Del. voting discrepancy dismissed
Unrecorded votes in 2000 attributed to personal choice

By PATRICK JACKSON
Dover Bureau reporter
07/11/2004

In the tight 2000 presidential election, 220,871 people in New Castle County stepped into the voting booth, ed the candidates they favored and then pressed the touch screen to have the machine record their ballot.

But when those ballots were counted, only 212,995 votes were recorded for president.

That means no vote for president was recorded for 7,876 people who cast ballots - a so-called "undervote" of 3.6 percent that is almost twice the national average.

It also is twice as high as the rates in Kent and Sussex counties, and higher than the 2.9 percent rate recorded in Florida, where the controversial election was decided amid a flurry of "hanging chads."

The discrepancy was found in a 50-state comparison of ballots cast and presidential votes counted that was conducted by Scripps Howard News Service. The news organization found that Delaware and 11 other states did not report how many ballots were cast when they certified votes for president four years ago.

But Delaware election officials and party leaders said this week they are not concerned about the numbers because they mean only that 7,876 people chose not to vote in the presidential contest. Al Gore beat George Bush by nearly 49,000 votes in New Castle County.

Election Commissioner Frank Calio said he has met with election officials from the three counties and found no evidence of machine malfunctions or other problems at the polls. He said the state routinely keeps a tally of total ballots cast, but has never released it.

"It wasn't a big issue until Florida," Calio said. "This information is something we've always had internally, but we've never made this into a public record."

Florida drew the world's spotlight in 2000 when 178,145 ballots didn't register a vote for president, about 2.9 percent of all ballots cast. Election experts suggest that the undervote should be investigated when it exceeds 2 percent in major elections.

In Delaware, New Castle was the only county in which the presidential race got fewer votes in 2000 than the U.S. Senate contest between Tom Carper and Bill Roth. The undervote in that race was about 3 percent, still above the national average.

In 2002, an election with a much lower turnout, state officials said, the undervote rates fell closer to national norms.

"If you vote for seven out of 10 candidates, those seven votes are counted, but the machines didn't record the votes you skipped," Calio said. "I was surprised by the size of the undervote in New Castle County in 2000, but I'm confident we didn't lose voters."

Republican and Democratic Party officials said they agree that the numbers indicate people simply didn't vote for president.

House Majority Leader Wayne A. Smith, R-Clair Manor, and Sen. Patricia Blevins, D-Elsmere, lead the legislative committees that monitor election issues. Both said the number was high, but were confident in the system.

"It's a big number," Blevins said. "But people skip all over the ballot and we have built a very good system. I think it really is a question of personal choice, not some sort of scandal."

State Democratic Chairman Rick Bayard said the nature of the 2000 race may have been responsible for so many people opting out.

"Both candidates bent over backwards trying to paint themselves as being middle of the road," Bayard said. "I think that may have confused people who decided not to vote at all because they didn't want to vote for either of them and they didn't want to vote for Ralph Nader."

Larry Sabato, a political science professor at the University of Virginia, said the presidential numbers aren't surprising.

"There are always people who don't vote for president. I know; I've interviewed them," said Sabato, who said his studies show vote skipping is more likely in urbanized areas.

But Basil Battaglia, who was state Republican Party chairman in 2000, said he suspects part of the problem may have involved some type of undetected glitch that disappeared with subsequent programming of Delaware's electronic machines.

Calio said federal election laws adopted after the Florida fiasco require states to report the number of ballots cast and the votes recorded for each candidate.

He said Delaware has altered the programming of its electronic machines so that tallies for each candidate also will show the number of "no votes" recorded. Machines were not programmed in 2000 to tally not-voting choices.

"We think the changes we're making will make our system even more accountable," he said. The software changes should be completed in time for balloting in November.

Frank Sims, a community activist and chairman of the Independent Party of Delaware, said he thinks Delaware's system is accurate and that the changes should bolster public confidence.

"Voting is an area where the public should have absolute confidence that their vote counts and is counted," he said. "Delaware already does a good job of that and the kinds of changes they're talking about making can only make it better."