http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/columnists/orl-oped-reese23012301.column

Florida got bum rap for election

Charley Reese

January 23, 2001

Because no one seems willing to defend Florida's election process, I will. There was absolutely nothing wrong or unusual about the past election in Florida except for the closeness of the vote.

If that close vote had gone Al Gore's way, you wouldn't be hearing one single complaint.

Not one complaint made has any substance. No one tried to keep blacks from voting. Whatever problems individual voters had were the ordinary problem voters of any race can run into, especially since that stupid motor-voter registration law was passed.

It is the law that one must reside in the precinct in which one votes. If you move, you must notify the local supervisor of elections. Florida, because of the large number of low-wage jobs, has an unusually mobile population. That accounted for some of the problems.

It was charged that a police roadblock tried to keep blacks from the polls.

Utter lie. A driver-license check stopped motorists long enough to check their licenses, after which they proceeded on. This occurred en route to one precinct, but not one person was prevented from voting by it. And the location of the checkpoint in reference to the precinct was entirely chance.

It was charged that in precincts where there were a lot of poor people, they had old voting machines.

Not true. Voting machines are purchased by each county. Some of the richest counties in Florida (Miami-Dade and Palm Beach, for example) use the punch-card system while some of the poorer rural counties have newer optical-scan machines. At any rate, in every county, every precinct has the same kinds of machines.

As for improperly marked ballots, that is the fault of the voter. The law is clear. To mark the ballot properly is the responsibility of the voter. If the voter is too illiterate or stupid to follow simple directions, that is not a conspiracy. It's a personal failure.

Even the number of ballots that were not counted because they were not filled out properly was well within the usual percentage. This happens all over the country. Some voting machines reject the ballot if it is not properly filled out, thus giving the voter a second chance to do it right. But these machines are not widely used as yet.

The problem is that the Gore campaign had to make wild charges to justify a second and third recount after the first count and the first recount failed to give Gore a winning margin. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People chimed in because a. it's part of the Democratic Party, and b. it is desperate for some reason to justify its continued existence.

The real problem is that demagogues make unsubstantiated allegations, which are broadcast by the press and, once broadcast, come to be believed by the press as if they were proven facts. This is the fault of weak-minded people in journalism. To hear many talking heads tell it, it is now a "fact" that Florida's election was unfair. It is not a fact. The fact is the exact opposite.

My friend Tom Fleming once observed that the combination of corrupt politicians and a stupid press does not bode well for the future of the republic.

Amen. The combination of people who get it wrong on purpose and people who get it wrong because of laziness and stupidity makes it hard for people to know the truth.

And if people cannot learn the truth about public affairs, then they darn sure can't vote intelligently, and thus the dream of self-government will go down the tubes.