On The Latest Florida Election Scandal

Big Tent Dem questions Paul Krugman’s analysis of the election in FL-13, which (for whatever reason) clearly thwarted the will of the voters. I should say, first of all, that he’s absolutely correct about 2000–the poor ballot design by Democratic officials was crucial to Gore losing the election in which a majority of voters intended to vote for him; indeed, it was much more important than Bush v. Gore, which legitimized the inevitable rather than creating it. The problem, however, is that the flaws in the 2000 ballot constitute most of his argument for why Krugman is wrong–but this is a non-sequitur. The fact that there was a horribly designed paper ballot in one district in 2000 is neither here nor there in terms of whether there was a badly designed electronic ballot in another district in 2006. And, at least in this post, BTD fails to explain the reasoning behind his assertion that the ballot design in the FL-13 was the crucial factor. As far as I can tell, the potential flaw is that the House race is at the top of the second page, while the Senate race is on the first page. But I don’t see how that can be an explanation in light of this:

The group of nearly 18,000 voters that registered no choice in Sarasota’s disputed congressional election solidly backed Democratic candidates in all five of Florida’s statewide races, an Orlando Sentinel analysis of ballot data shows.

Among these voters, even the weakest Democrat — agriculture-commissioner candidate Eric Copeland — outpaced a much-better-known Republican incumbent by 551 votes.

Maybe this is my fault, but I can’t see how voters couldn’t find the House race on the second page, but could find all the other statewide races on subsequent pages. The ballot design might explain why people voted for Senate and not House, but not this. As far as I can tell, Krugman’s inference remains the most probable one. Machine malfunction doesn’t prove fraud, but that’s not the most important issue. What matters is that an exceedingly crappy election system has thwarted the will of the voters again, and it seems that we’re headed for yet another post-election process controlled by Republican hacks (which, admittedly, is all too appropriate in this particular election.)

The most important thing, of course, is that the American electoral system is broken. If we keep up the local control fetish and the lack of an effective recount process (which is exacerbated by electronic voting), it’s not a question of if we’ll get another 2000, but when.