Palm Beach County - Part 5

The next problem Democrats cited in Palm Beach were the votes for Pat Buchanan (whom some have labeled anti-Semitic).  Supposedly, the 3,411 votes he received were actually Gore votes!  No one wanted to vote for him on purpose (ignore the fact he received over 8000 votes in the 1996 primary.)  Again, it is explained that voters were visually directed to the Buchanan hole.  However, over 268,000 voters overcame the confusion and managed to register a vote for Gore.  The others were simply not sharp enough, apparently.

Ex post facto, Democrats decided that when people voted for Buchanan, they really voted for Gore.  They hired statisticians to "prove" the ballot made people vote for Buchanan.  Voila!  The Buchanan votes were all mistakes.

Now, if this silly phenomenon were true it calls for some practical follow-up questions:

·         Do the votes for Buchanan indicate a mass phenomenon?  If so, why did he receive only 3,411 votes, less than one percent?  In contrast, why did Gore receive over 268,000?  If the ballot was directing people, shouldn't the results be the other way around?

·         Were all of the Buchanan votes intended to be for Gore?  Presumably some of the Buchanan votes were actually for him!  This reduces the frequency of the so-called problem.

It is abundantly clear that the hysteria in Palm Beach County was contrived.  It was imposed upon the county.  The ballot problem was overstated.  But why?  By whom?