前总统布什无意中投了奥巴马的票。报道称,布什被电子投票搞糊涂了,错选了奥巴马,当他要取消选项重新选择罗姆尼时,却按错了键,进行了投票操作。布什意识到这个错误后与投票站管理人员发生了争执,他要求修改投票,但管理人员依照州法规定拒绝了他的要求。
据称,当时布什旁边的一位记者被争执所吸引,注意到了这个错误。但法律不允许她报道投票站内的事情。于是她等在投票站外面突然向布什提问到:”总统先生,FOX新闻报道你无意中投了奥巴马的票,对此您有何评论?”。布什于是试图解释。他说,发现错误后,他按了红色的CAST BALLOT按钮,以为这是扔掉选择的按钮,谁知这是投票健。布什称投票机设计太混乱了,红色键应该是STOP重来嘛。
Former U.S. president George W. Bush accidentally voted for Barack Obama today at a polling place near his Crawford, TX home.
According to local reports, the two-term Republican was confused by
the instructions on his electronic voting machine and mistakenly cast a
ballot he intended to discard.
Witnesses say Bush argued with poll workers for several minutes
afterwards in a effort to redo his vote, but in accordance with state
law they ultimately denied his request.
The embarrassing incident may have gone
unnoticed if it weren't for a local newspaper reporter who happened to
be voting in the next booth. Suzanna Everett, a politics correspondent
for the Waco Times witnessed the entire ordeal and crafted a cunning scheme to make it public.
Left On Red
Barred by ethics rules from using knowledge gained within a polling
station, Everett waited for Bush to leave the facility and ambushed him
with a trick question designed to fool him into revealing the news
himself:
"Mr. President Fox News is reporting that you've accidentally voted for Barack Obama. Would you care to comment?"
Thinking that his mistake had already been found out, Bush sought to minimize the damage:
"Yes unfortunately because of the incompetence of the folks who
designed the ballot, my vote counted for the other guy," Bush responded.
He then attempted to explain exactly how the mishap occurred:
"First of all, everything was very mismaladjusted on the screen. You
shouldn't put the senators and the congresspeople and the presidents all
jumbled together like that. It's too crowded. Just confuses folks."
Bush then explained that after marking the wrong candidate, he sought
to correct his error by clicking the red "Cast Ballot" button, thinking
that it was designed to 'cast away' the ballot and bring up a fresh
one:
"Usually red means stop and green means go. I thought I was stopping"
A New Legacy
Bush is no stranger to election day controversy, having been pushed
into office himself by the Florida fiasco of 2000. In that election
hundreds of votes intended for Democratic rival Al Gore went to protest candidate Pat Buchanan instead due to poor ballot design.
In an official statement released shortly after the event, former
President Bush said his experiences today have inspired him to make
electoral reform the signature cause of his post-presidency:
"Laura and I will be dedicating the next few years to fixing our
electoral system. Every American deserves a clear, simple ballot when
they go to the polling place."
However, the system Bush used has been deployed successfully around
the country with little incident. A spokesperson for the company that
manufactures the machines says they stand by their product:
"Until today we have never had a single instance of someone confusing
the "cast ballot" button for a "cast away ballot" button. This is a
problem unique to Mr. Bush, and we have no plans to change our
machines."
制造假新闻的(像那些伪造基辛格重庆模式秘密报告的)应该学着点。