Ohio Double Bubble Problem

Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner says they've found that, with so many new voters in the state who aren't used to paper ballots, some are filling in the bubble next to their candidate AND ALSO writing their candidate's name in the section that says "Write In Candidates" (taking that as a command).

Elections officials here in Ohio are calling this a "double bubble." And it's dealt with in two different ways. Some machines count a ballot like this as an "overvote" and just spit the ballot back out. In that case the election official can look at the ballot and determine voter intent. In the other, more complicated case, the machine counts it as an "overvote" and therefore null, but KEEPS the ballot. Secretary of State Brunner issued a directive today that, after the unofficial results are announced tonight, the local Boards of Election in each of Ohio's 88 counties should go back through all the votes in every machine and find these double-bubble ballots, and then try to determine voter intent and count the votes.

-- Andrea Seabrook

3:49 PM ET | 11- 4-2008 | permalink

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