COOK COUNTY: MANY PARTIAL AND SPOILED BALLOTS
News/Current Events News Keywords: ILLINOIS COOK COUNTY, ELECTION, SPOLIED BALLOT
Source: Chicago Sun-Times
Published: 11/14/2000 Author: SCOTT FORNEK AND ABDON M. PALLASCH
Posted on 11/14/2000 05:02:03 PST by Prince Charles
Many partial, spoiled ballots
November 14, 2000
BY SCOTT FORNEK AND ABDON M. PALLASCH, STAFF REPORTERS
Cook County--home of the notorious "butterfly" ballot--was more likely than any other Chicago area county to have voters who skipped the presidential
contest on their ballots last week or mistakenly chose more than one candidate.
City and suburban officials said 122,859 of the 1,987,954 people who cast ballots in the county either did not punch a choice in the top contest or spoiled
their ballot for that race by punching more than one hole.
In Chicago, the 72,934 ballots represented 7.1 percent of all ballots cast. In suburban Cook, the 49,925 ballots were 5.2 percent of the total.
Comparable figures in the other five counties ranged from 0.4 percent for McHenry to 2.5 percent for Will, according to a Chicago Sun-Times analysis of
last week's vote.
Election officials in Cook County conceded the numbers were higher than normal. But they could not provide an explanation for
the discrepancy or a breakdown, so it was impossible to tell if the absence of votes was largely voluntary or a problem voters had
with the ballots.
Cook County Clerk David Orr said the ballots could reflect voters who chose write-in candidates for president, mistakenly chose two candidates for
president, just came out to vote for a judge or county candidate or did not fully punch the appropriate slot on the ballot.
"No one is really sure, because we have secret ballots," Orr said.
Orr also said some people with government jobs make a public show of voting to satisfy their precinct captains, but then don't cast a complete ballot.
Cook County, unlike surrounding suburban counties, used a ballot that featured candidates on both sides of the page. A similar one in Palm Beach County,
Fla., created an uproar among voters who think they either voted for the wrong candidate or punched more than one choice.
But unlike the so-called Florida "butterfly" ballot, the Cook County version did not split the presidential candidates between facing pages.
Both Orr and Tom Leach, spokesman for the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, said they think most of the 122,859 ballots were not spoiled
ballots, but rather people choosing not to make a presidential pick.
"Maybe they didn't like the candidates," Leach said.
Orr said the problem of spoiled ballots could be solved if voters were allowed to feed their ballots directly into the counting machine. The machine could be
programmed to spit out any double-punched or otherwise spoiled ballots.
The new equipment that debuted on Election Day allows that possibility, but it would require approval from the Legislature. Current law requires voters to
hand their ballots to election judges, who drop them into a box and run them through counting machines after the polls close.
"Given what happened in Florida, it would certainly be nice to know that we had this added protection," Orr said.
Other Jurisdictions, Including Daley's Chicago, Use Palm-Beach-Style Ballot
Butterfly Ballot Doesn't Baffle School Kids
By Joseph A. D’Agostino
The Gore Democrats are trying to reverse the outcome of a U.S. presidential election with the
argument that a ballot that is not confusing to grammar school children nonetheless stumped the
electorate in Palm Beach County, Fla.
Even though it was designed and approved by Democratic Elections Supervisor Theresa LePore,
and broadly published and distributed as a sample prior to the election, Palm Beach County’s
"butterfly" ballot has been utilized by the Gore camp as a weapon to undo the machine-counted
election returns.
LePore adopted the ballot, which puts the names of presidential candidates in two columns instead
of one, so the text would be larger and more easily read by senior citizens.
The ballot, which called for voters to punch a hole between the columns of candidate names, is
not unusual.
Gore partisans have cited the supposedly large number of ballots double-punched or left
blank for President in Palm Beach–and therefore not counted under Florida law–as
evidence the election was tainted, and the outcome changed, by the design of the ballot.
But in Cook Co. (Chicago), Ill., 120,503 ballots out of nearly 2 million votes cast for
President November 7 were not counted because that section was left blank or
double-punched. In Palm Beach, only 30,000 ballots out of 462,657 were blank or
double-punched for President. Both counties had a disqualification rate of about 6.5%.
This year 19,120 ballots were double-punched for President in Palm Beach. But, in
1996, when there was a smaller turnout, 14,872 were doubled-punched.
Republican-leaning Duval Co., Fla. had 22,000 ballots double-punched for President this
year and 5,000 left blank. That was a 9% disqualification rate. But the Gore Democrats
are not making a stink there because Bush won 59% in the county.
Pat Buchanan’s 3,407 votes in Palm Beach have been labeled excessive, but facts
relevant to that story have gone largely unreported (see page 7).
Harvard Law professors Phil Heymann and Alan Dershowitz have charged that the Palm
Beach Co. ballot is illegal under Florida law, which supposedly requires that the hole be
to the right of a candidate’s name. "This is indeed the rule for paper ballots, which can be
long enough to accommodate a big list of candidates in one column," responded fellow
Harvard Law Prof. Einer Elhauge in a November 13 piece in the Wall Street Journal.
"But electronic or machine ballots are often too short to put candidates in one column, and
there is no rule that requires them to be marked on the right." Elhauge also noted that
Heymann, writing in a November 10 Washington Post op-ed, had removed through
ellipses the words "as far as practicable" from this quote from Florida law on machine
ballots: "The ballot information shall as far as practicable be in the order of arrangement
provided for paper ballots."
In various experiments conducted around the country last week, schoolchildren had little
difficulty understanding and using butterfly ballots. Second-graders in Leesburg, Ga.,
voted for their favorite Disney character using a butterfly ballot. "School psychologist
Ron McGee asked the 8-year-olds at Lee County Elementary to vote for their favorite
Disney character, using a ballot similar to the one that has caused controversy in Palm
Beach County, Fla.," reported the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "He said not one of his
74 young voters marked a choice they did not intend to mark on the ballot, which
instructed them only to ‘Check the box for the one you choose.’" Thirteen 4th graders at
Fairfax Christian School in the Washington, D.C., area were able to "mark the circle for
Al Gore" within a minute with no problems. First and fourth graders were tested at
Stockwell Elementary in Bossier City, La., with copies of the actual Palm Beach ballot
taken off the Internet. All 22 fourth graders had no problem. But, when told to pick
Gore, three of 24 first graders mistakenly picked Buchanan while one mistakenly picked
Bush and one the Natural Law Party’s candidate.
Butterfly ballots have been used elsewhere in Florida and around the country. In 1998,
one was used in Lee County, Fla., according to the Fort Myers News-Press. "The style
of ballot used by Palm Beach County–called the ‘butterfly’–isn’t unusual and has been
used in Lee County with no problems," Elections Supervisor Philinda Young said. In
Ohio and in Chicago–whose mayor is the brother of Gore campaign chairman William
Daley–butterfly ballots were used this year. Said William Daley on CNN on November
12: "That ballot is for judicial retention in which the people don’t run against an opponent;
they run for retention and all they need to get is 60% of the vote. It has nothing to do with
the vote for President." In Ohio, according to the office of Secretary of State Kenneth
Blackwell, 75% of voters used a butterfly ballot, but only for local races and ballot
initiatives.
© Human Events, 20 |
