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Ballots Don't Pack Punch

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By STACEY SHICK

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 24, 2008

Here we go again, with the punch cards, the magnifying glasses, the hanging chad.

I've been disenfranchised by Major League Baseball.

My All-Star ballot was flawed.

Thanks to my fiance, I have voting for the All-Star Game down to a science: Bring a pen to the ballpark. Grab a handful of ballots from the display. Open five and stack them neatly. Use the pen to pop out the chad for the player of your choice. Repeat as necessary.

I usually vote straight party tickets - Philadelphia in the National League, Tampa Bay in the American.

At the May 31 Rays-White Sox game, I took a cue from the boys from Chicago. I got there early and voted often. I had no problem on the Phillies side.

Then I started on the Rays. Carl Crawford, check. Dioner Navarro, check. Akinori Iwamura, check. Carlos Pena, uh-oh.

There was nothing to punch.

The dot that was supposed to be perforated next to his name was not.

I'm claiming fraud. Has anyone seen Katherine Harris lately?

I don't know how widespread the problem is. Of the 30 or so ballots I cast that night, I couldn't vote for Pena on four or five. Rays officials checked and didn't find any misprints. But another bad ballot turned up last week.
Pat Courtney of Major League Baseball told our colleagues here at the Tribune that a company in Massachusetts does the ballot printing and he has never heard of this type of problem before. MLB has used this company for years. A spokeswoman for that company - TMC Group - said more than 23 million ballots have been shipped to ballparks around the majors.

"Obviously in any sort of run with paper ballots, you have an error factor," Courtney said.

Fair point.

I'm not saying this is why Pena is so far behind in the voting. After all, people can still vote online.

I'm just saying this is Florida.

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