Of course, these issues should never become post -election issues. They should be sorted out well in advance of any election. Hopefully, we will learn and do better next time. A display of each of Florida s counties vote totals for Buchanan shows his numbers dramatically higher in Palm Beach than anywhere else. The reason his vote looked so big in Palm Beach was because that county is one of Florida s most populous.
Scale is important.
Looking at Buchanan s vote alone in each county yields a set of small numbers that look big on a chart. But as Patrick Anderson of the Anderson Economic Group explains, when we include the votes for Bush and Gore on that chart, the scale increases dramatically, and Buchanan s vote looks like a simple trend of no consequence. This typically prompts cries of outrage and a hunt for a single cause in Palm Beach, instead of some obscure chemical contaminant, the butterfly ballots took the heat. Later, a broader perspective usually demonstrates that the cluster is a coincidence, a bit of statistical noise. It is a matter of perspective.