| Subject: Re: Is it Possible Kerry Lost Ohio Because of Punch Cards? |
| From: Rick Hasen |
| Date: 11/4/2004, 4:18 PM |
| To: election-law |
Some of these votes may have been accidental double-votes in the presidential race, and some voters may have deliberately cast no vote for president. But many of these are likely uncounted votes that come up blank because of "hanging chads," those infamous slips of paper on punch-card ballots.
But even though Ohio had 775,000 more voters Tuesday than it did four years ago, the number of discounted votes actually decreased slightly from 2000.
Blackwell's spokesman, Carlo LoParo, attributed the drop to an aggressive voter-education campaign, as well as heightened attention to the problems with punch-card ballots that were exposed in the Florida election in 2000.
Is it Possible Kerry Lost Ohio Because of Punch Cards?
So alleges Greg Palast here. I have no idea of Palast's numbers are correct, and in particular whether he has lumped together both votes lost by the punch card machines and deliberate undervotes. I haven't seen any undervote figures yet for this election. I'd appreciate hearing from others who have some data to evaluate this kind of claim.-- Rick Hasen Professor of Law and William M. Rains Fellow Loyola Law School 919 South Albany Street Los Angeles, CA 90015-1211 (213)736-1466 (213)380-3769 - fax rick.hasen@lls.edu http://www.lls.edu/academics/faculty/hasen.html http://electionlawblog.org
-- Rick Hasen Professor of Law and William M. Rains Fellow Loyola Law School 919 South Albany Street Los Angeles, CA 90015-1211 (213)736-1466 (213)380-3769 - fax rick.hasen@lls.edu http://www.lls.edu/academics/faculty/hasen.html http://electionlawblog.org