ride525: Add this to your title -- "...for WRITTEN BALLOTS" That makes it perfectly accurate. As it is, it's not correct. Since the electromechanical ballots can be changed for practical considerations, and the ballot was designed and approved by the Democrats prior to the election, there's no way to challenge this.
Look at it this way: A written ballot can be as long as it needs to be and can therefore have the candidates in a long list on the left hand side without sacrificing typeface size. However, the ballot machine has the holes in an unmovable position -- the ballot MUST conform with those holes, or it will not work properly. Since the holes are close together, the placement of the candidates must be done with the size of the type taken into consideration. The "butterfly" layout, which many, many people were able to use without incident, does allow the ballot to use a larger type, thereby making it more readable to those with poor eyesight (particularly the elderly), while still conforming to the spacing of the machine.
Would you not consider that a practical modification of the ballot? Even if you don't, you really do have to admit that there is no way even a family member of Gore sitting on the bench would overturn the election results based on an abuse of discretion in the design of the ballot. That's just completely unrealistic.
Here are two options:
(1) They the reverse the Reform Party and the Democrats -- then we would have complaints that people had to look to the RIGHT of the holes to see the Democratic ticket, as if it's such a hardship to move your eyes. Or,
(2) They have a ballot with small type, making it difficult to read. This is Florida, mind you, where a significant portion of the population is elderly. Do you think that would not be subject to debate?
Again, I ask without response -- if 269,696 people were able to correctly deduce how to vote for Gore in Palm Beach County, why is there a problem for these other people who seemingly were unable to perform the same simple task?