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punch-card ballots
     in Palm Beach County,” the new TeleQuest script reads. “These voters have said that they believe that they accidentally punched
     the wrong hole for the incorrect candidate.” To voters who had yet to vote, instructions were given: “punch number 5 for Gore-Lieberman,”
     and “do not punch any other number, as you might end up voting for someone else by mistake.
    “If you have already voted and think you may have punched the wrong hole for the incorrect candidate, you should return to
     the polls and request that the election officials write down your name so that this problem can be fixed.”
    Around that time in Palm Beach, the butterfly-ballot cacophony gets cranked up when outspoken Gore-backing talk-radio host
     Randi Rhodes tells listeners to WJNO-radio—1290 on your A.M . dial—that she had the same problem.
    “I got scared I voted for Pat Buchanan,” she says on the air. “I almost said, I think I voted for a Nazi.’ When you vote
     for something as important as leader of the free world, I think there should be spaces between the names. We have a lot of
     people with my problem, who are going to vote today and didn’t bring their little magnifiers from the Walgreens. They’re not
     going to be able to decide that there’s Al Gore on this side and Pat Buchanan on the other side….I had to check three times
     to make sure I didn’t vote for a Fascist.”
    In retirement condos from Jupiter to Boca Raton, Rhodes’s fans start wondering if they voted correctly.
    Many of these seniors are deeply upset. Harold Blue, eighty-seven, enlisted in the cavalry right after Pearl Harbor, landing
     in Normandy at D day plus two, remaining in Europe long enough to carry out the cease-fire orders at the end of war, establishing
     contact with the Russians. Blue and his wife are legally blind, so at the polling station in a Greenacres public school, he
     requests help.
    “Number one is Republican, number two is Democrat,” the poll worker advises him. Later, Blue will realize that he punched
     the wrong hole. He fought for democratic principles in France, he thinks. But this sure as hell wasn’t a democratic election.
    At the elections office, Democratic officeholders like state representative Lois Frankel, state senator Ron Klein, and U.S.
     representative Robert Wexler come in and start complaining about the “widespread problem” of the butterfly ballot.
    LePore has a real sick feeling in her stomach.“Oh, shit,” she finally thinks.
    Calls are coming in from people complaining because they had a problem voting. Poll workers and voters are calling and complaining
     that the phones have been busy, because of all the other calls. Harangued by the Democratic officials, LePore finally agrees
     to write an advisory about the ballot, though she tells the Democrats that she doesn’t have the support staff to get it to
     every precinct, that they’ll have to distribute it. They print out 531 copies:
    ATTENTION ALL POLL WORKERS. PLEASE REMIND ALL VOTERS COMING IN THAT THEY ARE TO VOTE ONLY FOR ONE (1) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE
     AND THAT THEY ARE TO PUNCH THE HOLE NEXT TO THE ARROW NEXT TO THE NUMBER NEXT TO THE CANDIDATE THAT THEY WISH TO VOTE FOR.
    At around 4 P.M ., Judge Charles Burton—chairman of the Palm Beach County canvassing board—sits in the conference room with LePore and the
     third member of the board, Democratic county commissioner Carol Roberts.
    An elections office employee brings Burton over a ballot.
    “Vote for Gore,” she instructs him. Burton had voted the week before, via absentee ballot.
    Burton looks at the ballot, sees the clear arrow from the Gore-Lieberman ticket to the third hole, punches the hole,
bang.
    “What’s the problem?” he asks.
    “Well, people are getting confused,” she says.
    “I don’t really see it,” says Burton, a low-key guy. “But, well, OK.”
    Roberts, a strong partisan Democrat, says, “You know they’re starting to say this