"Butterfly Ballot" Still Haunts Some Dems

Those of us who hung on every news flash during the 2000 Florida recount very well remember the term "butterfly ballot". Many Dems still blame that ballot for the election of George W. Bush, and hold the ballot's designer responsible for everything from the Bush Administration to 9/11 to the War in Iraq:

BOCA RATON - Former Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore still gets hate mail.

"The war was my fault; 9-11 was my fault," LePore told a Boca Roundtable luncheon audience on Friday. "Any time something bad happens, a new death toll in the war or whatever, my e-mails start getting filled up."

LePore, 53, has completed the first draft of a book describing her insights into the 2000 election. She won't identify her publisher but predicts her account will reignite passions. At least that's what her editor wants. Her draft came back with a note that she "wasn't mean enough."

Questions about the veracity of elections in Palm Beach County, and by extension, Florida and the United States, still dog LePore, who is one of the most famous election supervisors in American history.

"Everything there is to know about me has been in the media ad nauseam," she said. "There are probably things out there about me that even I don't know."

First elected as supervisor of elections in 1996, LePore decided to use large type for the 2000 presidential ballot in what she considers an innocent attempt to help older voters with poor eyesight. With 10 presidential candidates on the ballot, LePore's change, which was approved by county and state officials, meant the ballot required two pages for the punch-card voting system then in use.

Many voters said the "butterfly ballot" was so confusing they cast votes for the wrong candidate. During the recount, Democratic leaders thought LePore hurt their candidate, Al Gore, who lost Florida by 537 votes to George Bush.

Some Democrats exacted revenge in 2004.

"I lost the election in 2004 thanks to a certain group of people in the south end of the county," LePore said, referring to, among others, U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D- Boca Raton, who donated $90,000 from his campaign treasury toward anti-LePore television commercials. Arthur Anderson, who defeated LePore, stands for re-election this month, facing two challengers: state Rep. Susan Bucher and Wellington City Councilman Bob Margolis.

LePore says she isn't endorsing any candidate, but said, "I guess you can guess who I'm not endorsing."

She said political parties plotted ahead of the 2000 election to raise legal challenges to the ballot.

"I think it was something that was planned ahead of time," LePore said, describing how rapidly on Election Day lawyers jumped into the fray in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties.

When the lawyers got involved, she said, that's when "things went from bad to worse to much worse ... It began my hell, to be honest with you."

The book above is not LePore's book, but the best book on the Florida recount you'll find. I've probably read it 5 times, and I get mad everytime I do. Bill Sammon's firsthand account brings back all the chaos and emotions of those 40 days or so from election night through the Gore concession. You can still get it (pretty cheap) on Amazon, and it's a great read.

If John McCain wins in November, somebody will blame LePore.