The Story That Will Not Go Away

This is the story that will not go away.

Now that I’m living in Philadelphia, now that I’ve made myself a fixture of my community, people still are curious about the odyssey that took me to Florida for eight years. Specifically, I get asked time and again about the infamous 2000 presidential election and the part I played in it. I suppose it’s one thing to have read the news and quite another to have lived through the news—to have made the news.

Well, all right then. For everybody who’s wanted to know my version for whatever reason, here it goes. If you don't particularly care for my politics, you might at least appreciate the importance of your vote--and that transcends parties and philosophies.

In 2000 I was living in Saint Cloud, Florida—a little place I affectionately called Cowgirl Helltown (no joke—my neighbors were cows). Saint Cloud is in Osceola County, just south of Orlando, and wasn’t one of the counties of contention in the election. Heck, I think Al Gore swept the county by more than 75%, I’m not sure.

Also at the time I was married to someone about as politically passionate as I was. We’d done a great deal of research on the Green Party, and when we moved from Orlando to Saint Cloud we’d also changed our voter registration from Independent to Green. Now I should point out that we did not own a television. We were hooked up to the Internet to our eyeballs, but otherwise we got our news from the radio and from print media. I should also point out that the Clinton years had been very kind to us.

Now somewhere in the summer of 2000 the idea of “Greens for Gore” took shape and started to gain momentum, especially in the greater Orlando area. Unfortunately the idea was not so much support for Al Gore as it was a desperate attempt to keep #43 out of the White House—he who talked about these great 52 United States and the use of subliminable messages. I mean it was unrestrained panic that the Fortunate Son might carry the election.

Let me mention that I have met Al Gore. It was in June of 1993, when he was Vice President, and I was working at Independence National Historical Park. He did a photo op with the park rangers, and since we all were working for Club Fed, we were presumed safe. I remember two things. He was nowhere nearly as wooden as one might think. I also actually got him to laugh at some joke I don’t remember.

Fast forward to Election Day 2000. We were nervous wrecks. We knew damn well what was on the line. We also knew that Gore wasn’t going into the election with an overwhelming majority. A second Bush presidency was a very real threat, no matter how many months we’d spent trying to wake people up. My husband and I got to our polling place early, gritting our teeth as we stood in line under a cloud of doom. Most of Osceola County had the same idea and the place was packed.

This is where the great joke that was the Florida election system comes into play.

When we’d lived in Tallahassee, the voting booth was automated. Winter Park had actually used computers. Not so Osceola. We were handed actual paper ballots along with a push pin, of all things. All we had to do is make a hole next to the name of the candidate we were selecting. This was my first fit of the day, but this slipshod method wasn’t the fault of the people working the polls, so I tried to let it slide.

Traditionally in an election with write-in spaces, the election committee provides some kind of writing implement (in this case the voting booth was very much like an elementary school desk with afterthought blinders to protect our privacy). I had been planning on quite a few write-ins, so you can imagine how livid I was that nothing had been provided. All right, now I made a big fuss, not just for me but for everybody else. Were we having our freedom to write in candidates taken from us?

The so-called election officials—cronies of somebody or other—didn’t give a damn, but the body of voters in the room and outside heard me and applauded my outburst. Well, applause is nice, but all I really wanted was a damn pencil!

Much later on, after a nerve-wracking day, we heard that #43 was the projected winner. We headed out to hang with the cows and try to come to grips with this disaster in our minds. But when we got home, suddenly the election was in contention, and it was our state that had done it. Having lived through the half-assed attempt at polling that we had that morning, it was no surprise.

We all know what happened then, so I won’t belabor the painful. But here are some quips from the time I found both amusing and disturbing.

"THOSE WHO CAST THE VOTES DECIDE NOTHING. THOSE WHO COUNT
THE VOTES DECIDE EVERYTHING." -- JOSEPH STALIN

DON'T BLAME ME - I VOTED FOR GORE... I THINK

MY PARENTS RETIRED TO FLORIDA AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY PRESIDENT

DISNEY GAVE US MICKEY, FLORIDA GAVE US DUMBO

DON'T THROW AWAY YOUR VOTE... LET KATHERINE HARRIS DO IT FOR YOU

BUSH TRUSTS THE PEOPLE, BUT NOT IF IT INVOLVES COUNTING

TO YOU I'M A DRUNK DRIVER; TO MY FRIENDS, I'M PRESIDENTIAL MATERIAL!

ONE PERSON, ONE VOTE (MAY NOT APPLY IN CERTAIN STATES)

I DIDN'T VOTE FOR HIS DADDY EITHER

IT AIN'T OVER 'TIL YOUR BROTHER COUNTS THE VOTES

BANANA REPUBLICANS

GEORGE W. BUSH: THE PRESIDENT QUAYLE WE NEVER HAD

THE LAST TIME SOMEBODY LISTENED TO A BUSH, FOLKS WANDERED IN THE DESERT FOR 40 YEARS

CAMPAIGN SPENDING: $184,000,000. HAVING YOUR LITTLE BROTHER RIG THE ELECTION FOR YOU: PRICELESS

I ask you...this year, for this election, please take your civic duty seriously. Read up on the candidates and get your questions answered to your satisfaction. Don't leave your voice be unheard and your vote left in the hands of others.