Florida Man Lives With The Hanging Chads Of 2000 Election

Wow, what a long week! The stock market is tanking, as is oil~Hooray, and gold, as the world is melting down, on self-fulfilling prophesies of DOOM!!
I have been having a rough week as well, as I purchased the game Bejeweled for the PC, and have found it to be addictive, so I haven't been paying much attention to the news until today!!
I am just reading through some of the headlines, and watched a bit of Fox News as I was getting ready for work, and realized that McCain must be melting down as well, as the anchors on Fox are barely able to stay in their seats, as they rant about Bill Ayers, Reverend Wright, and other non-issues, in their typical "Fair and Balanced" ;) approach to the Presidential race.
Talk about being in the tank for McCain! My "Poor" Beautiful Megan Kelly, goes hysterically psycho on EVERY pro-Obama guest she has had on in the last few days! It is getting so bad, that I am waiting for her beautiful little head to start spinning around, and vomiting pea soup, as she is definitely "possessed" by McCain's Insanity!! Hell, even my favorite guy, Bill O'Reilly, is getting his talking points directly from McCain Headquarters~~as Bill's show has become the ALL SPIN ZONE FOR MCCAIN as of late!!

Anyway, I found an interesting little odd story at Yahoo News on the fringe of "political" stories, about a guy that purchased many of the old voting machines from Florida, after the fiasco of the 2000 elections and the infamous "hanging" chads recounts:
From ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – It's been eight years since the re-count of the 2000 Florida election, but Jim Dobyns is still living with chads. One waited for him when he went to clean the top of the microwave. He found another by the coffee table. And when he was petting his cat recently he plucked one of the manila-colored flakes from its fur.
Three years ago, Dobyns bought 1,200 Votomatic III voting machines, ones used by Palm Beach County during that infamous election.
When the outcome of the presidential election hung on Florida's electoral votes, it was Palm Beach's ballots and their hanging, pregnant and dimpled chads that became the subject of scrutiny. Ultimately, Florida junked the machines statewide in favor of new technology.
Dobyns, though, can't get rid of the chads, which have leaked out of the machines and permanently into his life.
"I'll never get them out of the van," Dobyns said. "And I don't want to get them out of the van because I see it and I think: 'That's cool.'"

Dobyns, a Republican political consultant, isn't the only one who thinks the machines are cool. He has began selling the collapsable, briefcase-sized Votomatics on eBay or through his Web site for up to $75, plus shipping.

Recently, he leased 26 as props to the HBO movie "Recount," which was about President Bush's White House-clinching 537-vote victory in Florida over Al Gore. But his list of customers has also grown to include a congressional staffer, an executive with the New York City bar association, a few presidential libraries and a number of high school history teachers.

"I always like to say however you vote it always comes out Bush, and then the heated debate starts from there," said Joe Raschke, a Republican and friend of Dobyns' who lives in Chicago and who was given one of the machines as a wedding gift.

Most of the machines, however, have gone to Democrats, Dobyns says, who are still angry about the 2000 election and entranced by the machines. His wife, Pam, explains it this way: the voting machines became the election's villain; buying a machine is a way to control something Democrats couldn't. Owners say they like having a piece of history and that the pieces are a conversation starter, no matter what party someone belongs to. Chris Chiari, 34, a Florida business consultant and Democrat, bought two of the machines last summer — one for an auction and the other to set up in his den. "I can punch any hole I want. I own it," said Chiari, who voted by absentee ballot in Palm Beach County in 2000.

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