Charting those pesky chads in election recount

By DAVID USBORNE

WEST PALM BEACH - You thought it was a country in Africa. Sometimes, it is a man's name. But here in Florida, a different sort of "chad" has leaped to the top of everyone's lexicon.

Chads have become our obsession. We are living and breathing the pesky things. If the difference between a "hanging chad" and a "swinging door chad," eludes you, you are in serious trouble. And so is democracy in America.

Nowhere was it more critical than in the offices of Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Theresa LePore. It was in this room that an initial hand-count was undertaken of 1 per cent of the votes cast in the county last Wednesday. It went on for almost 12 hours.

When voters prick the little punch holes on the ballot cards, sometimes they do not push all the way through. When that happens, electronic counting machines can miss a hole and therefore a vote. A hand-count is meant to allow for the visual detection of these semi-punched holes.

The commission had agreed on a light-test standard. Each card was held up to a fluorescent lamp. If light shone through the spot for a particular candidate, a post-it note was attached and it was added to that candidate's pile on the tables. Each counter had a third pile for ballots they still were not sure about. Then the arguments erupted. And we entered deep chad territory.

About two hours into the count, the canvassing board - consisting of a LePore, a local judge and the county commissioner - changed the rules. The status of a vote was to depend on the status of the chad. This is the little rectangle of partially perforated card that is meant to drop off when a hole is punched, but sometimes does not.

A "pregnant" or "dimpled chad" were those bearing an indentation left by the voter but which had not become detached at any of its corners. They would not be counted as votes. Other chads with one corner, two corners or three corners detached - "hanging door," "swinging door" and "tri-corner" chads respectively - would be counted.

Long minutes, sometime, would be spent on a single card, with the board members and the lawyers holding it every angle before agreeing on the chad. Pregnant or hanging. Then the news came. The count had yielded enough new votes for Democrat Al Gore to warrant a hand count for all 462,000 votes cast in the county.

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