The official Terry LePore ballot designer fan page

Condolences to our dear loser

Cheers for the woman who elected a President by picking a bad layout for a document!

In the end, Bush v Gore was not decided by Nader's spoiler effect, or by Clinton's sleaze, or by Gore's stiffness, or by Bush's jovial goofiness. The most powerful job in the world was determined because Theresa (not Teresa) LePore thought she could do good   graphic   design, and she was wrong.

So who is this mysterious kingmaker, changing the world from her shadowy government bureaucracy? Has she seen any good movies lately? Is her marriage happy? America wants to know. America needs to know!

What we know about Theresa Ann Le Pore Lally

• According to a high school classmate, "Terry was no Rhodes Scholar". She drifted for a while, a late bloomer, which gives her key role in the Bush victory such a poignant twist.
• In a heartbreaking blow to her bachelor fans, we must report that Terry has been married for many years. Twice, even.
  Her second husband is Mike Lally, heir to the Lally family adverb fortune.
• But don't give up all hope, young lads! When asked if she might take a boy toy lover in the future, Terry did not deny it.
• In the 1980s she moonlighted as a flight attendant on private planes owned by Saudi weapons dealer Adnan Khashoggi, one of Ollie North's helpers in the Iran-Contra scheme.
• Terry got her first courthouse job at the age of 16, and worked her way up to PBC Elections Supervisor (with that arms smuggling gig on the side). Her salary in 2000 was a bit over $100,000.
• "When I ran, I chose Democrat because the incumbent was Democrat and the county registration is predominantly Democrat." Is Terry a Democrat? It depends on what the definition of "Democrat" is. She was a registered Republican in her youth, switched to Independent, then entered politics as a Democrat. You might say that Terry was a Democrat in the same way that Bill O'Reilly is an Independent. She has since changed registration back to Independent. A woman after my own heart!
• Terry's online photo in 2000 was a 2" by 2" square (to be precise, 189x188 pixels), but her personal web page displayed it as 189x218 -- 16% taller than in real life. Why is Terry trying to look taller and thinner, like those old Paula Abdul music videos?
  Does she think she's too fat? Does she have an eating disorder? Perhaps her anorexia led to malnutrition, which led to clouded judgement?
• 2001 Terry has a new picture, and boy her hair is different.
• The site pbcelections.org runs Microsoft-IIS on Windows, which are known to have numerous security vulnerabilities. Voter information might have easily been stolen.
• Meanwhile, there were 261 defective voting machines in Palm Beach that should have been decertified and replaced, but instead remained in use.
• 2002 After the fiasco, Terry bought a new computer-based voting system that can't be verified. Great way to avoid a messy recount -- make it impossible to do!
• The new Sequoia system may have ruined the 2002 Primaries. But Terry promises that the votes were correct, because the machine says so.
• 2004 Terry remains adamant that her new machines don't need a paper trail. Trust the machine.
• Terry is being sued for improperly training poll workers.
• Terry's personal picture has changed again, and it's mis-proportioned again! The image is supposed to be 184x273 pixels, but her web page displays it as 194x243, 18% wider than natural. Apparently Terry has turned the corner in her battle with eating disorders! She probably uses the picture as a personal affirmation, a reminder that she can achieve a healthy weight again. Good for you, Terry!
• Re-election Challenge! Arthur Anderson is opposing Terry this November (Ellie Whittey now endorses Anderson, and Glenn MacLean didn't register). I sure hope the ballots are well-designed this time.
• The Palm Beach Coalition for Election Reform opposes our girl. They want to use optical scan ballots which are simple, proven, and verifiable. But what would be the fun of that?
• Listen to Terry's sexy voice on August 26 All Things Considered.
• August 31, local election eve ... how about a runaway ballot scandal?
• Election Result: poor dear Theresa lost to bad old Arthur, by way more than 537 votes. If you hope to catch her on the rebound, now is the time!
• On the bright side, Terry is in office until January 2005, so she still has time to screw up one last election.
• October 27: True to form, our gal is flubbing already. The PBC Elections phone number is 100% swamped. Even if you get past the "All lines are busy" telco message, you end up in the "All operators are serving other customers" queue of infinite doom.
• November 5: Terry comes through for us one last time. Palm Beach County records 88,408 more votes than voters. We'll miss ya, darling.

Fan mail for our girl

• lddybud on the gopbi forum says   "let Terry know we still love her ;)"
• Helen Martello says she's Terry's uncle, and "I don't get your message? Are you trying to blame the STUPIDITY of 99 percent of the voters of Palm Beach on Theresa Lally, then your dead wrong."
  Uncle Helen continues:   "You are oblivously obsessed with Theresa. Get a life!"
• gloria1@excite.com says   "I know Theresa Lepore. She worked hard at her JOB and EARNED her position."
• Nancy P pointed me to the Khashoggi connection (thanks!), and says   "I wonder why, if she is such a hard worker, she wouldn't answer her phones the day of the election until 5:00 P.M. The poll workers were frantic about all the problems in Palm Beach and needed guidance. Where was their guider!!"
• Sandi (or is it Josephine?) says   "think what Gore would have done after 9-11. Thanks T. Lepore"
• Professor Badets says   "I teach ergonomics, and my favourite part is to tell to my students the delicious story of the badly designed ballots. Thanks to Le Pore, my students immediately understand the necessity to test the usability of a system before implementing it!"
• Brian R pointed me to Greg Palast's article. Thanks!
• Mark Baker says   "Could you please find a way to throw Ms. Lapore in jail where she belongs?"
• John Victor says   "In my professional opinion, the "butterfly ballot" was no accident, but actually one of intentional design. In fact, Ms. LePore is quite brilliant."
• Pete Sirois says   "It was designed to misdirect Democratic votes to the Buchannone column. Theresa LePort is not incompetent. She is quite competently deceptive."
• Zacapoet says   "I heard in 2000 that Tess's husband was fighting cancer, and they had BIG med bills to pay. I wonder how that debt was handled?"
• Lynne Roman says   "denying my son's right to vote in a passive aggressive way- not sending him the absentee ballot he requested almost one month ago. call to them 2 weeks after the request, 21st, they say they sent it out yesterday, 20. today, the 27, almost 1 month after the first request, he still hasn't gotten it. if something doesn't happen today or tomorrow he can not vote. who do i complain to?"

The "About this page" FAQ

A few worried fans (mostly women) have emailed questions to me. Some of them desire Terry's undying love, others just her autograph. Either way, they have the same concerns, so here are the answers.

• Are you attacking Terry?

  Of course not -- this is a Fan Page. I may give her a gentle ribbing from time to time, but I reserve my actual attacks for truly doltish and/or evil people (such as SUV owners). Terry is a woman of average intelligence who thrust herself into the national spotlight by making a complicated mistake. I think she deserves a Fan Page.   :-)

• Ballots don't kill people, stupidity kills people.

  Please visit the first few links on this page (I'll repeat them here and here). There were roughly 32000 errors out of 450000 votes -- 7%, or 1 per 14. A professional designer would have done usability testing and made it easier for everyone. But luckily for you Terry didn't, so now you can read her fan page!

• Didn't you hear? Bush would have won anyways.

  No, you're referring to the undervote (aka chad) recounts, which are irrelevant. Why haven't you read any of the linked pages about usability design yet? Go do that and we'll talk some more after.

• How could we have avoided this bizarre mess?

  
  1. By requiring Voter-Verified recountable ballots, and
  2. By replacing the highly inefficient plurality system with Approval Voting.
  Also, not having Katherine Harris in charge might have helped, but that isn't related to our gal Terry, so it's someone else's problem.

• So what happens now?

  Condolence bouquets should be mailed to the Palm Beach County Courthouse. Terry requests that each fan enclose a small flask of irish whiskey, to keep her warm on November 2nd.