11/21/00 4:35 p.m.
Eyewitness to a Travesty
This is no high-minded “civics lesson.”

By Observer X

've just returned as a vote-counter from the mess in Florida that the media insists on portraying as a high-minded "civics lesson" for the nation. A lesson is certainly being taught, but the curriculum is more along the lines of a master's class on how political wars are won and lost. Guess who's winning?

A life-long Republican, I am all too familiar with the spectacle of bare-fanged Democrats scenting blood going up against the rule-abiding, ever-hopeful, flat-learning-curve Republicans. It's like watching the Bloods and the Crips take on the kids in the playground, bent on stealing more than their lunch money. But I had never seen it up close before, able to touch it, had my nose rubbed in it.

At my vote-counting post, I witnessed many, many things that would disturb any sentient creature interested in the well-being of the Republic and the Republican Party, ranging from the mass in-flocking of clueless, strutting, and ultimately useless Republicans to the roll-out of successive "strategies" that would make French war-planners look masterly. But I will focus on the process of vote counting itself. For some reason, the phrase "Idle hands are the devil's workshop" seems appropriate.

I confess to having arrived a skeptic of the Republican spin that "manual counts are inherently unreliable." Huh? On TV, the process looks as close to being idiot-proof as one can get: four sets of adult eyes riveted on a simple piece of paper, jointly tasked with identifying a single, tell-tale hole. Any mammal could be trained to do it; one can readily imagine a pod of dolphins whipping through these things in record time, eager for their reward of fish. The process is brainless enough to be a perfect candidate for automation (there's an idea!). In the thousands of ballots I examined, there were virtually none for which any reasonable person would have any trouble identifying the choice.

So where is the problem? Hanging chads? I examined thousands of ballots; I never saw a single one in the presidential column. Ambiguity? Just how ambiguous can a hole in a piece of paper be? Even lawyers would have a tough time arguing that the ballots I saw were tough calls.

But the so-called "pregnant chads" are altogether a different thing. I did see quite a few of those, but, interestingly, only in the presidential column. Now, some ballots have up to twenty holes in them (there were other people and things to vote for in this election, after all), all cleanly and confidently punched. And a few of these riddled ballots have a pregnant chad in the presidential column, still clinging desperately by all fours to the ballot, refusing to give way. The Democrats are loudly spinning these aborted acts as clear evidence that weakened voters were unable to complete the arduous task of tapping that spring-loaded puncher one more time. In this scenario, those over-taxed voters were somehow able to draw upon their last reserves of strength, gently tap the lever (utilizing the approximate energy of a flea jumping up and down), and thereby barely imprint an impression of their "intention," much like a murder victim summoning his last breath to whisper the guilty party's name. One presumes that they then collapsed and were dragged from the voting booth.

That sounds good; I sort of leaned towards that explanation myself. After all, what else could an indented chad mean than the register of an intent? Well, that was before I saw the evidence. Having examined these ballots up close, real close, by the thousands, it's clear that the most reasonable explanation is that the voter changed his mind in the process of voting and chose not to vote for a particular presidential candidate. How else to interpret those numerous ballots where there is a clear punch for a presidential candidate along with a pregnant chad for his rival? Either the voter changed their mind or realized they were making a mistake and pulled back at the last moment. Is it so difficult to imagine not wanting to vote for any candidate?

Many of the ballots I saw had a clear punch in every column except for that of president: every chad in that last column was as flat as if it had been ironed. Clearly, the voter was so disillusioned by the choices available that they chose to vote for "none of the above" (note: the Democratic observers inevitably identified these blank columns as votes for Gore, demonstrating a keenness of eyesight unparalleled in my experience).

Why is this important? Well, the ultimate decision-makers of these and other disputed ballots are canvassing boards dominated by Democrats, every one of whom understands what's at stake and what's expected of them. The voter's intention? What could be more simple? The experts can deduce paternity just by looking at the swollen belly of a pregnant chad where the rest of us might be hampered by doubt or the possibility that the intact chad was more likely to represent voteris interruptis than consummation.

Now, even the Democrats understand that the public's gullibility is not infinite, even with the services of a complicit press. So they will resort to counting pregnant chads for Gore only if all other avenues of boosting his vote totals fail. Because of the smell factor, they're holding the pregnant chads gambit in reserve. Which is a good insight into the Democratic strategy, or rather strategies (they're always pursuing several simultaneously). If one fails, there's always another moving ahead on a different front. It's analogous to shark's teeth, stacked up in reserve: when one falls out, another pops right into place. Sharks never run out of teeth.

I come away from the experience surprised at what I've learned. I now have no doubt that, even with the best of intentions and the most conscientious of participants, a manual recount cannot but be inherently inaccurate, and will be far more inaccurate than any conceivable machine count. I have personally witnessed scores of incidents — miscounted votes, wrong tallies entered, boxes of ballots being carted off by unescorted individuals to God-knows-where — that convince me that the Democrats would have to be lazy and incompetent not to be able to steal this one. And when have they ever been accused of that?

So, I've been to school and have received a "lesson." It's being openly taught, free of charge, by the Democrats. Well, not quite without cost: I was actually forced to participate in a fixed election, watched it happen, and was unable to do anything about it. I'm not disillusioned; I don't fear for the Constitution. I just want to take a bath.