When all eyes were on ‘Chad’
Judge tapped to count ballots in 2000 U.S. election fiasco didn’t seek out the spotlight
Fifteen years ago, one man held the fate of the most powerful nation on Earth in one hand. In the other he held a magnifying glass.
A recount had been called for key counties in Florida that could tip the balance and give either George W. Bush or Al Gore the state’s electoral votes, and with them the presidency.
One image came to define the time: Judge Robert Rosenberg, his eye made massive by a magnifying glass, staring at a scattering of suspect punch holes.
Rosenberg said he was coming back from a judicial conference when he received an unusual phone call. The elections official for Broward County had fallen ill and they were looking for someone to recount 1,800 disputed ballots.
“Can’t you find someone else? I’m really not interested,” said Rosenberg, explaining that he already had a full docket and a busy week ahead of him.
“‘No,’ ” he was told. “‘It’s up to you.’ ”
The Florida recount was both a thrilling drama and a democratic disaster. Vice-president Al Gore was prematurely declared the winner of the Nov. 7 election, legal battles and lawsuits followed and finally, a controversial Supreme Court decision gave Bush the presidency.
At the heart of all the excitement sat two hard-working heroes Rosenberg and his magnifying glass.
Each day, he’d arrive at the Voter Equipment Centre in Fort Lauderdale at 8 a.m. and stare, bleary-eyed, at questionable ballots until 11 p.m.
Voting machines that hadn’t been cleaned in years had blocked the stylus from punching through ballots cleanly — leaving “barn door,” “dimpled” and “pregnant” chads hanging behind.
Some of the ballots were so mangled they were almost impossible to read; one sticks out in Rosenberg’s mind.
“It’s as if somebody fed it to their hound, their hound took a bite and now they were asking me to decipher it,” he said.
But interpreting the will of the public wasn’t the hardest part — it was the eye strain. Rosenberg has a 20/ 200 prescription and astigmatism that he says approaches eight or nine. “Unless I took my glasses off and put the ballots right up to my eye, there was no way I could be sure.” So he made a simple request. “I see the chads are really small so I turn around and say to one of the county clerks . . . can you do me a favour, can you get me a magnifying glass?”
A photo was snapped on Nov. 24, 2000 and just like that, Rosenberg became the story.
The 72-year-old said he was just trying to do his job. But that didn’t stop his notoriety as the “Hanging Chad Guy” from taking off.
He got calls from the media, latenight shows and even the eye-drop company Visine, which wanted him to do a commercial. He turned them all down, but even at work, “people around the courthouse started calling me ‘Chad,’ ” he said with a chuckle.
Rosenberg retired as a judge, so it’s unlikely he’ll be called on to determine the outcome of another federal election, but he still reluctantly falls into the role every time his Rotary club holds a vote.
“They say, ‘We’ve got the best ballot counter around right here,’ ” he said. “So what can you do?”
And he keeps a government-issue magnifying glass handy around the house, just in case.