DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: hnumpah on October 24, 2008, 08:53:05 AM
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Fla. man lives among the chads of 2000 election
By JESSICA GRESKO, Associated Press Writer
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.
Stephanie McCaffery, 30, who teaches geography and history in Tennessee, got her machine, along with tube socks, as a Christmas gift last year. Her family has since used it to mock-vote in a primary, though "with my mom, not so secret those ballots," she said.
Though the machine is still at her mother's house in Florida, McCaffery, a Republican, says she'd eventually like to use it in her classroom, where students have asked why the country doesn't just vote online. It's amazing that something so low-tech could pick the United States' leader, she said, and having the machine is like having a "historical souvenir."
Having a piece of history was what Dobyns was thinking, too, when he saw that a local election office was disposing of the Votomatics for $5 each. Dobyns, who lives on Florida's west coast, drove the hour and a half to the election office and filled up his blue Dodge Caravan, twice. But Dobyns really wanted what he calls the "Holy Grail of the 2000 election" ? the machines from Palm Beach County.
In 2005, he got a lead on them. A man who bought them from the county was selling his warehouse full of the machines. The eBay asking price: $12,000. Dobyns went to inspect the warehouse. It was hot and dark ? Votomatics stacked to the ceiling and the floor speckled with chads. He bought everything.
These days, though, Dobyns' stock is getting low. He has about 50 to 60 machines left, which he keeps in a storage facility near his home.
In May, Dobyns realized he'd been making a mistake. Every time he sold a Votomatic, he gave away something for free: the chads left in the back of the machine. How had he missed their value? He opened one machine and scooped out the chads. He and his wife printed up certificates of authenticity and sat down together to assemble Ziploc bags of chads.
At 10 chads per bag, Dobyns thinks he can make about 2,000. He hopes to sell them for $20 each on eBay, though he may lower the price for the holidays.
He says he can't help but see opportunities in this election.
Barack Obama's campaign should be selling his ties after he has worn them, he says. They'd make even more cash if they cut them up and sold them in squares. And Sarah Palin? Dobyns thinks a lottery for the glasses she wore during the vice presidential debate could generate $250,000. Oh, and "They should be selling her hair," he said. "The hair you could actually sell one strand at a time."
Dobyns doesn't know what will happen this year, what might be the "hanging chad of 2008 in terms of merchandising and fundraising?"
"So that's what I'll be sitting there thinking about election night," he said. "Is how to make a buck off of this stuff."
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On the Net:
Jim Dobyns' Web site: http://www.jimdobyns.com/ (http://www.jimdobyns.com/)
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The name "chad" comes from a machine called a Chadwick, which could join several pages (about five, no more) without staples. Every time you pressed a Chadwick, a small tongue of paper linked the pages together through a small, square hole. The paper punched out of the hole came to be known as a "chad".
One too many pages would ruin a Chadwick, and almost no one knew how to repair them.
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What is the real origin of the word "chad"? Most dictionaries simply list it as "origin unknown," but a current theory has it that chad comes from the Scottish word for gravel.
http://www.snopes.com/business/names/chad.asp (http://www.snopes.com/business/names/chad.asp)
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I owned one of these things. It IS called a "Chadwick", because it was sold by a company of that name, and it DOES spit out a small square punch. Perhaps snopes is unaware of these things.
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I owned one of these things. It IS called a "Chadwick", because it was sold by a company of that name, and it DOES spit out a small square punch. Perhaps snopes is unaware of these things.
So are the dictionary authors, apparently.
Maybe you should make them aware of your information?
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I fail to consider this important enough to mess with. It is to me only a mildly interesting factoid.
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I fail to consider this important enough to mess with. It is to me only a mildly interesting factoid.
I still find it fascinating that you are aware of this factoid, while the people who write dictionaries are all apparently oblivious.
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I still find it fascinating that you are aware of this factoid, while the people who write dictionaries are all apparently oblivious.
I should think that you would relish an opportunity to be fascinated about something.
Dictionaries often are not as up to date as they could be. Languages change a lot more rapidly than the people who write dictionaries can be expected to keep up with. It is of little or no consequence to anyone from whence the word "chad" is derived.
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Dictionaries often are not as up to date as they could be. Languages change a lot more rapidly than the people who write dictionaries can be expected to keep up with. It is of little or no consequence to anyone from whence the word "chad" is derived.
Yeah, but I find it hard to believe that they would add a word without adding the origin. Especially since it seems - according to your story - that the only reason the word was added was because of it's source.
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Etymological dictionaries always try to provide a source.
I am sorry that your fascination has brought you so little glee. This is no longer even interesting, so go ahead and have the last word. Knock yourself out.
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I am sorry that your fascination has brought you so little glee. This is no longer even interesting, so go ahead and have the last word. Knock yourself out.
Word.
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Oy...
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So the word has nothing to do with St. Chad , the patron saint of contested elections?
http://www.dur.ac.uk/StChads/chad.html (http://www.dur.ac.uk/StChads/chad.html)
How disappointing.
(http://bp1.blogger.com/_z49Sh298px8/RlPX4hwqhFI/AAAAAAAAAD8/jpPMNu2_bdY/s400/Chadwick+Stapleless+Stapler.jpg)
http://stapleroftheweek.blogspot.com/2007/05/stapler-of-week-archive-chadwick.html (http://stapleroftheweek.blogspot.com/2007/05/stapler-of-week-archive-chadwick.html)
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As you see, I did not make up the Chadwick stapleless paper fastener. Behold!
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As you see, I did not make up the Chadwick stapleless paper fastener. Behold!
I never said you made up the stapler. I've owned one in the past as well. The still make them, BTW. Only now they're in plastic.
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And the tiny punched out pieces of paper that are produced by your Chadwick are called......
Freds? Bobs? Sams? Chucks?
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And the tiny punched out pieces of paper that are produced by your Chadwick are called......
Freds? Bobs? Sams? Chucks?
Now they're called chads. Apparently they weren't when this stapler was invented, and for many years afterwards. Matter of fact, they weren't called "chads" until after WWII. Why would it take from before WWI (when the Chadwick stapler was invented) until after WWII (when it started to be used to refer to the waste from computer punch cards) for the term to become used? And why was it initially used for something completely unrelated to the device you claim gave it it's name?
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Language and the derivation of words are very often a mystery. All words come from somewhere, but the source is not always logical, nor is the dissemination rapid.
Take the word "tawdry", which comes from St. Audrey.
All that stuff from Cockney rhyming slang, like "raspberry" for the sound phhhht!
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Language and the derivation of words are very often a mystery. All words come from somewhere, but the source is not always logical, nor is the dissemination rapid.
And, interestingly enough, all the sources I've looked at list several other derivations of the word "chad" except yours. The one you claim I can find no mention of anywhere else. And the Scottish one seems the most plausible one to me.
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So believe that one, already. It's allowed.
I do not believe that this is a topic of even minor transcendental importance.
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So believe that one, already. It's allowed.
No problem. So, you're more than likely wrong.