Abstract
ABSTRACT
The 2006 midterm elections in Florida focused renewed attention on undervotes, instances where no candidate is selected in a given race. This interest was sparked by the high undervote count—more than 21,000 out of approximately 240,000 ballots cast—in the race for Florida's 13th Congressional seat. This race was decided by a margin of only 369 votes, and the numerous undervotes cast in it were highly concentrated in Sarasota County, one of five counties that contribute to the 13th Congressional District. Using ballot- and precinct-level voting data we show that the exceptionally high Sarasota undervote rate in the 13th Congressional District race was almost certainly caused by the way that Sarasota County's electronic voting machines displayed on a single ballot screen the Congressional contest and the Florida gubernatorial race. We buttress this claim by showing that extraordinarily high undervote rates were also observed in the Florida attorney general race in Charlotte and Lee Counties, places where the attorney general and gubernatorial races were combined on a single ballot screen. Using a precinct-level, statistical imputation model we find that there is a 98 percent chance that the Sarasota undervotes were pivotal in the 13th Congressional District race. With more precise estimates based on ballot data from Charlotte and Sarasota Counties, we find that there is essentially a 100 percent chance that the 13th Congressional District election result would have been reversed in the absence of the large Sarasota undervote.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.