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

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  • Wand, Jonathan N.
  • Shotts, Kenneth W.
  • Sekhon, Jasjeet S.
  • Mebane, Walter R.
  • Herron, Michael C.
  • Brady, Henry E.

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Wand, Jonathan N. & Shotts, Kenneth W. & Sekhon, Jasjeet S. & Mebane, Walter R. & Herron, Michael C. & Brady, Henry E., 2001. "The Butterfly Did It: The Aberrant Vote for Buchanan in Palm Beach County, Florida," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 95(4), pages 793-810, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:95:y:2001:i:04:p:793-810_40
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    Cited by:

    1. Cervellati, Matteo & Gulino, Giorgio & Roberti, Paolo, 2022. "Random Power to Parties and Policies in Coalition Governments," CEPR Discussion Papers 14906, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Fukumoto, Kentaro & Horiuchi, Yusaku, 2011. "Making Outsiders' Votes Count: Detecting Electoral Fraud through a Natural Experiment," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 105(3), pages 586-603, August.
    3. Antenangeli Leonardo & Cantú Francisco, 2019. "Right on Time: An Electoral Audit for the Publication of Vote Results," Statistics, Politics and Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(2), pages 137-186, December.
    4. Matteo Cervellati & Giorgio Gulino & Paolo Roberti, 2024. "Random Votes to Parties and Policies in Coalition Governments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 92(5), pages 1553-1588, September.
    5. Jason Wittenberg, 2013. "How similar are they? rethinking electoral congruence," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 47(3), pages 1687-1701, April.
    6. Scott Basinger & Damon Cann & Michael Ensley, 2012. "Voter response to congressional campaigns: new techniques for analyzing aggregate electoral behavior," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 150(3), pages 771-792, March.
    7. Walter R. Mebane & Jasjeet S. Sekhon, 2004. "Robust Estimation and Outlier Detection for Overdispersed Multinomial Models of Count Data," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 48(2), pages 392-411, April.
    8. Michael Munger, 2005. "Nineteenth-century voting procedures in a twenty-first century world," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 124(1), pages 115-133, July.

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