chad : Java Glossary

chad

The piece of cardboard poked out of a hole in a tabulator or voting punch card. When the hole is not cleanly poked out there are several classes of chad:

hanging chad: The chad is free at least at one corner. You can have 1, 2 or 3 corner hanging chad depending on how many corners are free.
pregnant chad: The chad is attached at all four corners, but is bulging out to let light in around the edges.
dimpled chad: The chad is attached at all four corners. No light shows through, but there is a clear indentation in the chad.

In Texas all three types of chad count as votes. In Florida, there is debate over whether a dimpled chad should count, and whether 1 corner hanging chad should count. One validation scheme considers dimpled ballots valid only if there are other dimples on the ballot for unrelated votes. It gets a bit crazily complicated. For example, rules have to define what to do if you find both a dimple and a hanging chad. You can almost forgive the Florida legislators for effectively only giving the guidance: "Use common sense, for Pete’s sake!".

An undervote is where there is no punch for any candidate, or where machines could not detect such a vote, even though it may be apparent from hand observation. Machines usually require a completely clear hole to register properly.

An overvote is where the machine saw more than one vote, which, surprisingly, under certain conditions, may be considered valid.

	You can get the freshest copy of this page from:	or possibly from your local J: drive (Java virtual drive/mindprod.com website mirror)
	http://mindprod.com/jgloss/chad.html	J:\mindprod\jgloss\chad.html
	Please email your feedback for publication, letters to the editor, errors, omissions, typos, formatting errors, ambiguities, unclear wording, broken/redirected link reports, suggestions to improve this page or comments to Roedy Green : If you want your message kept confidential, not considered for posting, please explicitly specify that.
	Canadian Mind Products
	mindprod.com IP:[65.110.21.43]
view Blog	Your face IP:[38.107.179.213]
Feedback	You are visitor number 9,912.