Palm Beach County - Part 3

Did the butterfly ballot in Palm Beach County cause people to vote incorrectly?  Democrats claimed there were problems with the layout of the ballot that caused "mass confusion".  A suit was filed on the November 8, 2000, by an eager Democrat named Andre Fladell, who thought he could have the Palm Beach election thrown out and perhaps save the presidency for Gore.

But how exactly did the design of the ballot cause problems, if at all?

There were 10,000 undervotes in Palm Beach County.  Undervotes are ballots that do not sufficiently indicate a single vote. 

In order to believe the butterfly ballot design caused undervotes one has to believe it was too hard to select even one candidate.  People wanted to vote for Gore, but when they looked at the ballot they became so confused they had trouble making a single selection.  Of course, this is illogical. 

Over 430,000 people were able to vote in the county.  Undervotes occurred in every county, no matter what ballot was used.  For example, Miami-Dade County had over 10,000.  There were over 61,000 undervotes throughout Florida.

I think we can safely say that the butterfly ballot design did not cause undervotes.