I think the voter turnout, nationwide, was in the vicinity of 68 million. I don't know what the total registration is, nor the number of technically elegible persons who failed to register. Florida, with a population a bit over 15 million, had a turnout of 6 million (+/-).

I don't wish to speak for anyone in Palm Beach County, or elsewhere for that matter, but I think I would be a bit reluctant to go on national TV (inter-national may be more accurate for purposes of this story) and say that I was one of that minority of voters too stupid to read the ballot correctly. But, then, lots of otherwise seemingly normal people do some really stupid things when you point a camera at them. A moment in the limelight, however brief, can be amazingly stupefying.

While watching a brief segment of the Alabama/Auburn football game yesterday, I nearly died laughing when the network flashed a ballot on the screen enabling properly equipped viewers to vote for the "player of the game". The thing that struck me as so funny, is that the "ballot" presented was a "butterfly ballot", the same form at the center of the fuss in Palm Beach County. I wonder - is the average Alabama or Auburn football fan significantly more gifted than those Palm Beach Countians who could not comprehend the same ballot form?

Jeez, the universe seems filled with the most profound questions these days. Maybe society hangs in the balance. Ah, well, maybe a pint of Arthur's finest will facilitate cogitation.