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Posted on 02/02/2005 8:18:45 AM PST by anniegetyourgun
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - The banishment of chads helped lead to the lowest level of invalid ballots ever measured in a presidential or gubernatorial election in Florida, said a report released Tuesday. Floridians cast about 1.5 million more votes in the 2004 presidential election than they did in the disputed 2000 contest, yet the combined number of overvotes and undervotes fell by about 83 percent from 179,855 to 31,453, according to the report prepared by the Department of State.
George W. Bush carried the state by nearly 381,000 votes.
Overvotes are ballots on which more than one candidate is selected; undervotes are ballots on which no candidate is selected. In 2000, 2.9 percent of all ballots cast were invalid because of overvotes and undervotes, a figure that dropped to 0.78 percent in the 2002 gubernatorial election and 0.41 percent last November.
"It's exactly what we would expect. After the 2000 election, the Florida Legislature acted. We got rid of punchards, lever machines and the one county that counted ballots on paper" by hand, said Orange County elections supervisor Bill Cowles, who serves as the president of the county supervisors association.
He said state officials and the 67 supervisors wanted to prove to the world that they not only identified voter problems, but had also solved them. He noted the significant drop in invalid ballots in 2002 and that the overall number of invalid ballots fell again last fall, which he attributed to further voter education.
Punchcard ballots were outlawed after Bush beat Al Gore in Florida by 537 in an election in which thousands of ballots were examined during five weeks of recounts. On many, the tiny rectangles of cardboard that were supposed to be punched out by voters were merely dimpled or left hanging, making it harder for machines to read them.
Since then, Floridians either vote on touchscreen machines or with optical-scan ballots, which require voters to mark a ballot which is later read by a machine. It is impossible to cast overvotes on a touchscreen machine, thus Florida's 4,116 overvotes were all cast on optical scan machines.
A comparison of undervotes showed an insignificant difference between optical-scan ballots and touchscreen ballots. Of optical-scan ballots cast, 0.40 percent were left blank in the presidential race, compared to 0.42 percent of touchscreen ballots.
"We never will eliminate undervotes totally because that's the prerogative of the voter," said Jenny Nash, a Department of State spokeswoman.
amazing
Ping
LOL! Will wonders never cease?
Maybe Florida can teach something to King County Washington.
That said, I think that the Democrats were concentrated in "winning" OH. They just failed miserably in all counts.
Ever person who whines about voting from now on should be forced to watch video of people voting in Iraq.
The problem with WA State is that they don't have a Bush.
It is good to know that all the Cubans, Haitians and Jamaicans who were disenfranchised in 2000, were able to vote in 2004 as often as they were paid to vote by the local democrat precinct pols.
I think that what is wrong with WA is that many of the people don't have a clue...but what are you going to do. It is so pretty up here and this is where the family is...so I remain.
Being from there, Abram, I can tell you one thing for certain: Don't ever leave. Despite the libs, it is the most beautiful state of the 50.
Come on now, for 4 years you heard the same thing about Floridians.
We were dumber than stumps, or more corrupt than..than a Democrat!
Conceive, believe, achieve.
Thanks, Joe!
Do you think it's OK to start spelling the name of our state correctly again? :)
"I can fix this. But you are not going to like it."
I haven't heard as many FL jokes as I have heard WV jokes, but what are you going to do.
I think that the fraud was more better dismissed in FL than it was in WA. I can't believe that the fraud is now the "governor" of this state. I hang my head in shame.
You are right, unless work takes me out of the beautiful state, I will never leave permanently. I shake my head and think of all the idiots we have "representing" us. Murray, Cantwell, McDermott, "Gregriore", Larsen, Baird, Inslee, the list goes on and on. I wish that we could elect a few decent Rs in this troop.
Thank goodness for the likes of McKenna, McMorris, Hastings...
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