"She essentially voted twice" in the Florida election, which gave George W. Bush a 537-vote victory and the White House, asserts a Florida doc re the wife of an elderly patient, reports the Washington Post:
Florida neurologist Marc Swerdloff was taken aback when one of his patients with advanced dementia voted in the 2000 presidential election. The man thought it was 1942 and Franklin D. Roosevelt was president. The patient's wife revealed that she had escorted her husband into the booth.
"I said 'Did he pick?' and she said 'No, I picked for him,' " Swerdloff said. "I felt bad."
[via Jane Galt of Asymmetrical Information]
Beyond the fact that it's none of his business, why do you suppose that lefty neurologist felt bad? Could it be he was hoping for a Gore win? Before he gets too upset, he should remember that dementia knows no political bounds. Just as many Democrats may have voted on behalf of their demented spouses as Republicans. PLUS:
The political smarts of the coveted swing voter is probably the equivalent of that fellow who thought it was 1942 and Franklin D. Roosevelt was president -- Hanging chads, anyone?
A large number of lefty New Yorkers who winter in Florida voted twice in 2000
Democrat lawyers made a last-ditch move in 2000 to deny a large number of absentee votes to Floridians serving overseas in the military.
The hurrricane cycle will probably have the last word, but meantime, it's beyond silly to call this one Bush's Fault.™
Having served as a poll checker in the recent NJ Primary I can tell you that the number of votes cast in error, cast illegally, lost due to equipment failure, and so forth, is a lot higher than most of us would like to think possible.
The system works because a) the errors tend to cancel out in a two-party system and b) the margin of error is usually a lot smaller than the margin of victory. The main difference with Florida 2000 was that (b) did not apply.
This is another argument for a pure popular vote in national elections, since the bigger the pool the more likely that random errors will be cancelled out.
None of the above applies to large scale fraud, which, as a NJ resident I am also all too familiar with. In a nearby town, an election was decided by 11 votes amidst allegations of fraud at a polling place in a senior citizens facility. This was so typical it didn't even make the regional newspapers.
Posted by: The Prop | September 16, 2004 at 07:47 PM