Texas cowpokes easily punch county chads
By Frank Cerabino, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 20, 2002
FORT WORTH, Texas -- The infamous Palm Beach County butterfly ballot, once the fulcrum of democracy, has been reduced to this -- a novelty attraction at one of the country's biggest livestock shows.
The Fort Worth Stock Show, formally known as 106th Southwestern Exposition and Livestock Show and Rodeo, is full of sights. Authentic cowboys roam the hall in boots caked with the remnants of their trip to the swine building or the nearby halter-class llama show. Salesmen here hawk hydraulic immobilizing chutes for cattle, horny toad jewelry and Partonesque hair extenders to the gals who exemplify the prevailing bigger-is-better sentiment.
But what really gets these cowfolk laughing is when, much to their surprise, they mosey up to two Votomatic booths in the main exhibition hall and are asked by a guy in an Uncle Sam costume to cast a vote, Palm Beach County-style, in the November 2000 presidential election.
Yes, it has come to this: The chips have met the chads.
"We're reenacting the Florida vote," says the guy in the Uncle Sam suit as he hands the cowboy a punch card ballot that says, "OFFICIAL BALLOT. General Election. Palm Beach County, Florida. November 7, 2000."
Uncle Sam stands in an aisle that separates the two make-believe Palm Beach County voting booths from a life-sized taxidermied Brahman bull, frozen forever in a pose of irritation. For $6.95, fairgoers sit on the bull's back and get their photo snapped as they raise their arms in a rider's pose.
The anatomically correct bull, with its horizontal hairy tail, points the way to the Votomatics and the jolly Uncle Sam, who wears cowboy boots under his red-and-white vertically striped pants and holds a stack of the punch cards.
The Palm Beach County punch cards are reproductions, something that isn't evident until you see an ad for a presidential wax museum in South Dakota on the back.
"You get to keep this authentic replica of a Palm Beach County ballot," Uncle Sam tells the passersby.
A piece of history. Sort of. If the cowboy isn't convinced, Uncle Sam lays it on thicker.
"See if you can make a dimpled or hanging chad," he says.
It's enough reason for many to hitch up their belts, tip back their Stetsons and approach the voting machine as if it were another wild animal to be tamed.
"This thing is whupping my ass!" says Steve Daniels, 40, of Hillsboro, Texas, who has been standing in the booth trying to cast a vote without feeding the card through the slot at the top of the machine.
But nearly all find it as simple and apparent as the hole they made in their punch card.
"That one is clean and dry," says Jimmy Ayers, 47, a steel worker from Dangerfield, Texas, as he proudly holds his ballot to the light. "Ain't nothing hanging there."
His buddy, Johnny Coleman, 49, from Ore City, shakes his head in amazement.
"You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure this out," he says.
'Dumb Texas boy' can do it
Palm Beach County may mean sophistication elsewhere, but its reputation is taking a beating here at the livestock show, which runs for the next two weeks.
"My dad used to say that 90 percent of life is common sense," said Tom Herron, 63, of Rome, Texas. "This is pretty simple, even for a real dumb Texas boy like me."
The Florida voting display is the brainchild of a couple of Dallas-area entrepreneurs who have dabbled in the political memorabilia business. Steven Phillips and Tim Kelley made their first foray into cashing in on the disputed election by producing bean bag bears -- a blue one that said "Gore Won" and a red one that said "Bush Won."
The bears got them a mention in USA Today. Palm Beach County Commissioner Carol Roberts traded memorabilia for a "Gore Won" bear, Phillips said. But the market for the bears was short-lived, tailing off dramatically after the election was settled.
Phillips and Kelley then turned their attention to buying Florida voting machines. They wanted the Palm Beach County ones the most and figured that after the county had only limited success selling them online, it would be happy to sell off the rest at bargain prices.
But the county stuck to its $300 price. So Phillips shopped around, finding that Marion County was willing to sell him 200 Votomatics for $10 apiece. So he and Kelley rented a trailer, drove to Florida and hauled back the voting machines.
They found a company to print reproductions of Palm Beach County's ballot cards and a reproduction of the butterfly ballot. Then they built an election package, which includes a Votomatic, a certificate of authenticity from the Marion County elections supervisor, the reproductions of Palm Beach County ballots and punch cards, a Palm Beach Post poster of election coverage and a laminated page of actual election chads they found in the machines they had bought. They sell the works for $80.
The livestock show is their first major attempt at marketing their product.
Friday, Kelley put on the Uncle Sam suit for the first time and found it was a lot easier getting people to participate in a free demonstration of their voting prowess than it was to get them to buy a voting booth.
Competing for attention
The entrepreneurs got space at the fair by getting the attention of a local news/talk AM radio station, WBAP, and one of its politically conservative commentators, Mark Davis.
The two voting booths take up a corner of the radio station's area, and Davis, who broadcast his show from the fair Friday, called the butterfly ballot voting machines "the stuff of which legends are written."
Davis and the other broadcasters from the station had the Florida voting re-creation on their left, and on their right, a 17-foot motorboat filled with local people who were trying to win the boat by dressing up as characters from the television show, Gilligan's Island, and living aboard the boat at the fair for a week.
The Castaway Island promotion, a cross between the television show Survivor and one of those hand-a-thons, has each contestant crammed uncomfortably on the boat, with only a short comfort break every couple of hours.
The large man dressed as Skipper snoozes uncomfortably on the bow, while Ginger, in her blue sequined dress and ill-fitting wig, yearns for the next cigarette break out toward the llama building.
Nearby, the woman at the Rainbow Vacuum booth demonstrates how it works on linoleum. The Ginsu knife people are around the corner, and across the hall, a cowboy squats among a collection of ranch equipment, looking longingly at a new roping chute.
"How much?" he asked the salesman. "Just for fun."
By the end of the day, Kelley's Uncle Sam routine is wearing thin, and those easy chairs in the vendor booth selling sun rooms looks more and more inviting. He's not too tired, though, to think about going out dancing later on -- or "boot scootin' " as he calls it.
It's been a long day. And not much to show for the entrepreneurs. But Phillips is hopeful, and confident, that in some respects, people will never get over the disputed presidential election.
"I've got a line on a thousand more Votomatics," he says.
A woman stops at the booth and votes. Bonnie Merritt of Argyle, Texas, inspects her punched ballot and smiles.
"Now, I can say I did it," she says, tucking away her souvenir.
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