The Punchcard Voting System
The punchcard voting system was first used in the 1964 Presidential primary election, quickly gaining popularity.
Once the system came into widespread use, it became apparent that it had a most unusual characteristic: Every time the cards were fed through the reader, the reader came up with a different answer. The reason was simple: The now-infamous "chad," the bits of paperthe holes in the doughnutthat are supposed to be punched out by the user. Often, they are not.
Could the Registrar of Voters in Palm Beach have known of this system's problems? She should have. Even the simplest of web searches reveals that, as far back as 1988, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) strongly recommended the elimination of Votomatic-type cards just because of this chad problem.
Unfortunately, their recommendation came with no enforcement power, so the chad chugged on. Even as late as 1996, 37.3% of the registered voters in the United States were still casting their ballot using punched cards.
When the ballot disaster happened in Palm Beach, it was this chad with which the Democrat's hopes lay. They could do nothing to fix the ballot that had caused so many thousands of voters to double-punch the ballots, but they could perhaps get an accurate count of the vote that had been legitimately made, and they rightfully expected such a recount to find their candidate victorious. Why? Because the counties that used the punch card system were predominantly Democratic. Since most people had voted for Gore, it stood to reason that most improperly-punched ballots would end up being for their candidate.
With the country long-since on notice that the punchcard systems were inherently defective, Palm Beach, along with many other counties in America, continued to use them. Why? Because nothing had ever gone seriously wrong. Yes, there had been a smattering of contested elections brought about by the machines, in St. Louis, Atlanta, Los Angeles, but nothing yet that would alter the course of history. No reason for alarm.
The Low-Income Paradox
Actually, a quiet change has been going on for some time. In fact, by the early 1990s, wealthy counties across America were pulling out the punchcard system with all deliberate speed. The poorer counties just felt they didn't have the funds.
Meanwhile, it was becoming apparent that the punchcard system had another key characteristic: The higher your socioeconomic class, the less likely you were to make an error using the punchcard system. Therefore, we were soon requiring punchcard ballots only in those areas where people were the least able to use them. Among those disadvantaged areas: Palm Beach County, Florida. It is very likely the Registrar of Voters wanted to change the machines, but where was the money?
Design of the Palm Beach Ballot
The chad problem alone would not have tipped the balance in the 2000 election, since thousands upon thousands more voters went to the poles to vote for Al Gore in Florida. It took an atrociously bad design to really foul things up.
Not only does it appear that perhaps 4.000 people made the error of punching the second hole on the ballet in the mistaken belief that the second hole represented the second candidate, more than 19,000 people made the error of punching more than one hole, since both were directly alongside their candidate.
I don't think I've seen this before.. 
