(An
overvote, meanwhile, happens when a voter chooses more candidates than the maximum number allowed.
She urged voters not to
overvote or shade more than the required number of candidates.
But as the Secretary of States Office now notes online, voting for multiple candidates in the CD special primary would be an
overvote and will not be counted.
(78.) An
overvote occurs when a voter votes for more than the allowable number of choices in a particular race, spoiling the ballot.
at 107 (explaining an "
overvote" ballot is essentially one that on the machine count shows two votes for the same office and so is not counted for that office).
At the hearing, the Commonwealth argued that the Fifty Percent Rule was unworkable (39) it would cause confusion and chaos at the polls, it would be difficult to provide privacy to voters using such ballots, those ballots might be tampered with and would increase the risk of an
overvote, (40) and any last minute changes to statewide election policy would be unduly burdensome to implement.
One might even be tempted to observe that there is a typical Quebec Liberal
overvote in advance polls.
(57) Residual votes can result from "undervotes," i.e., when a voter fails to complete the process of marking a vote for one or more office on the ballot, or an "
overvote," i.e., when a voter marks more than one preference for the same office.
political cartoons; samples of discarded "
overvote" ballots,
The exhaustive media recounts have confirmed that punch card and optical-scan ballots actually resulted in similar rates of spoilage, defined as the total of undervotes and
overvotes. (An undervote is a ballot that registers no vote for a candidate while an
overvote is a ballot invalidated by votes for multiple candidates.)
The bill bans punch card voting equipment, requires that electronic voting equipment be programmed to reject an
overvote and advise the voter of an undervote, allots $20 million in state funds to counties, requires the state to develop a standard ballot, eliminates the runoff primary in case no candidate receives a majority in the primary election, makes nonpartisan the race for supervisor of elections, authorizes a statewide database for voter registration, requires increased training and recruitment of poll workers, calls for posting a voter's bill of rights at each polling place, and ensures that voters standing in line when the polling places close are allowed to cast ballots.