"dennis roberts" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
[EMAIL PROTECTED]">news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> what i want to know is that how many of the 19,000 invalidated ballots
were
> because a voter voted for TWO presidential candidates ... and these would
> have to be for buchanan AND gore to make this "confusion" argument have
> legitimacy ... or were for other reasons ...
>
> and why would a voter really vote for two presidential candidates? would
> they not know that you can't do that? or, if they accidentally did this
> having made a first mistake ... would they not call this to the attention
> of the election official at the precinct?
>From the news reports, it appears that all of the 19,000 invalidated
ballots under questino were because a voter voted for two presidential
candidates. In addition, there were 3,000 invalidated ballots for
senate. I don't know whether the 1996 total of 14,000 included
all invalidations for all reasons, or only those for a presidential
candidate. When a ballot is invalidated for the purposes of
a presidential count, I don't know whether (in Florida) the entire
ballot is invalidated or just the contest in question. If only the one
contest is invalidated, the actual physical ballot will still be
available and can be examined to determine what proportion of
the presidential count confusion had to do with double-punching
(known as "over-voting") for both Gore and Buchanan.
This morning the AP reported an interview with a woman who
said that the ballot holes themselves didn't quite line up, and
she thought that she was supposed to vote for both Gore and
Lieberman separately since their names lined up best with the
holes. Accordingly, she punched two holes.
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