ABCNEWS.com : Presidency Hinges on Chad ABCNEWS.com Nov. 12  Who will be the next president of the United States? Chad may decide. What is chad? It is the tiny scored portion of a paper ballot that voters punch out using a small stylus to indicate their preference for a candidate. If a chad is punched completely out of the card, counting machines register each hole as a vote. But sometimes the tiny pieces of paper stay partially or completely stuck to the ballots  which may make it impossible for machines to read them. Hence, the controversial recount of thousands of ballots in several Florida counties that could decide who wins the presidential election. There are a half dozen different varieties of chad, including pregnant chads, dimpled chads, tri chads, swinging door chads and, of course, hanging door chads. A hanging door chad, for example, has one corner still attached to the ballot. A dimpled chad is indented, but still fully attached. Chads were punched and partially punched all across the nation on Election Day, as several states use the punch-card voting system.

But Floridian chads are particularly pertinent as election officials prepare to recount by hand, one-by-one, the more than 400,000 ballots cast in Palm Beach County. Much Ado About Counting That manual recount is set to begin Monday, but the chad controversy reared its head on Saturday as the county canvassing board tallied votes from four sample Palm Beach County precincts. Florida election statutes state that, in a recount, the canvassing boars should try to discern the intent of the voter, when considering questionable ballots  but it does not specify how. The question is, what do you do? Does the chad have to be punched all the way out? Do you look at a dimple  is that enough? Leon St. John, a Palm Beach County attorney explained Saturday. Its within the discretion of the canvassing board. In 1990, the Palm Beach County canvassing board adopted a procedure stating that a fully attached chad, bearing only an indentation, should not be counted as a vote, while a partially punched chad should be counted.

So, in the morning, it was decided that a ballot would be counted as a valid vote if at least one corner of a chad had been punched. But midway through the painstaking process, the canvassing board decided to go with the light test. Officials then began holding questionable ballots up to the light in order to determine their validity. Apparently, the test they were applying was if you could see light, explained St. John. If light shined through, it was counted as a vote; if there was no light, it wasnt counted. It seemed a simple enough standard, but the problem with the light test is that a ballot with a chad that has only one corner detached may not allow any light through, even though, by the original standard, it should be counted as a vote. They decided to not go with the light test, but to go with the test thats reflected on the procedures where, if one of the four corners of the chad is detached, then that will be a vote, explained St. John. But what about the hundreds of ballots that were already subjected to the light test?

They are going to go back and go through the stack of the questioned ballots from the first batch, St. John said last night. And so they did. And at around 2 a.m. ET, the new tallies for the four precincts were announced, adding 14 votes to George W. Bushs original total and 33 to Al Gores. That discrepancy prompted the canvassing board to vote 2 to 1 in favor of ordering a recount for the full county. Win lose or draw, joked former Sen. Alan Simpson, a Bush supporter, the people of America sure as hell better wonder about the sunlight test and how many dangled and how many hung and how may got pimpled or how many were pregnant and gave birth. Palm Beach Recount Guidelines Chad: The scored portion of a ballot card that is punched out when a voter casts a vote. Hanging Door Chad: One corner is still attached to the ballot. (Counted as a vote). Swinging Door Chad: Two corners are still attached to the ballot. (Counted as a vote). Tri Chad: Three corners are still attached to the ballot.

(Counted as a vote). Dimpled Chad: Indented but still fully attached to the ballot. (Not counted as a vote). Pregnant Chad: Pierced but still fully attached to the ballot. (Not counted as a vote). The Gore camp has also demanded hand recounts in three other heavily Democratic Florida counties. The recount in Volusia County got underway this morning; Broward County officials will begin a manual recount of ballots from three sample precincts on Monday; and Miami-Dade County officials are set to meet Tuesday to discuss the matter. All three counties use the punch-card system. But the Bush campaign has gone to federal court to seek an injunction that would block any additional hand recounts. Former Secretary of State James Baker  who is overseeing the Florida recount on behalf of the Bush camp  says a manual recounts can make for an even more innacurate tally. How do you divine the intent of the voter on that voting card with those little punch holes? he said today on NBCs Meet the Press. Youre divining the intent of the voter with respect to whether it has two chads hanging down or whether its punched or whether it has an indentation?

I mean, thats crazy. Warren Christopher, also a former secretary of state, is overseeing the process for Vice President Gore. These are local election officials chosen by the people in their counties  theyre doing the very best they can, he said, referring to the Palm Beach County election officials. I think its not very useful to parody what theyre trying to do. Machine recounts in 66 of Floridas 67 counties showed Bush with a 961 vote lead statewide, according to the secretary of state. An unofficial survey of all 67 counties by the Voter News Service showed the Republican candidate with a 327 vote edge. The Gore campaign hopes there are enough ballots with unattached or hanging chads next to Gores name to give him the lead in Florida  and with it, the presidency. Here is a diagram showing how the different kinds of chad look: What is a Hanging Chad? (with pictures) What is a Hanging Chad?

Last Modified Date: 24 December 2016 Copyright Protected: These 10 facts about space will blow your mind A hanging chad refers to a small piece of paper intended to be punched from a larger sheet of paper, but still remaining attached. The term came into general public discourse during the 2000 United States (US) presidential election when unusually close voting numbers resulted in a hand recount of thousands of ballots in Florida. During this time, there was a great deal of discussion regarding the eligibility of ballots that had a hanging chad instead of a cleanly punched hole, to indicate the voter’s choice of candidate. The term has remained in popular usage, especially among political commentators and figures within popular culture. The 2000 US election featured a hotly debated contest between then Vice President Al Gore and Texas Governor George W. Bush. On the night of the election, the state of Florida became the center of national attention, as exit polling indicated that Gore had won in Florida and these results were stated by several television networks. Several hours later, however, more votes were tallied and the initial prediction was retracted and changed to “too close to call” by the television broadcasts.

A few hours after that, the state was declared to have gone to Bush and he was named the next president-elect by several stations. This was before some of the more prominently pro-Gore districts had been tallied, however, and the results were eventually found to be so close that a hand recount was required by law before a final result could be given. Though the recount eventually ended under a storm of controversy, the process introduced the general public to the hanging chad and shone a new light on American politics. During this recount process, the methods used to vote on ballots in Florida were brought into the national spotlight, and the hanging chad came into the group consciousness of the US. The method used to indicate a chosen candidate on the Florida ballots involved pressing a metal piece through the paper ballot to punch out a hole for the preferred candidate. In many cases, this was done cleanly and the desired candidate was obvious to even a casual observer. Other ballots, however, were not as easily tallied and these became the source of much debate, frustration and controversy. In situations where the chad, the small piece of paper punched out by a voter, was not cleanly separated from the ballot, the result was referred to as a hanging chad.

For a four-cornered chad, the term is usually used only in situations where a single corner is still attached to the paper. As the process made national headlines, however, the phrase was used commonly and the hanging chad became synonymous both with the actual paper pieces themselves and with a sense of the general breakdown of election procedures. Ad Douglas W. Jones's chad page , CONFETTI . 2. the pieces of cardstock punched out by a keypunch, as used with punched-card data processing: CHIPS . 3. any waste produced by a paper punch. 4. the punchings produced by a Votomatic voting device, when used with pre-scored machine readable punched-card ballots. Chad began as a collective noun, like chaff and wheat. An individual punching from paper or cardstock is a piece of chad, as with a grain of wheat or a flake of chaff. The plural form CHADS emerged very early, however, and implies the use of the singular CHAD to refer to an individual punching.

Historical usage within IBM appears to have favored CHIPS as the term for punchings for punched cards, but it seems that paper-tape machines, particularly teletypes, have had chad boxes (to catch the chad under the paper tape punch mechanism) for years, although in the 1920's, the term used in that domain was punchings. U.S. Patent 1,884,755, filed on Oct. 16, 1930 by H. L. Krum for a "Coupon Printer" (actually, a teletype receiver) refers to a "receptacle or chad box ... to receive the chips cut from the edge of the tape." (See page 7, line 106.) The term became common in patents for teletype machines a few years later. See, for example, U.S. Patent 2,213,475, filed on July 18, 1938 by A. H. Reiber for a "Telegraph Transmitter". Here, the reference is to a "chaff or chad chute" to collect the punchings from punched paper tape.

By the 1960's, the term chad was widely used to describe the chips from keypunches, and every keypunch had a chad box fed by a chad chute. The theory that chad is a back formation from the surname Chadless must have begun a joke, as did the theory that the name is an acronym for "card hole aggregate debris". There were chadless paper tape punches. They were designed so that the chad remained attached to the tape, an example of what later came to be called hanging chad, although in this case, it was deliberate and did not cause read errors. U.S. Patent 2,246,655 for a tape splicer, filed Feb. 20, 1940 by W. M. Bacon, contains this definition of chad on page 1, column 2: Most of the message transmitting tape in general use has permutation code combinations stored therein in the form of round perforations. These perforations are formed by feeding blank tape through a perforator which punches small round holes in the tape to represent the permutation code signals.

In making these perforations, the perforator cuts small round pieces of paper, known in the art as chads, out of the tape. These chads are objectionable as they accumulate in the perforator and must be removed periodically. For this reason and also for other reasons, it is desirable to store signals in tape without forming chads. Chadless tape is prepared by feeding blank tape through a device which will not punch a complete circle in the tape but, instead, will only cut approximately three-quarters of the circumfrence of a circle for each element of the permutaiton code thereby leaving a movable, or hinged, lid of paper in the tape. Since no chads are formed by this method, this type of transmitting tape is known in the art as chadless tape and the signals formed in this type of tape are known as chadless permutation code signals. There was never a chadless keypunch! The classic IBM punched card readers of the first half of the 20th century were prone to jams, and a piece of hanging chad, particularly one firmly hinged at one end, would have almost certainly guaranteed a jam.

Only with the advent of the vacuum pick, as most fully developed in the Documation card reader in the early 1970's, did hanging chad become something that would not jam the reader and might even survive a trip through the mechanism. (sense 4) that is only partially detatched from the card from which it was punched: TRAPDOOR CHAD (if hanging by 2 corners), DANGLING CHAD (if hanging by 1 corner). The hanging chad shown in Figure 2 was punched from a pre-scored punched-card ballot using a paperclip. In all cases, the resulting chad hangs in the trapdoor configuration, that is, hinged on two corners. In no case did the punch actually detatch the chad! The cleanly punched hole on the lower left was made by manually stripping the piece of chad from the card, while exactly 3 other holes in this photo were, in fact, punched, and then the chad was pushed back into the holes during subsequent handling.

When pre-scored cards are used with a Votomatic voting fixture, the pin or stylus used to punch the card is centered over the pre-scored piece of chad, so that it pushes down very near the exact middle of the rectangle while both ends of the rectangle are supported from the back by structures called T-strips. As a result, after the punch tears one end of the chad loose, the piece of chad is supposed to fold over the tip of the punch, so that the follow-through of the punch tears the other two corners of the chad loose. An animation of the punching process on a Votomatic machine is available. Figure 3: Another perspective on hanging chad. Many votes cast on a Votomatic punch may begin as hanging chad that is stripped from the ballot by the followthrough of the voting stylus. When the T-strip mechanism fails to do its job, the chad is usually stripped from the ballot as the ballot is removed from the fixture.

The elastomeric T-strips used in a modern Votomatic voting machine provide enough back pressure on the piece of chad that the chad does not usually slide on the T-strips, and as a result, the paper fibers at all four corners usually tear free together. Where dangling chad is found, however, it most likely began as trapdoor chad that was partially removed during subsequent handling. Seen from the back, it is not always easy to tell which pieces of chad have been pushed back into the holes from which they originally came, but from the front, under a 10x loupe, it is sometimes easy to tell. The key thing to look for is loose fibers sticking inward over the corners of the replaced pieces of chad. In a virgin punch position, where the chad has never been torn free, these fibers are tightly integrated into the paper. Once the chad is torn free, it is impossible to weave these fibers back into the body of the sheet of cardstock, so they must sit on the surface when the chad is pushed back into the hole. It is worth noting that Peter K. Sheerin has also recommended use of magnification for the resolution of questions about chad.

His web page, Dimpled Chads Under the Microscope , demonstrates how to distinguish between dimpled chad that was created using a voting stylus and that created using an ad-hoc stylus such as might be done by an election worker intent on fraud. The key elements he notes are the signature pinhole created by the microtip on the stylus and the imprint of the circular edge of the stylus. I have verified that these details are generally visible under a 10x loupe, although the pinhole created by the microtip is very hard to see if it is in the black spot printed in the center of each bit of chad on the standard Votomatic ballot. Figure 4: Dimpled chad on a Votomatic ballot. Pregnant Chad, n. 1. a dimple in a punched card ballot formed by a punching stylus that did not successfully dislodge a rectangle of CHAD (sense 4) from the card: DIMPLED CHAD BULGING CHAD , None of my experiments with unsupported ballots produced what has come, since the Florida recounts of the year 2000, to be called pregnant chad.

The example in Figure 4 was created, with some difficulty, using a Data-Punch machine, a Votomatic-style machine made by Election Data Corp. of St. Charles Illinois, with a microtip stylus. The mechanism of this model is substantially the same as that of the Votomatic machines that were subject to so much controversy in the year 2000. It is noteworthy that the force needed to dislodge chad from the card was not sufficient to dimple or deform the chad in any of my experiments done outside of Data-Punch or Votomatic machines. Close inspection under a 10x magnifier did not even reveal scratches on the ballot surface! In all cases, the chad ripped free at the corners and remained almost flat. The Data-Punch machine used to create the pregnant chad shown in Figure 4 was not new, the T-strips had some wear, but there was no chad in the fixture's chad box. Under these conditions, the force required to dimple the ballot (as measured by feel) was greater than the force needed to continue the downstroke and rip the chad free.

Because of this, most attempts to create pregnant chad led to clean punches, and only when extreme care was taken to limit the stroke of the punching stylus, for example, by holding it with one fingertip resting on the guard sheet while punching, was it possible to create an example of pregnant chad. In some cases, the easiest ways to control the stroke of the stylus is to push it diagonally so that the friction on the guide plate helps control the depth of the stroke. At the request of the Palm Beach Post , as reported in the January 13, 2001 edition, Professor Jose Villanueva of Florida Atlantic University conducted experiments on the force required to dimple and cleanly punch Votomatic ballots. He found that it takes, on the average, it takes 11.5 ounces of force on the punching stylus to create a clean punch using a Votomatic fixture, and 12.8 ounces using a Data-Punch fixture. The chad begins to fold over the tip of the stylus at about 6.4 ounces, and at around 10 ounces, the chad begins to tear loose at the corners.

In my experiments with a Data-Punch fixture, the center pin on the stylus began to leave an imprint on the chad at 4 or 5 ounces, and the chad remained bent after being subject to stylus forces of from 8 to 9 ounces. At 11 to 12 ounces, the chad remained bent enough that light was visible around the edges; the force required to bend the chad this far was higher when the stylus was slightly off to the side of the rectangle of chad. At 12 ounces, on all cards tested, it was clearly evident that a crease was starting to develop prependicular to the long axis of the chad through the imprint of the pinpoint. At 15 to 16 ounces 2 corners of the chad tore loose; when the stylus was off center to one side or the other the two corners nearest the stylus tore. When the punch was centered, the other two corners tore loose at 16 ounces. Because the backing strips on my Data-punch fixture were old and hard, it took 12 to 14 ounces to drive the punch between the T-strips without a card in the fixture.

With a card, it took 19 to 21 ounces, depending on the local state of the T-strips. When the stylus was centered, punching forces of over 16 ounces that did not drive the chad through the T-strips almost always tore all four corners, so that the chand could be blown out of the card. Sometimes, a few fibers remained at one corner, producing a very loose dangling bit of chad. When the stylus was off center, though, only two corners generally tore. On the other hand, at forces above 20 ounces, the even where the chad remained in the card, the round imprint of the edges of the stylus was visible under 10x magnification as a pair of "crescent moon" imprints on opposite sides of the central dimple. It takes well over 30 ounces of force, well above what I could apply with my experimental apparatus, to drive the stylus through the score line around a piece of chad or to drive the stylus through the card away from a pre-scored piece of chad. At 30 ounces, the tip of the stylus was deeply imprinted in the card.

A properly functioning Votomatic punching fixture should fold the chad over the tip of the stylus The pregnant chad in the photograph above illustrates the beginning of such a fold. A simple fold in paper or cardstock generally takes less force to produce than a dimple with radial symmetry, and in fact, no such dimples were produced using the Data-Punch fixture in these experiments. The Risk of Chad Jams Given these observations, it seems unlikely that a significant number of voters would create pregnant chad on a properly maintained Votomatic machine. The only abnormal circumstances I can imagine that might lead to this outcome involve some kind of back pressure against the ballot, supporting the rectangle of chad so that it cannot tear free from the surrounding cardboard while the voter pushes from above. The obvious source for such back pressure is a pile of chad behind one voting position on the ballot blocking attempts to punch that position. Figure 5: The mechanism of a Votomatic punch, seen from the back.

A story published in the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel on December 1, 2000, "Minority, senior votes are most rejected" by Stacey Singer, John Maines and Scot Wyman presents some evidence that such piles of chad were problems in some south-Florida polling places during the contested presidential election. The article went on to quote David Beirne, of the Broward County Florida election office, who stated that the chad box on each Votomatic punch should be able to hold on the order of 50,000 bits of chad. Looking into this, I disassembled a Votomatic voting machine made by Computer Election Systems Incorporated, and found that it has a horizontal steel brace across the back of the mechanism. This brace is behind punch positions 4 and 5 (assigned, respectively, to Pat Buchanan and Al Gore on the now infamous Palm Beach County butterfly ballot). As a result, while there was room for a huge volume of chad behind the other punch positions, probably more than the 50,000 pieces quoted, it seemed that it might be possible to block these positions after only a few hundred votes!

This could explain the complaints from voters about their need to repeatedly force the voting stylus before it would punch through the card. In casting 450 experimental votes in position 5 on a 228 position Votomatic ballot, starting with a clean Votomatic machine, there were no jams that required hammering, but at several points during the experiment, there was a small added resistance to punching as minor chad jams were pushed aside. When the machine was opened after the experiment, there was a large but loosely packed body of chad between the support brace and the bottom sides of the T-strips, and chad was wedged between the T-strips for a distance of several centimeters above and below ballot position 5. Figure 6: A chad jam in a Votomatic punch, seen from behind. Repeating the experiment using position 119 on a 228 position Votomatic ballot, an impenetrable chad jam developed after 317 votes. Positions 43, 119 and 195 are midway between positions 4 and 5 along the long dimension of a 228 position Votomatic ballot.

The metal brace across the back of the machine was not the cause of of this jam, but rather, the plastic brace above the metal brace. This jam is shown in Figure 6, as it looked prior to attempting to clear it by hammering. Both the edge of the metal brace and the plastic brace are visible. This jam would not yield to hammering, but hammering compacted it enough that the next 39 votes were cast successfully. Inserting or removing the ballot card sometimes pulled the top few pieces of chad off of the jam, and in many cases where it was obvious that the chad punched into the jam was not removed from the card by the punch, it did pull free as the card was pulled out of the machine. Repeating this experiment on position 100 of a 228 position ballot using a Data-Punch machine gave a firm jam that produced a similar quality of dimpled chad after 668 punches. Positions 24, 100 and 176 have the same relationship to one of the plastic cross braces inside the Data-Punch machine as position 119 has to a brace inside the Votomatic machine.

On both machines, some chad occasionally pulled loose from the top of the chad jam as the card was removed; this frequently remained in the mechanism above the T-strips. On inserting the next ballot, an attempt to punch through both the ballot and this loose chad could be more difficult than normal. Professor Jose Villanueva of Florida Atlantic University also speculated about this in his remarks published by the Palm Beach Post , on January 13, 2001, but I did not observe this in my experiments. Over the next hundred votes, the jam never completely disappeared, and several extreme examples of pregnant chad emerged, as illustrated in Figure 7. Figure 7: Pregnant chad resulting from punching into a firmly packed chad jam. It is noteworthy that the piece of chad shown in Figure 7 remains well attached at three corners, with a few paper fibers still connected at the fourth corner. This brings into question the most widely used objective standard for what constitutes a vote in a hand recount of Votomatic ballots, that the vote only counts if the chad is detatched by 2 or more corners.

Note that the bulge created by the punch is almost spherical, quite unlike the cleanly folded examples of pregnant chad that were produced by pulling back on the punch before it completely dislodged the chad, as in Figure 4. Figure 8 shows the positions of the internal braces in the Votomatic and Data-Punch voting fixtures, relative to the layout of the 228 position Votomatic ballot. Note that the Data-Punch fixture has more internal braces than the Votomatic fixture, and all but one of these braces are wider than those in the Votomatic fixture. On the other hand, the Data-Punch fixture does not have the broad metal brace behind the top group of plastic braces. Both the metal and plastic braces are visible in Figure 6, and the position of the metal brace is lightly shaded in Figure 8. Figure 8: Positions of obstructions inside the Votomatic (left) and Data Punch (right) mechanisms, relative to a 228 position ballot.

All of these formats conform to the layout for standard punched cards used in data processing, so the best way to describe the ballot locations that are prone to jams is in terms of the universal data processing card and not in terms of the specific ballot format. A standard punched card used in data processing punched card is seen as having 12 rows of 80 columns, where the columns are numbered from left to right. In the voting application, the card is turned 90 degrees, so the column numbers run from bottom to top. These are visible on the right edge of each ballot shown in Figure 8. Table 1 summarizes the problem ballot positions in terms of the standard punched-card column numbering: Table 1: Relationship of punched card columns to internal braces in the punch mechanism Votomatic 63,65,66,68 28,31,46,49,59,62,66 It should be straightforward to duplicate the chad-jam results obtained here for any of the voting positions directly over a brace, although the actual number of punches required to recreate such a jam should be expected to vary over a fairly wide range from one experiment to the next.

Although my experiments did not produce jams for positions partly over a brace or immediately adjacent to a brace, these experiments were far from exhaustive, and is probably a risk of jams in those positions. Therefore, ballot designers should probably avoid placing voting positions in any of the ballot positions listed in Table 1, unless careful measures are taken to prevent jams, and after a close election, candidates with voting positions adjacent to or over a brace have strong reason to investigate the machines used for evidence of chad jams. It is interesting to note that this problem with jam-prone positions on the Votomatic ballot is not among problems noted in the recent wave of lawsuits focused on the Votomatic system. This list appears to be reproduced almost verbatim in several recent suits, among them, Coyner et al vs. Harris et al filed in Leon County Florida, Jan 9, 2001, and Wirth et al vs. ESS et al filed in St. Clair County Illinois, also on Jan 9, 2001. Chad Jams in Election 2000 Were chad jams a problem in the contesed Florida general election in 2000? There is no conclusive evidence.

The Palm Beach Post , has conducted a fairly careful survey of the dimpled and hanging chad found on ballots in Palm Beach. Their evidence is summarized in Table 2: Table 2: Dimples per vote in the Palm Beach County 2000 General Election Candidate 143 9.8% The card columns marked with stars in Table 2 are adjacent to or over braces in one or another of the voting mechanisms used in Palm Beach County. Note that the Dimples column is a count of the total number of dimpled or hanging chad found for that candidate. If dimpled and hanging chad in this race was largely due to chad jams of the type I have observed, we would expect the rate of problems for Buchanan, Gore, Nader, Moorehead, and Hagelin to be relatively high compared to the others. No such trend is visible in this data! Instead, we see the largest number of dimpled or hanging bits of chad for the candidates that received the most votes, and at the same time, we see the lowest rates for the popular candidates. In fact, the pattern we observe here is quite interesting!

Voters casting votes for relatively unpopular candidates had the greatest trouble with dimpled or hanging chad! It looks as if fully 1/3 of the few voters attempting to vote for Phillips were unable to properly punch their voting position, despite the fact that there was no brace to obstruct this voting position, while voters preferring the two popular candidates, Bush and Gore, were almost always successful. This leads to the hypothesis that voters who prefer minor-party candidates are generally inept, or alternately, that regular and frequent use of a voting position clears problems with that voting position. If the latter is the case, it is possible that there were some kinds of obstructions in the machines other than the brace-related chad jams discussed here, but we have insufficient evidence to do more than speculate about such jams. The Palm Beach Post reported, on January 13, 2001, that the Data-Punch mechanism was far more prone to dimpled chad than the Votomatic mechanism. Unfortunately, I have not had a chance to find and study the Palm Beach vote totals and dimple counts broken down by machine type. This would be interesting.

Prior to each election using any voting technology, it is prudent to perform a pre-election test to make sure that the system works. With the Votomatic system, the prudent test is to insert a test ballot in the voting fixture and verify that each voting position can be punched. This was done in Palm Beach County, and the Palm Beach Post has examined the test ballots. Remarkably, there were many test ballots with dimpled or dangling chad, but apparently, none of the election workers had been instructed to check for this. The result of this study is summarized in Table 3: Table 3: Dimpled and hanging chad from the Palm Beach County 2000 pre-election testing Candidate 8 over 18 The notes in the Dimples columns indicate the relationship between this punch position and a brace within the mechanism. Note again that the Dimples columns count both dimpled or hanging chad found on the test ballots positions for that candidate.

Table 3 includes data from 4,867 test ballots, although there is evidence that, on some test ballots, the Palm Beach Post reported in the December 9, 2001 edition, that there were 65 ballots showing no evidence of any attempt to punch any of the 10 presidential voting positions. Only 76 precincts used Data-Punch mechanisms, while 455 precincts used Votomatic mechanisms. Unfortunately, I do not have the number of machines themselves, but even without this, it is extremely clear from Table 3 that the Data-Vote mechanism was far more likely to lead to problems than the Votomatic mechanism. The pattern in Table 3 is quite different from that in Table 2, but we expect this! Exactly one test ballot was voted on each voting machine, and each test ballot was supposed to have been punched in all 10 presidential voting positions, as well as in all of the local office voting positions. Therefore, if a machine was badly jammed in some voting position, it would contribute only one dimple or hanging chad to Table 3, while it could contribute hundreds of dimples to the totals in Table 2.

Table 3 shows no particular preponderance of problems on the ballot positions near or over the braces in the machine; in fact, at first glance, it appears to show a fairly uniform distribution of problems over the entire ballot. In fact, however, the frequency of hanging or dimpled chad is unformly higher for voting positions at the top of the ballot than for positions at the bottom of the ballot! Overall, for both the Votomatic and Data-Punch mechanism, problems were about 35% more common for the 5 candidates located at the top of the ballot relative to the 5 candidates at the bottom. This appears to be significant, but we have no evidence to explain it. The most significant finding coming out of the investigation conducted by Palm Beach Post as reported in the December 31, 2001 edition, is that the maintenance standards for the Votomatic and Data-Vote machines were different! Votomatic machines were opened up once every election cycle (possibly only every 2 years) and vacuumed, while Data-Vote machines were not opened.

Clearing Chad Jams I experimented with clearing out the chad jams I made, and found that following the instructions molded onto the inside of the Data-Punch mechanism were not sufficient! On this mechanism, there is a small door on the back for chad removal. On opening this door, the message "SHAKE WELL TO REMOVE CHADS" is exposed. In fact, shaking the mechanism does not remove any of the chad wedged in the slots between the supports for the T-strips, and it certainly does not remove chad that is jammed above the cross braces that connect these supports. Thus, following these instructions does not remove any of the chad that conributed to the chad jams that I observed! Even a few hard thumps does nothing! Only when I held the Data-Punch mechanism in my hands like a hammer and banged it as hard as I could on my desk did the "loose" chad between the T-strip supports begin to come loose, and it took a series of 3 or 4 hard bangs to release most of this chad.

Continued hard banging began to release the jammed chad over the cross braces, but the jams were not fully released until 8 to 10 hard bangs. My experiments strongly suggest that a few hundred votes will not jam these mechanisms, and that is the most that would be expected in any one election. However, also I conclude that if a machine is routinely well shaken to remove chad, following the Data-Punch instructions, chad will accumulate in the jam prone positions from one election to the next until impenetrable chad jams form! Recommendations Therefore, I strongly recommend a more vigorous approach to cleaning these machines. Chad jams can be raked out from the front by inserting the voting stylus (or any similar tool) between the top ends of the T-strips of the machine and dragging it down to the bottom. A rake-shaped tool with 12 tines would be a handy improvement, cutting the time taken to rake out the chad by a factor of 12. If the chad is raked out before each election, chad jams should not be a problem!

In light of my findings, it seems that dimpled chad should generally be counted in a hand recount, particularly if the dimple looks like a section of a sphere, and this should not depend on whether votes cast on other positions on the same ballot were also dimpled, since an obstruction providing back pressure to one part of the ballot may not provide comparable back pressure to another. Special consideration should be given to dimpled chad found in positions near the horizontal braces on the underside of the punch block, and ballot layouts should generally avoid those positions! It would seem to me that those involved in hand recounts, including observers and judges, should be given opportunities to punch and attempt to dimple ballots using clean, properly maintained voting fixtures and ballots identical to those used in the election, and they should be shown the inside of the mechanism and the relationship between the horizontal braces and the voting positions on the ballot that was used, and they should be given access to magnifiers or low-power microscopes in order to inspect the dimples and to look for loose fibers around bits of chad that may have been pushed back into the ballot.

Furthermore, if a significant number of ballots show dimples after an election, it would seem essential to investigate the voting fixtures on which those ballots were cast, the procedures for cleaning the machines, and the procedures for assuring that they remain free of obstructions during the election. The above-cited Sun Sentinel article suggests that, during the contested Florida election, the standards for voting machine maintenance and cleaning were far from uniform. Some precinct workers even mentioned routine shaking or banging to remove accumulated chad, but jams such as that shown in Figure 6 were difficult to dislodge by such banging! This web page was originally written in December 2000; Initial information for the Data-Punch mechanism were added in August 2001, and the coverage of the Votomatic mechanism and the risk of chad jams in this mechanism was added in September 2001. The material on chad jams in the Data Punch mechansim was added in December 2001, and a major clean-up of the page was done in January 2002. I added information on my own experiments with the force required to punch bits of chad in January 2006.

I am indebted to Ted Herman for the digital snapshots of hanging and pregnant chad and of the Votomatic ballot punch shown here. Larry L. Mandel, President of Governmental Business Systems, sent me the Votomatic mechanism on which I performed my experiments; it is the subject of Figures 5 and 6. This was an unsolicited gift, and its arrival was quite a surprise. Tom Kleinschmidt has helped me with early Teletype terminology. Joel Engelhardt of the Palm Beach Post provided me with the data on which Tables 2 and 3 are based. His repeated questioning in late 2001 led me to considerably update this material. Comments from Alex Magoun on July 21, 2011, let me to take advantage of the improvements in Google's search tools over the past decade to do a far better job of tracking down early uses of the word chad in the patent literature. Chads from Ballots Chads, Ballots and Unique Political Memorabilia from the 2000 Bush v. Gore Presidential Election in Florida What is a chad? What exactly is a Chad?

In Florida, most of the counties with contested Election 2000 results used a keypunch voting machine. Cards like the infamous "butterfly ballot" are held in place next to a list of candidates. Voters use a little stylus to poke out certain holes on a card (like the one here on the right) to mark who they want to vote for. The tiny bits of paper left over from punching these cards are called "Chad" Thirty-seven percent of all Americans use this punch card method. The machines only count votes when the Chad is pushed cleanly all the way through. In the election, the Democrats protested that some people meant to vote for Gore, but did not push their Chad out correctly. Their argument was that just because the machine can't read the vote, doesn't mean the vote should not be counted since the person intended their vote a certain way. The counter argument is basically that voters had instructions and if they did not vote property, their votes should not be counted because any human way of counting would be subjective. This left vote counting up for interpretation and led to confusion and court cases.

For example, Palm Beach has worked under a 1990 rule saying at least one corner of a Chad must be dislodged for a ballot to count. But Democratic lawyer Dennis Newman said 557 "dimpled" ballots for Gore and 260 for Republican George W. Bush have been left out of the count. Dimpled ballots have an indentation, possibly showing a voter's intent to select a candidate. Peering through ballot cards and holding them up to the light for a sunshine test, election workers in a handful of Florida's counties recounted votes by hand in order to determine the kinds of Chad was there, and if it counted as a vote. These types of Chad have been referred to under various rulings: Punched Chad A Chad that has been punched all the way out. Hanging Chad Only one corner remains attached to the card. Swinging Chad Two corners remain attached to the card. Tri Chad Three corners remain attached to the card. Pregnant Chad A Chad that's only indented slightly and is still fully attached to the card. Dimple Chad Same as a pregnant Chad These are all semiofficial designations that were actually used in the manual recounts.

The basic rule is that a ballot with a pregnant (or dimpled) Chad is not counted, but a ballot with a hanging Chad, swinging Chad, or tri-chad is counted. Some of the controversy lay in the fact that in most cases ballots with the latter three Chad types would not have been counted by the machine method because the attached Chad would likely block the hole when the card was fed through. PS the plural of Chad is "Chad" not chads Salon has a funny Chad article and you can see a visual explanation of chads at © Chad Bags - Election Memorabilia - Bush and Gore Chad Bags from Election 2000 Florida Bush vs. Gore - Chads From Real Florida Election Ballots Florida Election Ballots - Political Memorabilia - Inauguration Collectors Item Bag of Chad election 2000 memorabilia, own your own Bush v. Gore Florida presidential election ballot chads to remember the election controversy of 2000 7 YA Chads In Honor Of The 15th Anniversary Of The Hanging Chad - MTV mtv 12/12/2015 During November of 2000, the U.S. became obsessed with The Chad.

No, although “Charlie’s Angels” was released in November of 2000, we don’t mean the Tom Green character. We’re talking about the tiny pieces of paper removed when a hole is punched in a voting card. The small scraps that threw the country into chaos during the 2000 presidential election. Parts of Florida used punched card ballots for voting, but if they weren’t punched all the way through, the tabulating machines couldn’t tell if a vote was for George W. Bush or Al Gore. When the results ended up super close, a recount was necessary, which meant examining all the uncertain ballots by hand. And that’s when the country was introduced to The Chad. We even learned there is more than one type! There’s the dimpled chad, which is still attached at all four corners but has a slight indentation where a voter may have intended to vote. The pregnant chad is the same thing, except with a bigger baby bump. A tri-chad is attached to the ballot at three corners, while a swinging chad is attached to the ballot at two corners, like a doggie door. Then there is the infamous hanging chad, which is attached to the ballot by only one corner.

The hanging chad became the symbol of the 2000 election, spawning countless jokes on late-night television and even Halloween costumes. But on December 12, 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to put an end to hanging chad hysteria. They handed down their ruling, which stopped the vote recount and gave the win to Bush. The decision was controversial, leaving many questions swirling around about the election results. Fifteen years later, we’re honoring the infamy of these tiny bits of paper by identifying Chads in YA novels – let’s just hope they don’t cause as much trouble as the voting ballot chads. “Fall into Darkness” by Christopher Pike Sharon is on trial for killing her best friend, but Sharon saw Ann kill herself by jumping from a cliff. Even weirder, the police can’t find Ann’s body. And that’s just the start of the wacky twists and turns. The Chad in this book is in love with the maybe-dead Ann, and he’s also totally cray cray. We’ll label him a hanging chad because he’s barely hanging onto his sanity. Plus there’s a lot of hanging from cliffs in this book.

“Tilt” by Ellen Hopkins Three teens deal with life-changing events that cause their worlds to tilt. The huge event in Harley’s life is that her dad has a new bae who has a totally hot son named Chad. Harley wants Chad to notice her, so she changes up the way she looks and acts, which attracts the attention of an uber sleazy guy. We’ll call this Chad a swinging chad because he’s like a doorway to trouble for Harley. “Dunk” by David Lubar Chad is having a rough summer: his best friend is super sick, he’s too chicken to talk to the girl he’s crushing on, and he has a deadbeat dad. Then he meets the boardwalk “bozo” – the clown who sits inside the dunk tank and trolls people into taking a shot – and decides he wants to be one, too. During his training, he learns the difference between laughter that cuts and laughter that heals. We’re dubbing this Chad a pregnant chad because the term pregnant chad is freakin’ funny, just like this Chad.

“Blue is for Nightmares” by Laurie Faria Stolarz Stacey inherited psychic powers from her Wiccan grandmother, but these powers are a drag because sometimes her terrible nightmares come true. Now she is dreaming that her bestie Drea will be brutally murdered, and she has to find a way to stop it. Complicating things is her crush on Drea’s boyfriend Chad, who seems like he might like her, too. This Chad shall be tri-chad, since he’s one corner of a bad-news love triangle. “Rogue” by Lyn Miller-Lachmann Kiara has Asperger’s syndrome and is not the best at making friends. In fact, she kind of sucks at it due to her tendency to lash out when frustrated. So when Chad moves in across the street, she hopes she has a chance to start fresh. But Chad is hiding terrible secrets about his home life, and Kiara is so desperate to keep him as a friend that she agrees not to tell, which puts her new friend in danger. This Chad is definitely a hanging chad because he is barely hanging on due to the horrible things in his life.

“A Step Toward Falling” by Cammie McGovern Emily witnesses a developmentally disabled student being sexually assaulted at a football game but is too scared to help. As punishment, the school makes her perform community service at a class for the disabled. While there, she falls for another volunteer named Chad. Meanwhile, Emily struggles with her guilt about that night and tries to find ways to make amends. This Chad is designated a swinging chad because he’s a doorway for Emily to learn more about herself. “Gamer Girl” by Mari Mancusi Maddy has just moved to a new school, where the popular clique immediately targets her as Freak Girl. Even worse, one of these jerks is total hottie Chad, who she can’t help crushing on. To escape her sucky life, she immerses herself in an online game where she can pretend to be a beautiful and magical elf. When she meets a guy within the game worthy of a real-life romance, she must find the courage to confront her real-life problems. We’re classifying this Chad as a dimpled chad because dimples are cute, just like this Chad. And if you still need more Chad in your life, we leave you with this: Just what is Chad ???

Just WHAT THE HECK is CHAD ??? Is it a fish? A country? A man's name? Read on for the answer . . . Once upon a time, almost predating history, there were giant room-filling mainframe computers. Instructions were created for these beasts by punching a precise pattern of small rectangular holes into a cardboard punched card with a keypunch machine. The keypunch droppings, small confetti-like bits of cardboard punched out of the cards, were referred to as chad. So were the small bits of paper punched out of the perforated edge strips on paper for sprocket feed printers. Why "chad" ??? It is thought that the term chad might have originated from the Chadless keypunch, a keypunch machine named after its inventor. This particular machine cut a "U" shape into the punched cards that made a hole when folded back. If the Chadless keypunch didn't make them, then the stuff the other keypunch machines made had to be chad. Many ballots used throughout the country are pre-perforated punched cards. In some cases the chad does not separate from the card, but hangs there by a corner or two.

Probably when the voter changes his or her mind and retracts the punching stylus to make another choice. A hanging chad for Gore probably indicates the voter opted to vote for another candidate. Even more disturbing is the significance Democrats are attempting to assign to the pregnant chad , a chad that is still completely attached to the ballot on all four sides and corners, but bulges slightly in the middle. The Democrat controlled Canvassing Boards use "Ouigi board technology" to determine the intent of the voter, which in virtually every case seems to yield a vote for Algore. So there you have it, the story behind the hanging chad and the pregnant chad , the stuff that changed the course of American Electoral History !!! (and now you'll know the answer when you see it on, Jeopardy, Survivor II or Who Wants To Be A Millionaire) (and maybe these Websites will sell for a million bucks someday on eBay !!!) portions excerpted from: chad - Dictionary Definition : Vocabulary.com Random Word chad The small circle of paper that falls on the floor after you use a hole punch is called a chad. Some voting machines work by punching holes in ballots, leaving a chad hanging from the back.

The chad that falls off a card or piece of paper is a waste product of hole punching, often in the process of voting or punching a time card. The word chad was first used in the 1930s, but most Americans never heard it until the 2000 presidential election, when some votes in Florida were contested because of partially-punched ballots with chads still attached.

Question: What was a hanging chad attached to?
Answer: a Ballot