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 in the show, they would make fun of Ted for wearing an outdated costume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!
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“Chads” are the pieces of paper removed when using a hole puncher. A “hanging chad” occurs when the piece does not fully separate. They were particularly notable in the 2000 US presidential election, in which some districts (especially in south Florida) used punch-card ballots. This made counting ballots difficult, since a ballot counting machine might not count a ballot where the hole is not fully punched. Neither Bush nor Gore had enough electoral votes to win without Florida (making it very important to know who won), and the vote was extremely close (so even a small error could change the outcome). Recounts (and arguments over what should count as a vote) continued until mid-December, when the Supreme Court stopped the recount with Bush ahead (in Florida) by 537 votes, giving him Florida’s electoral votes and therefore the presidency.
What was headline news for two months in late 2000 had become far less relevant by late 2005, nearly a year after another election had been held.
(FWIW, a post-election recount by the University of Chicago found that a recount of *all* of Florida’s ballots would have resulted in a Gore win. However, a statewide recount was not attempted; the Gore campaign only asked for recounts in four counties, and recounting only those counties would have still allowed Bush to win.)
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