From the WSJ Opinion Archives
It's Not an African Country
Will "chads" really choose the president?
No, the sparsely populated country just south of Libya has not all of a sudden started making news. Rather, the talk about different types of "chad" is at the center of the current vote count firestorm in Florida, and how it's handled will probably determine who the next president is.
A chad is the small perforated portion of a paper ballot that voters use a stylus to punch out and thus indicate their choice of candidate. But not all chads are created equal. If a chad is punched completely out, a computer registers a vote. But many voters don't vote for every office, either because they don't know about any of the candidates or are disgusted with all of them. In a very few cases, the stylus doesn't completely punch through and the little pieces of chad stay stuck to the ballots. In some cases machines can't read them.
As ABC News points out, there are about a half dozen different types of chads. There is the "pregnant chad," the "dimpled chad," the "tri chad" (with three corners hanging loose from the ballot), the "swinging-door chad" (two corners) and the "hanging-door chad" (one corner). Chad shouldn't really exist in this country because for at least 25 years optical scanners have been available to count votes. A voter fills in an oval with a lead pencil, takes it to a scanner which then shows any problems with how the ballot was filled out. Some new machines allow the voter to carry home a copy of how he voted.
In Leon County, Florida (Tallahassee), optical scanners worked like a charm this year. A machine recount of all county ballots this week resulted in not a single change to any vote total. Unfortunately, only about 7% of the country uses such scanners. A full 37% of all voters are stuck with punch cards and chads, technology decades old and prone to problems. Some counties keep punch cards because new voting technology takes a back seat to other budget priorities, although perhaps the current crisis will change that shortsighted attitude.
Make no mistake about it. A recount of punch card ballots can be one of the most grueling, subjective and confrontational events in politics. The problem, ballot experts say, is that trying to divine a voter's intentions on a secret ballot is often inherently subjective. As former Sen. Alan Simpson told us, "Some counties use the 'sunshine test' to see if sun will shine through the ballot chad indicating it's loose. Others will go on about how many dangled and how many are hung, how many got pimpled or pregnant or gave birth."
Another problem comes from "ballot fatigue." The more that punch-card ballots are handled, even carefully, the more votes you will get, and the greater the chance of changing an election outcome. The mere act of running punch-card ballots through a computer will loosen some chads. Picking up a card from a pile and sliding it toward you can loosen a chad. Cup the ballot in a hand and a chad can pop out. If the fragile ballots are "tortured" enough by machine or hand a desired result can often be achieved.
In Florida, the three-member Palm Beach canvassing commission has no clear standards set in state law on how they will conduct a recount of punch-card ballots. The two Democrats changed their mind twice on what standard to use in the sample recount of four precincts done on Saturday. In the morning, they indicated a ballot would be valid of only one corner was detached from the card. Then they decided to go with a "sunlight" test, in which ballots were held up to the light. Midway through the count, the standard was liberalized and they discontinued the "sunlight" test and went back to the one-corner standard. The new standard required them to go back and recount all the ballots they had just ruled on.
In the end, this shifting standard produced enough changes in vote totals to prompt a 2-1 vote in favor of a countywide recount that will begin Monday. At the speed the sample recount went, it would take Palm Beach County workers 37 days working 24 hours a day to complete the task.
None of the problems associated with recounts prove that election bureaucracies tilt toward one party or candidate. But election workers are often underpaid and overworked as well as unfamiliar with all the mechanics of a recount. They are often no match for sharp, aggressive lawyers who can make their life miserable if they don't bend in their direction on interpreting ballots. Arnold Steinberg, a GOP pollster in California, recalls a 1980 election that turned into a nighmare. Democratic Rep. James Corman, heir apparent to take over the House Ways and Means Committee, had been defeated by Republican Bobbi Fiedler, and Democrats wanted the seat back.
"The other side can send observers and lawyers who filibuster and wear both you and the vote counters down," he recalls. "We had grown-women observers cry from the abuse, and lawyers for the other candidate even refused to halt the counting to let them go to the bathroom."
Even though representatives of the candidates weren't allowed to touch the ballots, they often did anyway. "They would eyeball a ballot without any chads for that office missing and pick it up vigorously in hopes they could make it pop out," says Tom Bartman, a lawyer who worked on the recount with Mr. Steinberg. Ultimately, the Democrats halted the recount when it became clear Ms. Fiedler's 749-vote margin of victory was insurmountable.
As a young journalist, I too witnessed a disastrous recount in California in the 1980s. A state Assembly seat near Stockton went to Republican Adrian Fondse by 39 votes. A first recount narrowed the margin but still left Mr. Fondse the winner. He was sworn into office a month after the election. But then a second "hand" recount began. Democrats sent in the same tough team of lawyers that had handled the Corman-Fiedler recount. They were equally obnoxious and aggressive, with the difference that the number of votes they had to make up were much smaller. After more than a week of trench warfare and intimidation of election workers, the adjusted recount gave the election to Democrat Pat Johnston. Mr. Fondse was removed. He cleaned out his office, and Mr. Johnston moved in.
No party has a monopoly on bad behavior when it comes to recounts. In 1995 Indiana's GOP state legislators ran roughshod over the rights of a Democrat who had knocked off a GOP incumbent. They ended up not seating her and ruled enough ballots invalid to install her opponent in office. But Sean Cavanagh, a Democratic commissioner in Fayette County, Pa., says Democrats seem to be naturally born to fight longer and harder over contested races.
That kind of combat often works in reversing narrow election losses in recounts for lower offices. But in the case of Florida deciding who the next president is, such hardball tactics will likely both educate and irritate a weary public. "I say there are three things that people should never see being made," says former Sen. Simpson. "Laws, sausages and recounts." We're all about to see how ugly the recounting factory of Palm Beach is going to get.
