General Discussion

The Pat Buchanan votes turned out to be critically important. The Palm Beach county butterfly ballot violated Florida ballot design laws at every turn. Florida ballot design law in 2000 required that all candidates be listed underneath each other in 1 row of candidate names with the punch hole located to the right of each candidate's name. The butterfly ballot had 2 rows of candidate's names along side each other with the punch holes for both rows located right next to each other with some to the right of the candidate's names and some to the left of the candidate's names. I can also see how it could cause confusion which it tragically did. Palm Beach county was heavily democratic in voting in 2000 and was one of the most heavily democratic voting counties in the country. The county parties were responsible for monitoring the county ballot designs in Florida. County ballot designs would vary by county because of local county races and local county ballot initiatives. I will say that the Palm Beach county democratic party failed miserably to monitor the design of the Palm Beach county ballot in 2000 as it had been required to do by the Florida democratic party and our country will never be the same because of that 1 egregious mistake. That was the 1 ruling that I thought that the Florida Supreme Court got wrong because the law was totally clear.