Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2019 May 3

Miscellaneous desk
< May 2	<< Apr | May | Jun >>	May 4 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Miscellaneous Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

May 3

Ballots

Hello, some of you, please, tell me what kind of ballots these are. If they are punched ballots or opti scan ballots? They are the overseas votes of Palm Beach County, rejected by machines, during the 2000 American presidential elections. I honestly can't understand. Thanks a lot. https://www.gettyimages.it/detail/fotografie-di-cronaca/this-photo-taken-by-public-information-fotografie-di-cronaca/110401828?adppopup=true

Palm Beach County used punch ballots. It was a very famous case because they increased the font size on the ballots that year. With increased font size, the holes were smaller than the text. Therefore, a name would partially overlap extra holes above and/or below the hole that should be punched. That caused some people to punch two holes to make sure they got the right one - which makes the vote invalid. 12.207.168.3 (talk) 13:35, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, I meant the overseas ballots. Are you referring to those?

Absentee ballots (which would be an oversea ballot) are hand-written. Therefore, they are counted by hand - if counted at all. State laws come into play. In most states, if the electronic count shows enough difference between the candidates, it is not necessary to count absentee ballots by hand. In that particular county, it was a very close election, so absentee ballots were counted. However, it was also noted that many absentee ballots were submitted for people that also showed up and voted electronically. So, the electronic vote was accepted and the absentee ballot was excluded per state law. 12.207.168.3 (talk) 14:18, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

I may have understood, but I may also have misunderstood. From what you say, the voters have handwritten the name of their candidate, haven't they done any punching on the ballot?

Ordinary ballots are punched by the voter using a machine at the voting booth: an absentee/overseas handwritten ballot would not be punched because, by definition, the voter was not at a voting booth and therefore had no access to a machine. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.2.132 (talk) 15:43, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

There are two different kinds of punch ballots: There were ones which used a special machine to punch, and ones with pre-perforated holes that the voter used a special stick or stylus to punch out the pre-perforated holes. The contested ballots in Florida, IIRC, were of the second type. --Jayron32 15:48, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

The OP is asking about the physical form of the overseas ballots. Unfortunately I cannot find the answer to this in any of the articles 2000 United States presidential election, Bush v. Gore, and Chad (paper). But maybe the OP could find the answer in the articles in the see-also section or the references section of one of thise articles. Note that it is not necessarily true that non-computer-countable ballots were used–it’s possible that the voters received punch-card ballots along with a stylus to punch them. Loraof (talk) 18:48, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Thank you so much guys! You have all been very helpful, thanks to everyone. Now, I'm not very practical and excuse the rough ways: I once knew how to juggle myself on Wikipedia. Your kindness deserves at least a substantial gratitude. And a signature, a pseudonym, just not to be rude. Thanks again and many beautiful things. Andrew Foley