Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T22:11:17.593Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Butterfly Did It: The Aberrant Vote for Buchanan in Palm Beach County, Florida

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 May 2017

Jonathan N. Wand ,
Kenneth W. Shotts ,
Jasjeet S. Sekhon ,
Walter R. Mebane Jr. ,
Michael C. Herron  and
Henry E. Brady
Jonathan N. Wand
Affiliation:
Cornell University
Kenneth W. Shotts
Affiliation:
Northwestern University
Jasjeet S. Sekhon
Affiliation:
Harvard University
Walter R. Mebane Jr.
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
Michael C. Herron
Affiliation:
Northwestern University
Henry E. Brady
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We show that the butterfly ballot used in Palm Beach County, Florida, in the 2000 presidential election caused more than 2,000 Democratic voters to vote by mistake for Reform candidate Pat Buchanan, a number larger than George W. Bush's certified margin of victory in Florida. We use multiple methods and several kinds of data to rule out alternative explanations for the votes Buchanan received in Palm Beach County. Among 3,053 U.S. counties where Buchanan was on the ballot, Palm Beach County has the most anomalous excess of votes for him. In Palm Beach County, Buchanan's proportion of the vote on election-day ballots is four times larger than his proportion on absentee (nonbutterfly) ballots, but Buchanan's proportion does not differ significantly between election-day and absentee ballots in any other Florida county. Unlike other Reform candidates in Palm Beach County, Buchanan tended to receive election-day votes in Democratic precincts and from individuals who voted for the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate. Robust estimation of overdispersed binomial regression models undernins much of the analysis.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 95 , Issue 4 , December 2001 , pp. 793 - 810
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2001

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Achen, Christopher H. 1986. The Statistical Analysis of Quasi-Experiments. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Associated Press. 2000a. “One Election Result Confirmed: Second Election Ruled a Do-Over.” Associated Press State and Local Wire, December 13.Google Scholar
Associated Press. 2000b. “Voting Scrutinized All Over Florida.” Associated Press, November 9.Google Scholar
Atkinson, A. C. 1986. “Masking Unmasked.” Biometrika 73 (3): 533-41.Google Scholar
Brady, Henry E., Herron, Michael, Mebane, Walter R. Jr., Sekhon, Jasjeet S., Shotts, Kenneth, and Wand, Jonathan. 2001. “Law and Data: The Butterfly Ballot Episode.” PS: Political Science & Politics 34 (March): 59–69.Google Scholar
Bridges, Tyler. 2001. “Ballots Offer Clues on Intent: Experts See Patterns in the Overvotes.” Miami Herald, May 11, Internet edition.Google Scholar
Campbell, Angus, and Miller, Warren E.. 1957. “The Motivational Basis of Straight and Split Ticket Voting.” American Political Science Review 51 (June): 293–312.Google Scholar
Carroll, Raymond J., and Ruppert, David. 1988. Transformation and Weighting in Regression. New York: Chapman & Hall.Google Scholar
Christmann, Andreas. 1994. “Least Median of Weighted Squares in Logistic-regression with Large Strata.” Biometrika 81 (2): 413-17.Google Scholar
Croux, Christophe, Rousseeuw, Peter J., and Hossjer, Ola. 1994. “Generalized S-Estimators.” Journal of the American Statistical Association 89 (December): 1271-81.Google Scholar
Darcy, Robert. 1986. “Position Effects with Party Column Ballots.” Western Political Quarterly 39 (December): 648-62.Google Scholar
Donoho, D. L., and Huber, P. J.. 1983. “The Notion of Breakdown Point.” In A Festschrift for Erich L. Lehmann, ed. Bickel, Peter J., Doksum, Kjell A., and Hodges, J. L.. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Pp. 157-84.Google Scholar
Elms, Laurel, and Brady, Henry E.. 2001. “Mapping the Buchanan Vote Escarpment in Palm Beach County, Florida.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Public Choice Society, March 9–11, San Antonio, Texas.Google Scholar
Engelhardt, Joel. 2000. “Elections Chief on Firing Line.” Palm Beach Post, November 9, Internet edition.Google Scholar
Engelhardt, Joel, and McCabe, Scott. 2001a. “Election 2000: Over-Votes Cost Gore the Election in FL.” Palm Beach Post, March 11, Internet edition.Google Scholar
Engelhardt, Joel, and McCabe, Scott. 2001b. “Election 2000: Under-Votes Could Have Meant Victory for Gore.” Palm Beach Post, March 11, Internet edition.Google Scholar
Firestone, David. 2000a. “Democrats Still Prefer to Keep Counting.” New York Times, November 11, Internet edition.Google Scholar
Firestone, David. 2000b. “Party Mobilized on Ballot Even as Votes Were Cast.” New York Times, November 11, Internet edition.Google Scholar
Garvey, Megan. 2000. “Bay Buchanan Sees Something Peculiar in Palm Beach Voting.” Los Angeles Times, November 10, Internet edition.Google Scholar
Hamilton, James T., and Ladd, Helen F.. 1996. “Biased Ballots? The Impact of Ballot Structure on North Carolina Elections in 1992.” Public Choice 87 (3/4): 259-80.Google Scholar
Hampel, F. R. 1971. “A General Qualitative Definition of Robustness.” Annals of Mathematical Statistics 42 (December): 1887-96.Google Scholar
Hampel, Frank R., Ronchetti, Elvezio M., Rousseeuw, Peter J., and Stahel, Werner A.. 1986. Robust Statistics: The Approach Based on Influence Functions. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Hampel, Frank R., Rousseeuw, Peter J., and Ronchetti, Elvezio. 1981. “The Change-of-Variance Curve and Optimal Redescending M-Estimators.” Journal of the American Statistical Association 76 (September): 643-8.Google Scholar
Koehler, Kenneth J., and Larntz, Kinley. 1980. “An Empirical Investigation of Goodness-of-Fit Statistics for Sparse Multinomials.” Journal of the American Statistical Association 75 (June): 336-44.Google Scholar
Larntz, Kinley. 1978. “Small-Sample Comparisons of Exact Levels for Chi-Squared Goodness-of-Fit Statistics.” Journal of the American Statistical Association 73 (January): 253-63.Google Scholar
McCullagh, Peter. 1986. “The Conditional Distribution of Goodness-of-Fit Statistics for Discrete Data.” Journal of the American Statistical Association 81 (March): 104-7.Google Scholar
McCullagh, Peter, and Nelder, John A.. 1989. Generalized Linear Models, 2d ed. New York: Chapman & Hall.Google Scholar
Merzer, Martin. 2001a. “‘Overvotes’ Leaned to Gore, But to Win, He Needed Help of Dimpled Ballots.” Miami Herald, May 11, Internet edition.Google Scholar
Merzer, Martin. 2001b. “Review Shows Ballots Say Bush, But Gore Backers Have Some Points to Argue.” Miami Herald, April 4, Internet edition.Google Scholar
Merzer, Martin, and the staff of the Miami Herald. 2001. The Miami Herald Report: Democracy Held Hostage. New York: St. Martin's.Google Scholar
Miami Herald. 2001. “About This Project.” Miami Herald. May 11, Internet edition.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Alison. 2001. “Results Official, at Last: Bush Defeats Gore.” New York Times, January 7, Internet edition.Google Scholar
Rousseeuw, P. J. 1984. “Least Median of Squares Regression.” Journal of the American Statistical Association 79 (December): 871-80.Google Scholar
Rousseeuw, Peter J., and Croux, Christophe. 1993. “Alternatives to the Median Absolute Deviation.” Journal of the American Statistical Association 88 (December): 1273-83.Google Scholar
Rousseeuw, Peter J., and Leroy, Annick M.. 1987. Robust Regression and Outlier Detection. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Sekhon, Jasjeet Singh, and Mebane, Walter R. Jr. 1998. “Genetic Optimization Using Derivatives: Theory and Application to Nonlinear Models.” Political Analysis 7: 189–203.Google Scholar
Sinclair, Robert C., Mark, Melvin M., Moore, Sean E., Lavis, Carrie A., and Soldat, Alexander S.. 2000. “An Electoral Butterfly Effect.” Nature 408 (December 7): 665-6.Google Scholar
Stout, David. 2000. “As Electors Cast Their Votes, Bush Confers in Washington.” New York Times, December 18, Internet edition.Google Scholar
Stromberg, Arnold J. 1993. “Computation of High Breakdown Nonlinear Regression Parameters.” Journal of the American Statistical Association 88 (March): 237-44.Google Scholar
Van Natta, Don Jr. 2000. “Gore to Contest Recount Result in Palm Beach.” New York Times, November 25, Internet edition.Google Scholar
Van Natta, Don Jr., and Moss, Michael. 2000. “Democratic ‘War Room’ Tries to Oversee the Battle for Florida, to Mixed Results.” New York Times, November 11, Internet edition.Google Scholar
Wakin, Daniel J. 2000. “Bush Campaign Pushes for a Gore Concession.” New York Times, November 10, Internet edition.Google Scholar
Western, Bruce. 1995. “Concepts and Suggestions for Robust Regression Analysis.” American Journal of Political Science 39 (August): 786–817.Google Scholar
White, Halbert. 1994. Estimation, Inference and Specification Analysis. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wonnacott, Thomas H., and Wonnacott, Ronald J.. 1990. Introductory Statistics, 5th ed. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.