Dear Source:
I decided to take a three-week vacation to the area where I grew up … catch up with old chums, see the sites, take a break from the hectic pace on St. Thomas. Maybe watch some television, take long walks on endless beaches and, in general, relax after all the mayhem on St. Thomas – the teachers' strike, DMV strike, the election …
I made a huge mistake! I should have gone to Micronesia or Siberia or, well, anywhere but here: Palm Beach, Fla.
Forget watching TV sitcoms and the soaps. They are continually interrupted by late-breaking news on the recounts and the lawsuits filed by the parties at odds in the presidential election. Forget conversation with friends about the "old days." The talk is all of opinions on the latest election news. Drive to downtown West Palm Beach? Forget it with the traffic jams caused by news crews and their equipment from all over the world. Yep, all the major TV networks, all the Florida stations, and others from stations in Oregon, Wisconsin, New Mexico, even Japan, Holland and Germany.
Two days ago, I'm walking around Sailfish Marina, where I am staying, and here comes CNN, with trucks, satellite dishes and microphones … interviewing patrons trying to enjoy their lunch and the lovely waterfront view. Last night, I'm having dinner with a friend in West Palm Beach. In comes a TV crew, cameras and roadies. Trying to leave the watering hole, we are assaulted with bright lights and microphones. We go back in and have another drink.
So, what the heck is going on? I still can't figure it out. It seems the ballot approved for use in Palm Beach County was a "butterfly" style, meaning it opened on two sides with the voting spaces for both sides down the common center. Listed first on the left side was George W. Bush, with an arrow pointing right, to a punch hole. The second punch hole, underneath it, was for Pat Buchanan, whose name was listed on the right side of the ballot, with an arrow pointing left. Back on the left side, the space under Bush's was for Al Gore, with an arrow pointing right, to the third hole. The local story is that thousands of confused people punched the second hole, thinking they were voting for Gore, but really voted for Buchanan. Some 19,000 people punched both the second and third holes, which many Gore partisans speculate was in an effort to correct their incorrectly having punched the second hole.
Confused? I am. The 19,000 votes were thrown out as "spoiled." Someone filed a lawsuit contesting that their intended vote was not counted, and then numerous lawsuits followed. We've since had machine recounts and manual recounts and orders not to count them and orders to keep on counting them. And then there are the absentee ballots, including some that showed up from military installations without the requisite postmark and thus were thrown out, but have now been ordered back in.
Jesse Jackson was in town the other day leading a rally for a re-vote by all in Palm Beach County. There were large demonstrations, and things became a little stressed at one point, when the picketing Bush supporters forced Jackson and his entourage back to a local auditorium.
What happens next is up to the Florida Supreme Court.
I have lost track of the complete picture. I am off to meet some friends for drinks, sure they will try to straighten me out. Then I will try to report in a more cohesive manner, as I am certain to be accosted by a national or international news crew sooner or later. Stay tuned.
Kathie McCarthy
St. Thomas