Article...Across the Nation Dimpled Chads Don't Count...
Friday November 23, 2000; 11:39 AM ET
newsmax.com
Though the presidency of the United States may now be awarded to the candidate who garnered the most dimpled chads in Florida, the practice of counting unpunched ballots has been rejected by nearly every other county in America.
"Vice President Al Gore's effort to convince Florida election officials to count indented or 'dimpled' ballots as votes for him runs contrary to the practice in almost all jurisdictions that use the punch card system," the Washington Post reports on its Friday front page.
The Post cited R. Doug Lewis, executive director of the Election Center, who said that with the exception of Texas, "no election official has counted a dimpled chad as a vote." The Election Center is a nonpartisan group that trains and certifies election supervisors.
"Instead they tend to turn the question over to a judge," said Lewis, "and historically courts around the country have said dimpled ballots aren't clear enough for them."
In Florida's Palm Beach County election officials are counting only dimpled ballots where the rest of the card showed indented chads for other offices.
But in Broward County, where Gore is picking up votes more quickly, election officials are disregarding the rest of the ballot and counting dimpled votes for president even if chads on the rest of the card were clearly punched through.
In Texas, the law allows for the inclusion of dimpled chads. But even there, judges typically rule against the practice.
In arguments before the Florida Supreme Court earlier this week, Gore lawyers cited an Illinois case which they said established a legal precedent for counting dimpled ballots.
But on Thursday the Chicago Tribune revealed that the Illinois Supreme Court actually ruled against dimpled ballots in the decade-old case cited by Gore's legal team, and that Gore lawyers had based their argument on totally false information.
On Wednesday, manufacterers of the type of Votomatic voting machine used in Florida told the Wall Street Journal they recommended against counting dimpled ballots.
"I don't know of anyone who has counted a dimpled chad," said Richard Stephens of Election Data Corp.
"Counting those dimpled chads is definitely not right," Dwayne Rapp, vice president of Triad Governmental Systems Inc., told the Journal. "There are a lot of people who simply don't vote in every race."
Rapp said he'd been contacted by Gore lawyers, who tried to get him to back their position. "The Gore people wanted me to say the Votomatic system was flawed. I won't say that. I don't believe it is." |
