since all the commissioners had not received a copy. The advisory commission has no enforcement authority and the Los Angeles Times, one of the papers that got an advance report, noted in its account that the Florida Legislature has already passed laws addressing a number of the commission's complaints. Unequal access to modern voting equipment and "overzealous efforts" to purge state voter lists most harshly affected blacks in the state that decided the November election for President Bush, the commission said. Fifty-four percent of votes rejected during the Florida election were cast by black voters, according to the report. Blacks accounted for 11 percent of voters statewide. Advisers tGov. Bush and Harris were angered by the report's early release. Harris' spokesman, David Host, told the Post the leak was "both fraudulent and shameful" because Harris' response is not due until later this week. The commission held three days of hearings, interviewed 100 witnesses and reviewed 118,000 documents. Some of the key findings: Blacks were nearly 10 times as likely as whites to have their ballots rejected. Poor counties populated by minorities were more likely to use voting systems that rejected larger percentages of ballots than more affluent counties. Some Hispanic and Haitian voters were not provided ballots in their native languages, and physical barriers sometimes kept disabled voters from entering polling sites.