To make the results less suspect, they also counted a ballot containing some Republican votes a total of six times.
"We don't have hanging chads or dimpled things," said Mrs. Kiffmeyer, a Republican, who voted absentee this morning in Sherburne County, where the new ballot containing Mr. Mondale's name was ready.
This satirical ballot contains some special extra-credit questions covering categories like "Self-Adulation," "Windbaggery," "Award Handling," "Topicality," and "Buzzwords".
The November ballot contains Proposition 23, which would freeze the state's landmark global warming law, AB 32, barring a precipitous drop in the unemployment rate.
The ballot contained a provision for registering the Presidential preference by the total popular vote, and this vote stood Mr. Taft 74,808, Mr. Roosevelt 71,203, hence the delegates-at-large, representing the State as a whole, should vote for Mr. Taft despite the fact that Mr. Roosevelt's delegates-at-large secured a majority.
(A written ballot contains the homeowner's name and is used in lieu of a live vote at the meeting, while a proxy allows someone the ability to vote on the homeowner's behalf should they wish to defer their voting power).
At today's hearing, Judge Burton told the court that the canvassing board had struggled to discern the voter's intent on many ballots containing dimples.
One of his biggest complaints was that ballots containing misspelling's of Murkowski's name had been counted as valid.
The legislature scrutinized the ballots in a partisan manner (for example, retaining ballots containing misspelled versions of Republican James Sullivan's name and discarding similar ballots marked for Federalist Caleb Strong).
In addition to being locked out of the Republican presidential primary, no-party-preference voters also had to ask poll workers for ballots containing Democratic presidential candidates and those of other parties.
Mr. Bartlit argued, for example, that even overseas military ballots with neither a postmark nor a date could be counted, because many absentee ballots contain no request or place for a date.
