The racist US election

["Jose G. Perez" <jg_perez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Fla. Ballot Spoilage Likelier For Blacks

By John Mintz and Dan Keating
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, December 3, 2000; Page A01

Heavily Democratic and African American neighborhoods in Florida lost many
more presidential votes than other areas because of outmoded voting machines
and rampant confusion about ballots, a precinct-by-precinct analysis by The
Washington Post shows.

As many as one in three ballots in black sections of Jacksonville, for
example, did not count in the presidential contest. That was four times as
many as in white precincts elsewhere in mostly Republican Duval County.

According to the Post analysis, in Miami-Dade County precincts where fewer
than 30 percent of the voters are black, about 3 percent of ballots did not
register a vote for president. In precincts where more than 70 percent of
the voters are African American, it was nearly 10 percent.

Such patterns have helped fuel questions in the black community about
whether the vote was fair on Election Day. A number of African American
leaders say faulty ballot machines and long lines at polling places sowed
confusion among many black voters and ended up nullifying many of their
votes.

Aides to Texas Gov. George W. Bush say the kinds of errors Florida voters
made are typical of elections across the nation. Vice President Gore, by
contrast, has placed allegations concerning disqualified black votes at the
center of his appeal to hold recounts in Miami-Dade County, and he is making
his case with rhetoric reminiscent of civil rights struggles. Democrats say
the errors suggest a manual recount of ballots would show that Gore won
Florida.

A computer analysis of election returns suggests there were anomalies in the
Florida vote, particularly in African American areas. The more black and
Democratic a precinct, the more likely it was to suffer high rates of
invalidated votes.

Some 40 percent of the state's black voters were new voters, and election
experts say they were the most vulnerable to confusion about oddly designed
ballots. Moreover, a higher percentage of blacks than whites live in
counties with voting machines more prone to not registering a vote. And
similarly, African American voters are somewhat more likely to live in areas
where poll workers do not immediately check ballots for errors--so blacks
were less likely than whites to get a chance to correct their ballots if
they messed them up.

"We keep talking about 'every vote counts,' and, boy, I feel like mine
doesn't count," said Lon Fanniel, 40, a retired Marine captain from
Jacksonville. He fears that confusion over the ballot led him to
accidentally leave two marks for president, invalidating his vote for Gore.

Florida was one of the nation's most viciously fought battleground states,
with both parties pouring in millions of dollars during the final days to
get their core supporters to the polls.

It turns out that one reason for the high rate of invalidated votes this
election was the NAACP's massive get-out-the-vote effort in Florida, which
brought many inexperienced or first-time voters to the polls. Black turnout
in Florida set records--893,000 African Americans cast ballots on Nov. 7, a
65 percent jump over 1996.

At times--especially when polling places were crowded and voters felt rushed
to mark their votes--it appears large numbers of these new or infrequent
voters were confounded by technical problems in the ballot. Florida listed
an unusually high 10 presidential tickets, which contributed to confusing
ballot designs in some counties.

A prime example is Duval, a north Florida county that hosts thousands of
naval aviators. A ballot that perplexingly spread presidential names over
two pages led to many accidental double votes, which are automatically
voided. Although Bush carried the county 58 percent to 41 percent, the
spoiled ballots were concentrated in African American sections of downtown
Jacksonville.

In the most heavily white precincts, about 1 in 14 ballots were thrown out,
but in largely black precincts more than 1 in 5 ballots were spoiled--and in
some black precincts it was almost one-third. (By comparison, in the
District of Columbia, fewer than 1 in 50 ballots were not counted as votes
for president.)

There are several reasons why a voting machine would not record a vote. A
voter may have intentionally abstained. Or the voter could have tried to
vote but messed up the ballot--either by mistakenly voting for two
candidates, which automatically disqualifies a ballot and is called an
"overvote," or by failing to mark the ballot cleanly (which, along with the
ballots deliberately left unmarked, is known as an "undervote").

Gore wants the undervotes recounted, and because so many of them took place
in pro-Gore precincts, his advisers are confident they could overturn Bush's
lead if a court permitted such a recount.

Bush allies say most undervotes were intentional. "We believe that in most
if not virtually all so-called undervotes, individuals didn't intend to vote
for president," said Bush spokesman Ray Sullivan.

He also said Bush did not ask for a statewide hand recount because recounts
are "flawed and inaccurate," as he said was shown in manual recounts in
Broward and Palm Beach counties that showed Gore picking up votes.

Republicans note that Florida's rate of failed ballots is lower than four
other states among 35 states for which the GOP has examined data--Idaho,
Illinois, Georgia and Wyoming. In those states, the spoiled ballots
represent a small fraction of the winning margin for president, but in
Florida the 180,000 invalid ballots were 335 times Bush's margin.

The GOP says recounts are not needed because voting mistakes occur
everywhere. Voting expert Curtis Gans said about 2.5 million voters across
the nation cast presidential ballots that didn't register as votes. Given
these large numbers outside Florida, and what he believes are the inequities
in all types of ballot recounting, Gans said "it's an irrelevant exercise"
to recount votes in Florida.

The Bush campaign's Sullivan added that some of the Florida counties with
high rates of invalidated ballots--he cited Hamilton, Hendry and
Lafayette--were won by Bush. But Democrats point out those counties are
sparsely populated and had a total of only 1,310 votes thrown out. The three
counties Gore asked be recounted--Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade--had
72,000 invalidated ballots.

Senior GOP strategists say privately that a key reason the Bush campaign did
not ask for a statewide recount was it feared that Gore would pick up more
votes than Bush, because of the high rate of ballot spoilage in black
precincts.

"The NAACP did a tremendous job of turnout in Florida," one Republican
strategist said. "But in a way they overachieved, and got people out who
couldn't follow instructions."

The irony is that in Duval, the sample ballot designed by the Republican
election supervisor explicitly instructed people to "vote all pages" on the
ballot--which led thousands of people to invalidate their ballots because
the list of presidential candidates was spread over two pages. The rule of
thumb in election administration is that candidates for a single office
should be listed in one column on one page to avoid confusion.

A case in point: Sharon Lewis of Jacksonville, who brought her 18-year-old
son Ernest to their polling place. The high school senior had just
registered to vote. But she was mortified when he, upon leaving the booth,
told her proudly, "I voted on every page." She said they complained to the
poll workers but "they said there's nothing we could do about it."

"He had that 'I Voted' sticker on his shirt--the only kid at his school who
voted," she said. "But his vote didn't count."

"I'm proud of the turnout we had in Florida," said Anita Davis, the NAACP's
state president. But she added, "I'm very concerned that so many of our
votes were being disenfranchised. . . . In a lot of Florida counties, these
[black] votes have been thrown out for years, and we had no idea about it."

The NAACP has filed formal allegations with the Justice Department saying
some blacks were discouraged from voting by unfair demands for
identification or long lines. But a Justice Department official said so far
investigators have not found enough evidence to justify a full-fledged
investigation.

"I fought for the right to have a good vote," said Fanniel, the retired
Marine captain who fought in the Persian Gulf War. "I feel like that was
taken away from me."

Election experts say inexperienced voters are the most likely to be confused
when a ballot contains more than about six names for one office. Beyond
that, confoundment rises exponentially with each name added to the ballot.
Florida's ballots listed 10 presidential candidates--which tied for the most
with four states.

Black Floridians also were more likely to face unforgiving voting equipment.
About 26 percent of black voters live in counties that verify ballots as
valid in precincts as soon as they're cast--so poll workers can immediately
tell voters they disqualified ballots, and voters have a second chance to
vote a valid ballot. By comparison, 34 percent of white voters live in these
areas. That means white voters are more likely to have their votes counted
than blacks--a point made by Gore.

"These cheap and unreliable machines are much more likely to be found in
areas of low-income people and minorities and seniors," Gore said in an
interview on CBS last week.

Voters whose ballots were checked right away were using cutting-edge optical
scanners, which read pen marks. The other voters were using either optical
scanners that don't check ballots instantly, or punch-card machines in which
voters punch out "chads," tiny cardboard rectangles, to make a selection.

In the 23 counties that check a ballot as soon as the voter completes
it--all using optical scan gear--fewer than 1 percent of ballots did not
register a choice for president, said Ion Sanchez, Leon County election
supervisor. By contrast, in the 26 punch-card counties, none of which
perform the instant check, about 4 percent failed to register a presidential
selection, Sanchez said.

"The only difference is the technology," said Sanchez. "That's the dirty
little secret about election machines."

"Poor people are more likely to invalidate ballots" because of difficulty
mastering punch-card systems, said Herb Asher, an Ohio State University
balloting expert who studied the issue in 1978, when Ohio first used the
machines. Voters in prosperous suburbs invalidated their ballots 2 percent
of the time, he said, while voters in Dayton's poor areas did so by up to 20
percent.

For decades, 2 percent of ballots cast nationally have traditionally not
recorded a presidential vote. But in Florida this year, it was 2.9 percent.
In 21 of Florida's 67 counties, the ratio of disqualified votes to total
votes cast was more than 6 percent. Those with the largest numbers of both
disqualified and double votes were largely Democratic and black areas.
Double votes are not reviewed in hand recounts, because there is no way to
discern a voter's intent.

Gadsden County, a largely poor black rural area, had a 12 percent spoilage
rate, mostly because presidential candidates were listed in two columns--and
the great majority were overvotes.

Almost 2,000 voters nullified their ballots by double-voting on a ballot
that listed the first eight presidential candidates in one column, and a
second column listing Constitution Party or Workers World Party candidates,
in what could be mistaken for a second election.

Denny Hutchinson, Gadsden's election administrator, blamed voters, not the
ballot. "Some of our high rate of presidential overvotes was attributable to
so many names on that ballot," he said. "Some people voted for every
candidate. . . . People didn't prepare themselves to come to the polls."

But Rep. Alcee L. Hastings, a black Florida Democrat, said Bush's claim that
almost all undervotes were intentional is "pure hogwash."

"We've designed a voting system not understandable to many voters," Hastings
said, "and it takes fair-minded people to design one ensuring every vote
counts."

Staff writer Thomas B. Edsall contributed to this report.

Tossed-Out Ballots

Ballots were tossed out at a much higher rate in predominantly black
precincts in Duval and Miami-Dade counties.


Duval


County


(Jacksonville)


Black voter Ballots Total ballots


population Precincts cast invalidated


Under 30% 195 239,555 16,621 6.9%


30%-50% 12 10,517 1,634 15.5%


51%-70% 17 9,953 1,834 18.4%


Over 70% 44 31,01 6,820 21.6%


Miami-Dade County


Black voter Ballots Total ballots


population Precincts cast invalidated



Under 30% 486 490,863 16,459 3.4%


30%-50% 30 29,102 2,027 7.0%


51%-70% 26 22,115 1,754 7.9%


Over 70% 72 68,601 6,540 9.5%




SOURCE: Washington Post analysis of Florida state election data


© 2000 The Washington Post Company