Stolen election............Analysis shows higher vote loss in black areas
By John Mintz and Dan Keating
WASHINGTON POST
WASHINGTON - Heavily Democratic and African American neighborhoods in
Florida lost many more presidential votes than other areas because of outmoded
voting machines and confusion about ballots, according to a precinct-by-precinct
analysis by the Washington Post.
As many as one in three ballots in black sections of Jacksonville, for example, did
not count in the presidential election. That was four times the rate seen in white
precincts elsewhere in Duval County.
According to the Post analysis, in Miami-Dade precincts where fewer than 30
percent of the voters are black, about 3 percent of ballots did not register a vote
for president. In precincts where more than 70 percent of the voters are African
American, it was nearly 10 percent.
Such patterns have helped fueled questions in the black community about whether
the Nov. 7 election was fair. Some African American leaders say faulty machines
and long lines at the polls sowed confusion among black voters and ended up
nullifying many of their votes.
Aides to Texas Gov. George W. Bush say the kinds of errors that Florida voters
made are typical of elections across the nation. Gore, by contrast, has placed
allegations concerning disqualified black votes at the center of his appeal to hold
recounts in Miami-Dade County. Democrats contend that the errors suggest a
manual recount of ballots would show Gore actually won Florida.
A computer analysis of election returns suggests there were anomalies in the
Florida vote, particularly in African American areas. The more black and
Democratic a precinct, the more likely it was to have high rates of invalidated
votes.
About 40 percent of the state's black voters were new voters, and election
experts say they were the most vulnerable to confusion about oddly designed
ballots. Moreover, a higher percentage of blacks than whites live in counties with
voting machines more prone to not counting a vote.
Similarly, African American voters are somewhat more likely to live in areas
where poll workers do not immediately check ballots for errors - so blacks were
less likely than whites to get a chance to correct their ballots if they messed them
up.
"We keep talking about every vote counts, and, boy, I feel like mine doesn't
count," said Lon Fanniel, 40, a retired Marine captain from Jacksonville. He fears
confusion over the ballot led him to accidentally leave two marks for president,
invalidating his vote for Gore.
One factor that may have added to the high rate of invalidated votes: the
NAACP's massive turnout drive in Florida, which brought many first-time voters
to the polls. In all, 893,000 African Americans cast ballots on Nov. 7 in Florida, a
65 percent jump over 1996.
Another possible factor: Florida listed an unusually high 10 presidential tickets,
which led to confusing ballot designs in some counties.
A prime example is Duval, where a ballot that perplexingly spread presidential
names over two pages led to many accidental double votes, which are
automatically voided. Although Bush carried the county 58-41 percent, the
spoiled ballots were concentrated in African American sections of downtown
Jacksonville that went heavily for Gore.
In white precincts, about 1 in 14 ballots was thrown out because of double voting,
but in largely black precincts more than 1 in 5 ballots were spoiled - and in some
black precincts it was almost one-third.
There are several reasons why a voting machine would not record a vote. A voter
might have decided not to vote for president or could have mistakenly voted for
two candidates, which automatically disqualifies a ballot and is called an
"overvote"; or failed to mark the ballot cleanly (which, along with the ballots
deliberately left unmarked, is known as an "undervote").
In Duval, the official sample ballot designed by the Republican election supervisor
explicitly instructed people to "Vote all pages" on the ballot - which apparently led
thousands of people to invalidate their ballots, because the list of presidential
candidates was spread over two pages. Generally, election officials try to list
candidates for one office in one column on one page to avoid confusion.
Sharon Lewis of Jacksonville went to the polls with her son Ernest, 18, a high
school senior casting his first vote. She was mortified when her son told her
proudly, "I voted on every page." This meant that he had voted for more than one
presidential candidate. She said they complained to poll workers, but to no avail.
"He had that 'I Voted' sticker on his shirt - the only kid at his school who voted,"
Lewis said. "But his vote didn't count."
Experts say new voters are the most likely to be confused if a ballot lists more
than about six names for one office. After that, confusion rises exponentially with
each name added. Florida ballots listed 10 presidential candidates - which tied for
the most with four states.
Black Floridians also were more likely to face unforgiving voting equipment.
About 34 percent of white voters but only about 26 percent of black voters live in
counties where ballots are verified as soon as they are cast - so poll workers can
immediately tell voters they disqualified ballots, and voters have a second chance
to vote a valid ballot.
"Poor people are more likely to invalidate ballots" because of difficulty mastering
punch-card systems, said Herb Asher, an Ohio State University voting expert
who studied the issue in 1978, when Ohio first used the machines. Voters in
affluent suburbs invalidated their ballots 2 percent of the time, Asher said, while
voters in Dayton's poor areas did so up to 20 percent of the time.
For decades, about 2 percent of ballots cast nationally have not recorded a
presidential vote. But in Florida this year, the rate was 2.9 percent. In 21 of
Florida's 67 counties, the ratio of disqualified votes to total votes cast was more
than 6 percent. The largest numbers of disqualified and double votes were in
mostly Democratic and black areas. |
