ELECTION 2000, Day 37 Chad-maker says 'dimples' made up Printer of Miami, Broward ballots 'never heard' of term before now

By Paul Sperry © 2000 WorldNetDaily.com

WASHINGTON -- Ever wonder how a chad could dimple? Printer Randy Stiles makes chad for a living, and he wonders the same thing.

"It would basically be impossible to do that," said Stiles, a production manager at the printing plant that made the controversial punch-card ballots for Miami-Dade and Broward counties.

He says his own machines don't produce any dimpled chad as they perforate the thousands of ballot cards used by the Florida counties and others around the country.

Stiles, a 12-year employee of Election Systems & Software Inc. in Dallas, says dimpling is a new phenomenon.

"There's some new words that have come up. You know, 'dimpled chad,' 'pregnant chad.' I've never heard about those before this election," he told WorldNetDaily.

"I guess they came up because the election was so close and it brought a lot of scrutiny," Stiles added. "But it's the first I've heard of them."

Because of machine-made cuts around the chad, he says he's skeptical a voter could insert a stylus and fail to poke through the paper.

"If you look at the way the chad is made and look at the way it's attached to the ballot card itself, there's just four tiny holding points at the corners," Stiles said. "Each one of those cut marks between those holding points is made by sharp blades."

Stiles, who's in charge of quality control at the plant, inspects the cut marks to make sure they're "clean." If they aren't, the ballot sheets are "scrapped" and the cutting tools are replaced, he says, while the old blades are "resurfaced."

Hanging chad, however, can occur, Stiles says, if the perforated squares -- 312 per card in Miami Dade and Broward (compared with 228 in Palm Beach County) -- aren't lined up over rubber-lined punch holes in the vote recorders. Dull styluses can also cause chad to break off from one side.

But chad that doesn't break away from either side is virtually unheard of -- until now, he says.

Nonetheless, Broward County was able to gin up more than 500 net new votes for Al Gore by counting what Democratic officials dubbed dimpled or pregnant chad in ballots.

Earlier this month, the Bush campaign filed a complaint against Broward's canvassing board for allegedly tampering with the ballots during its hand recount.

Gore also wants 9,000 Miami-Dade ballots with undervotes for president examined by hand for dimples. The U.S. Supreme Court has stopped the recount to review its constitutionality.

Stiles says all chad punched with a stylus leave a kind of fingerprint: A pinhole and a vertical crease from where pressure was applied in the middle of the square piece of paper.

Any dimpled or pregnant chad would most likely also show a pinhole and crease, he says. If they don't, chances are they weren't made with a stylus.

Stiles says he's baffled by Democrats' claims of voters having problems piercing through ballots -- using sharp, pointed styluses -- to vote for Gore.

"According to what we saw," he said, "everything worked right election night."

Stile's company, which is based in Omaha, Neb., supplies punch-card ballots to several Florida counties in addition to Miami-Dade and Broward. Palm Beach County, a one-time client, is not one of them now.

NO SUCH THING AS "DIMPLES"

-- Ain't Gonna Happen (Not Here Not@ever.com), December 13, 2000

Answers

http://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/11/21/jackson.ballot/index .html

Brooks Jackson: 'Dimpled' ballots count in Texas

From Brooks Jackson/CNN

November 21, 2000

Web posted at: 11:00 p.m. EST (0400 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Dimpled ballots. Democrats are saying Florida ballots should be counted where punch cards merely show an indentation. Republicans say it's simply not enough.

They count them in other states -- including Republican candidate Gov. George W. Bush's state of Texas. Tony Sirvello supervises elections in Harris County -- the largest in Texas -- where punch card ballots like those in the disputed Florida counties have been in use since 1982.

"Since we introduced punch cards in Harris county in 1982, I've probably done approximately 50 recounts," say Sirvello, the county administrator of elections. "At the beginning, some of those were electronic. In the last 15 years, most of those have been manual recounts. And in most of those manual recounts, we have counted what the media is calling 'dimpled chads.'"

Just last year in Harris County, Houston voters produced a squeaky- close race for a city council seat. Mark Goldberg was the apparent winner by a mere 26 votes, prompting opponent Maryann Young to demand a hand recount.

Texas law specifically allows for counting dimpled ballots if "an indentation on the chad ... is present and indicates a clearly ascertainable intent of the voter to vote."

The Houston hand count found 97 more votes for Young that the machine count had registered -- including some ballots that were merely indented. But the recount also found 109 additional votes for Goldberg -- so he won the recount by an even bigger margin than before.

It's not that hard for voters to merely dimple a ballot when they are trying to vote, as Kim Brace of Election Data Services recently demonstrated to CNN.

"We've got a hanging chad right here. We've got a couple of chads that are partially off. Here's a pimple or a dimple," says Brace.

Dimples were counted by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in a 1996 Democratic primary recount for Congress. Generally, state courts count ballots where voter intent is clear.

During Monday's Florida State Supreme Court hearing, Bush's lawyers pleaded ignorance of the Texas law. "I really don't know what Texas law is," Bush attorney Michael Carvin told Justice Barbara Pariente.

Well, we know Texas law allows dimpled chads to be counted -- or any ballot where the intent of the voter is "clearly ascertainable."

-- (the@experts.disagree), December 13, 2000.

talking to yourself again huh aint?

-- (aint@is.anass), December 13, 2000.

- (aint@is.anass), December 13, 2000

I know one thing, I'm NOT a sniveling coward hiding behind an ever changing handle like you.

-- Ain't Gonna Happen (Not Here Not@ever.com), December 13, 2000.

looks around and says "yes true, but you are a coward w/no credibility".

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

-- sumer (shh@aol.con), December 13, 2000.

looks around and says "yes true, but you are a coward w/no credibility"

A little crabby this morning? Today's little news item on Gore gotcha down babe?

ROFL!

-- Ain't Gonna Happen (Not Here Not@ever.com), December 13, 2000.

Here is word for word what Texas law says about chads.

http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/statutes/el/el012700.html

§ 127.130. Manual Counting

(a) Electronic system ballots that are not to be counted automatically and the write-in votes not counted at the polling places shall be counted manually at the central counting station.

(b) If the automatic counting of electronic system ballots becomes impracticable for any reason, the manager may direct that the ballots be counted manually at the central counting station.

(c) The procedure for manual counting is the same as that for regular paper ballots to the extent practicable. The manager is responsible for the manual counting of ballots at the central counting station.

(d) Subject to Subsection (e), in any manual count conducted under this code, a vote on a ballot on which a voter indicates a vote by punching a hole in the ballot may not be counted unless:

(1) at least two corners of the chad are detached;

(2) light is visible through the hole;

(3) an indentation on the chad from the stylus or other object is present and indicates a clearly ascertainable intent of the voter to vote; or

(4) the chad reflects by other means a clearly ascertainable intent of the voter to vote.

(e) Subsection (d) does not supersede any clearly ascertainable intent of the voter.

Acts 1985, 69th Leg., ch. 211, § 1, eff. Jan. 1, 1986.

Amended by Acts 1993, 73rd Leg., ch. 728, § 52, eff. Sept. 1, 1993.

-- (Tex@s.elections), December 13, 2000.