I first heard this term in How I Met Your Mother when Ted dressed up as a hanging Chad for Halloween. I tried to look it up & Google basically just said that it was a voting ballot that people used to punch holes out of. But I feel like I’m missing something.. in the show, they would make fun of Ted for wearing an outdated costume
& would tell him that “the hanging Chad reference
Is very old” & that most people wouldn’t understand it. Which signifies some sort of inside joke or understanding, but I don’t get it. please! Thank you!
In: 373
[**THIS**](https://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/oi0rvo/picture246537123/alternates/LANDSCAPE_1140/0102132504.JPG)
I don’t understand why more people don’t use images to explain things.
Some voting booths, you cast your vote, and the machine punches holes in a card. That card then goes off to the state capitol or wherever, and put in another machine that reads the punch holes, and that’s how the votes are tallied.
But if your machine is a little uncalibrated, it will punch the hole, but it may not punch all the way through. Now you have a hole with a little tidbit of paper still hanging on.
It’s inconclusive, isn’t it? Could the hole be a mistake? What should the card reader do in this case?
The bit of paper is a “chad”, and it’s hanging because it’s still partially connected to the card.
In the 2000 election, the race was VERY close, and literally every single vote counted. A big argument was started over how to count those cards with hanging chads. And because the race was so damn close, this became a big debate and a big meme.
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