2004 Ohio Irregularities - Spoiled Ballots

From dKosopedia

Categories: Ohio | 2004 elections

• 93,000 punch cards were cast, but a vote for president was not counted. The votes were not counted either because the voter voted for more than one candidate or did not vote for a presidential candidate. These ballots would normally not be re-examined, but since there will be a recount, they will be examined for voter intent.

• This article shows that in some counties, precincts where Kerry had a higher vote were more likely to have undervotes. Since that's comparing those precincts to other precincts with the same voting machines, it can't be explained by the normal rate of problems with those machines.

Ohio has a uniform, statewide system for recounting punch card ballots. Hanging chads and dimpled chads are treated uniformly throughout the state. Unconfirmed reports are that dangling (one-corner) chads are counted, while hanging (two-corner) chads and dimpled or one-corner chads are not counted - which would be a pretty conservative standard.

According to this article, a 2000 study looked at spoiled ballots, and found that while they were much more likely to happen in Democratic areas, Bush still got a third of the ballots in the most Democratic precincts. This means that the most we might be able to reasonably hope for from the spoiled ballots is making up 30,000 votes. However, evidence is starting to come out showing that there are problems with these undervotes that don't fit the normal margins. Kerry might make up more.