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Definition 2024


hanging_chad

hanging chad

English

Noun

hanging chad (plural hanging chads)

  1. A piece of punch-through paper on a voting ballot that has not fully detached from the card-stock.
    • 2000 November 14, “Presidency Hinges on Chad”, in ABC News:
      The Gore campaign hopes there are enough ballots with unattached or “hanging” chads next to Gore’s name to give him the lead in Florida — and with it, the presidency.
    • 2002, Prisoners as Citizens: Human Rights in Australian Prisons, page 308:
      They were introduced to the mysteries of the 'hanging chad' and left wondering at the absence of both a federal electoral agency and a uniform ballot paper and the fact that the electoral processes in the vital State of Florida appeared to be in the partisan hands of a brother of one of the two candidates.
    • 2006, Man of the Year, 01:44:42 from the start:
      But, I mean, for me here's the basic thing. How plausible is it that a woman would fix an election because she's obsessed with me? I mean, where's the hanging chad?
    • 2014, Jordan Ellenberg, How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking, page 401:
      Even that number, of course, is open to argument: How do we count a partially punched ballot, the so-called hanging chad?