The controversial 'butterfly ballot'
published: Saturday | February 18, 2006

Palm Beach County, Florida, created the controversial
'butterfly ballot' in the 2000 presidential election that reportedly confused more than a thousand Gore-Lieberman voters such that they wound up marking their ballots for a minor-party candidate.

In February 2006, local education officials told the Palm Beach Post that too many of the county's high school students apparently knew answers on the statewide comprehensive test, but were incorrectly marking the answer sheets.

The multiple choice questions require only one circle to be darkened on the sheet, but other questions require darkening digits of an actual numerical answer, apparently bewildering students into darkening too many or too few circles.