A New Ballot Controversy - Debunked

from Glenn Beck.

This is an absentee ballot from Cuyahoga, Ohio. The instructions read "To vote for President and Vice-President, punch the hole beside the number for the set of candidates of your choice. Your vote will be counted for each of the candidates for presidential elector whose names have been certified to the Secretary of State".

If you wanted to vote for Bush, you would punch the box which the arrow in the Bush/Cheney cell points to, right (the box which is green)?
Look closer. A lot closer. In fact, look at the ballot as though it is meant to decieve you, and you may see the error. The number in the Bush/Cheney cell is 4, but the box which the arrow points to is box 14. In order to vote for Bush on this ballot, you actually have to punch the red box, which is numbered four, and located above the Kerry/Edwards box.
The source for this ballot asked many people in his building how they would vote for Bush on this ballot, and not one person actually voted for Bush correctly. Don't get excited about a controversy until you read the next paragraph.

There is one problem, however, with the claim of an anti-Bush conspiracy: the sheet listing the candidates is not attached to the sheet that is supposed to be punched. In other words, there is actually no problem with alignment between the arrows and punch-holes, because the two are not lined up.


However, there is certainly reason for confusion, because the absentee ballot has no reason for arrows (the arrows are for the normal ballot, and those line up correctly with the to-be-punched holes). Additionally, I cannot fathom why the particular numbering order is used on this ballot. I would think that Bush/Cheney or Kerry/Edwards would be first, followed by the third-party candidates. This would make the ballot a lot simpler, though the changes are cosmetic, and have almost no chance of affecting votes. And, of course, the "candidate disqualified" slot on the ballot is entirely useless.
Thanks to Power Line for taking apart this controversy. The Glenn Beck website is updated only once per day, and I assume that it was not known that the ballot is ectually in two parts when it was origionally posted (the ballot was also reported on Glenn Beck's national radio program at around 9:10 AM EST). So, now you know the rest of the story.