Residual Votes Attributable to Technology

We examine the relative performance of voting technologies by studying presidential, gubernatorial, and senatorial election returns across hundreds of counties in the United States from 1988 to 2000. Relying on a fixed effects regression applied to an unbalanced panel of counties, we find that in presidential elections, traditional paper ballots produce the lowest rates of uncounted votes (i.e. “residual votes”), followed by optically scanned ballots, mechanical lever machines, direct register electronic machines (DREs), and punch cards. In gubernatorial and senatorial races, paper, optical scan ballots, and DREs are significantly better in minimizing the residual vote rate than mechanical lever machines and punch cards. If all jurisdictions in the U.S. that used punch cards in 2000 had used optically scanned ballots instead, we estimate that approximately 500,000 more votes would have been attributed to presidential candidates nationwide. Residual Votes Attributable to Technology The election of the president of the United States in 2000 hinged on an aspect of the election system that had received scant attention from political scientists and political practitioners over the preceding century—the functioning of voting equipment. The most dramatic manifestation occurred in Palm Beach County, Florida, where two major problems cast doubt over the integrity of the election. Poor ballot design confused a significant number of voters about how to cast a vote. And, poor vote tabulator design made it difficult to determine intentions of voters. The “chads” from some punch cards had partially dislodged, making it impossible for the vote tabulator to count the ballots. The methods used to cast and count ballots is surely one of the most mundane aspects of elections. But legal and political battles over the performance of voting technologies and the certification of the election results in Florida raised fundamental concerns about the fairness of the electoral process in the United States. Disputed elections can lower the perceived legitimacy of democratic elections, and some technologies might make it more likely to have disputed elections. In addition, voting technologies might violate equal protection of voters. People in counties with worse technologies may have a lower chance that their votes are counted. Finally, as a matter of election reform, improved voting technologies may increase the number of votes actually counted and, therefore, the effective turnout. The magnitude of the problems exposed in the Florida recount surprised many political scientists, because they exceeded the estimated effects of many election administration reforms (Traugott 2003).