BOCA RATON, Fla.-In an area known much more for its oceanfront resorts and pastel-colored buildings than its political activism, Palm Beach County residents have found themselves thrust front and center on the world's stage and divided over the validity and fairness of last Tuesday's presidential election.
With the presidency of the United States hanging in the balance, and the whole world watching, protestors took to the streets across the county over the weekend as the community buzzed with talk of election controversy.
In West Palm Beach Saturday, demonstrators toting signs such as "Read my lips: trust the people" and "Bush: 'But daddy you promised me,'" called for a countywide revote, insisting the much-publicized Palm Beach County "butterfly" ballot was confusing and unfair.
Some voters have alleged the county's ballot was unclear and caused them to vote inadvertently for Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan instead of Vice President Al Gore (D). While Gore was the second candidate listed on the ballot, voters needed to punch the third hole to register a vote for the vice president.
"They should have a right to vote again," West Palm Beach protestor Joe Oquenivo, 52, said Saturday. "This is not just a Palm Beach issue, it's a democratic issue."
At a synagogue in downtown Miami yesterday, Rev. Jesse Jackson and NAACP President Kweisi Mfume called for a thorough investigation of potential voter irregularities in Palm Beach County.
"Perhaps civil rights have been violated in some instances," Mfume said. "We must protect our democracy by making sure that every vote counts, that every person counts."
The NAACP will continue interviewing Palm Beach County residents over the next few days and will take its findings to the Justice Department, he said.
Jackson said investigating voter irregularity and ballot fairness will not lead to a crisis in the United States, as some supporters of Texas Gov. George W. Bush (R) have claimed.
"Today there is no constitutional crisis. There is a counting crisis," he said. "We want a fair and accurate vote count."
Jackson and Mfume will lead a march in downtown West Palm Beach this afternoon, calling for a thorough investigation into voter impropriety and supporting of by-hand recount of all the county's ballots set to begin today.
"In America we must honor the right to vote and the right for that vote to be counted," Jackson said. "This was a massive, wholesale rejection of the people's will."
But Bush supporter Linda Wilson, who has lived in Palm Beach County's southernmost city of Boca Raton for 23 years, said constituents who mistakenly voted for another candidate than the vice president do not deserve a chance to vote again.
"If you make a mistake, that's your problem, not the government's," Wilson said. "They should just stop counting and get over it. I think this whole thing is blown totally out of proportion."
Delray Beach resident Andrew DeFoe, who also voted for Bush, said the county's ballot was not confusing. He said a revote would be a mistake.
"A revote changes the whole dynamic of the election," DeFoe said. "I think it puts way too much focus on a small part of the country to elect the next president."
But Laurie Greene, a 22-year Boca Raton resident and Gore supporter, said a revote is the only fair solution.
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"I think they're disenfranchising thousands of people," Greene said. While she said she thinks she voted properly, the ballot was confusing and she knows "some smart people who are not sure they voted correctly."
But Greene and DeFoe both agree the immense press coverage is not beneficial to the area.
DeFoe said the vast media attention surrounding Palm Beach County - which ranks first in the nation in per-capita income - inaccurately depicts all its residents as being either "political activists or idiots."
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