2000 Florida Ballots Project

In the United States presidential election of November 2000, approximately 180,000 ballots in Florida's 67 counties were uncertified because they failed to register a "valid" vote for president. These ballots included those in which no vote was recorded (undervotes) and those in which people voted for more than one candidate (overvotes). The 2000 Florida Ballots Project examined the undervotes and overvotes. The goal of the project was not to declare a "winner," but rather to carefully examine the ballots to assess the relative reliability of the three major types of ballot systems used in Florida. The results of this assessment may help state legislatures, other decision-makers, and developers of ballot systems to work toward more reliable ballot systems in the future. This collection contains seven separate data sets. The first data set is the "Raw Data File" which contains one record for each ballot examined. In addition to ballot information, each record includes county name, FIPS code, ballot system and other identifying information. The unique identifier for each record is recorded in the variable BALNUM, and can be used to link the data sets. The second data set is the "Aligned Data File." This data set matches the Raw Data File with the exception of the variables associated with the candidates. All chad-level data (including chads that represent a particular candidate) are presented in the raw file. In the aligned data file, only those data that apply to candidate chads are included - data from three coding systems are contained in the same variable for each candidate. The third data set is the "Recode Data File." At random intervals, after coding a group of ballots, the coders were instructed to recode the same ballots as a check on intra-coder reliability (or consistency within a coder). These second codings are contained in the recode data file. The difference between variables in the recode data and file and the aligned data file is variables with the suffix C1, C2, or C3 in the aligned data has R1, R2, and R3, respectively, in the recode data. The fourth data file is the "Comment Data File." The comments data file is a ballot-level file containing all comments made by coders during the coding of ballots. The data file contains one record for each ballot for which at least one of the three coders recorded a comment; 5,407 ballots had at least one coder comment and are contained in this file. The fifth data file is the "Coder Demographic Data File." The Coder Demographic data file contains the results of a questionnaire given to each coder employed by NORC for the Florida Ballots Project. This file contains one record for each coder and includes information such as the sex, marital status, age, income level, ethnicity, and political affiliation of each coder. The ID field contains the identification number of the coder which can be used as a link to the raw and aligned data files. The sixth and seventh data sets are the "Orange County Raw Data File" and "Orange County Aligned Data File." These two data sets are identical to the structures of the raw and aligned data files, respectively. Each file has 417 records. These data files are being made available because the 966 undervotes and 1,383 overvotes reported by Orange County on election day (that ultimately informed the tally of certified totals) could not be segregated by county officials responsible for producing the ballots for NORC review. The NORC coders were initially shown only 640 undervotes and 1,197 overvotes. At the time of initial coding, more than 400 of the ballots rejected by machines on election day simply could not be distinguished from ballots that were accepted and certified on election day.

在美国2000年11月的总统选举中，佛罗里达州67个县大约有18万张选票未能得到认证，原因在于它们未能登记一张‘有效’的总统选票。这些选票包括未记录任何选票的（无效票）和选民为多名候选人投票的（多选票）。2000年佛罗里达州选票项目对无效票和多选票进行了考察。该项目的目标并非宣布‘胜者’，而是细致审查选票，以评估佛罗里达州所使用的三种主要投票系统的相对可靠性。此评估结果可能有助于州立法机构、其他决策者以及投票系统开发者共同努力，致力于开发更可靠的投票系统。本集合包含七个独立的数据集。第一个数据集为‘原始数据文件’，其中包含每张被审查选票的记录。除了投票信息外，每条记录还包括县名、FIPS代码、投票系统及其他识别信息。每条记录的唯一标识符记录在变量BALNUM中，可用于链接数据集。第二个数据集为‘对齐数据文件’。该数据集与原始数据文件相匹配，但与候选人相关的变量除外。原始文件中包含所有代表特定候选人的chad级数据（包括chad）。在对齐数据文件中，仅包含与候选人chad相关的数据——每个候选人的三个编码系统的数据包含在同一变量中。第三个数据集为‘重编码数据文件’。在编码一组选票后，编码员被要求随机间隔重新编码相同的选票，以检查编码员内部的一致性（或编码员内部的可靠性）。这些第二次编码包含在重编码数据文件中。重编码数据文件和与对齐数据文件中的变量差异在于，对齐数据文件中带有后缀C1、C2或C3的变量在重编码数据中分别对应R1、R2和R3。第四个数据文件为‘注释数据文件’。注释数据文件是一个投票级别的文件，包含编码员在编码选票过程中所做的一切注释。数据文件包含至少有一条编码员评论的每张选票的记录；共有5,407张选票至少有一条编码员评论，包含在本文件中。第五个数据文件为‘编码员人口统计数据文件’。编码员人口统计数据文件包含对为佛罗里达州选票项目工作的每位NORC编码员进行问卷调查的结果。该文件包含每位编码员的记录，包括性别、婚姻状况、年龄、收入水平、种族和政党倾向等信息。ID字段包含编码员的识别号码，可用于链接原始数据文件和对齐数据文件。第六和第七个数据集分别为‘橙县原始数据文件’和‘橙县对齐数据文件’。这两个数据集的结构分别与原始数据文件和对齐数据文件相同。每个文件包含417条记录。这两个数据文件现在可供使用，因为橙县在选举当天报告的966张无效票和1,383张多选票（最终影响了认证总票数的统计）无法由负责为NORC制作选票的县官员进行区分。NORC编码员最初只展示了640张无效票和1,197张多选票。在初始编码时，超过400张在选举当天被机器拒绝的选票与被接受和认证的选票在选举当天无法区分。