Chads, dimples not troublesome in Nevada

RENO, Nev. - Nevada has had elections decided by coin toss, but has never had one hinge on chad or dimples, according to election officials.

''We've had close elections. We had a lot of recounts. But we never had any problems with them,'' said Bill Swackhamer, who served longer as secretary of state than anybody else.

On a punch card ballot, the type in dispute in the Florida recount, voters are supposed to push a stylus completely through the ballot to mark their choice. When the punch doesn't go all the way through, a bit of paper called a chad or a depressed marking called a dimple is left behind.

During his 14-year career that ended in 1987, Swackhamer said he convinced all of Nevada's counties to switch from paper ballots to punch card ballots because of their efficiency, speed and economy.

When candidates called for a recount, he said the votes would change by only a vote or two.

''Never enough to change an election,'' he said.

Washoe County's punch cards were replaced in 1994 with a ballot scanning system.

Carson City is among the seven Nevada counties still using punch card ballots.

In this year's election, the punch card ballot system worked beautifully, according to Tammy Caldwell, chief clerk for the Carson registrar of voters office.

Out of 19,653 ballots cast on Nov. 7, she said only five were brought before an elections board after being rejected by the counting machine.

She said in all five cases, the ballots were crumpled or had something spilled on them. The board then made duplicate ballots, which were counted by machine.

No ballots were thrown out or spoiled because they couldn't be read, she said.

In the 1998 vote recount demanded by John Ensign in his race against U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, Caldwell said Ensign gained only one more vote in a hand count in Carson City.