2000 All Over Again?

The Problem: Voting irregularities in Palm Beach County? Couldn't be! But it wasn't butterfly ballots this time—it was the county's official elections Web site. According to the Palm Beach Post, the site's column indicating total votes in the West Palm Beach, Fla., mayoral contest was slimmed down—to look "more crisp"—to only allow for three digits to be displayed. Challenger Al Zucaro thought he had upended sitting Mayor Lois Frankel when he saw the unusually low totals of 721 to 518, the paper reports. Turns out that missing digit was rather crucial: Frankel thumped Zucaro, 6,518 to 4,721.

Key Lesson:
Aesthetics should never trump accuracy. Whether it's elections, consumer research or stock quotes, the numbers not only have to be right, but have to be presented legibly. Snazzy Web sites are always a plus (but don't tell that to Al Zucaro), so find a middle ground for the statistic and the artistic.