Do forgive me for further commenting on a primarily non-quizbowl topic (as I usually avoid posting altogether except to change the topic BACK to quizbowl things), but it's rare that something actually happens in the place where I live, out on the glans of Florida. Something of national political importance that is -- usually South Florida's new exports are more along the lines of the Kathy Willets nymphomania defense or the crash of "Mystery Pilot" Thomas Root. Frankly, I think this election stuff has been a lot of fun! This was (as a matter of opinion) about as uninteresting as a close presidential race could get, up until Tuesday. The aftermath has also been a great study in logical fallacies. The 19,000 double-punched ballots were pretty well addressed by Nathan a few messages back (notably, there's no absolute indication that most of those double-votes are the result of the specific ballot design). The claim that Buchanan got only an "insignificant" total of 0.79% in the county is a neat misuse of statistics. The argument that Buchanan received 3,000 votes in a '96 primary in Palm Beach is a red herring. The argument that the ballot was developed by a Democrat is ad hominem, as are most of the other little spins and twists. And all this in my back yard! Yippee! For those wondering about the actual strength of the Buchanan following in Palm Beach, it's probably a stronger presence than in Broward or Dade, but nowhere near as strong as in the areas around Tampa or in the Panhandle. The best indicator of a disproportionately high Buchanan vote in Palm Beach is not the comparison with Broward or Dade, but with counties like Hillsborough or Pinellas. Those are huge counties which are the closest thing Buchanan has to a large stronghold in Florida, and yet Buchanan received several times more votes in Palm Beach than in either of those counties. Those proportions of conservative votes are not representative of past trends, nor is there any evidence (either solid or anecdotal) to suggest that recent demographic shifts would have fostered a new Buchanan movement in Palm Beach county (probably the opposite, if anything). I don't think there's really much question that the Buchanan vote in Palm Beach is a significant aberration which is rooted in the ballot structure, not in an enclave of Buchanan supporters somewhere in the county. ... to be continued in a moment ... --Raj Dhuwalia, having newly discovered that there's a limit on the allowed length of these messages
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