Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A ballot showing the selection of more candidates or choices than are allowed in a given race or referendum.
- noun The number of such ballots cast in an election.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To outvote; outnumber in votes given.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb rare To outvote; to outnumber in votes given.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun US, politics A case in which a voter has marked a
ballot for more choices than allowed by the rules - noun business A case in which more votes are cast in a voter's name than allowed under the rules
- verb US, politics To
spoil a ballot by marking it for more choices than allowed by the rules - verb business To cast more votes than allowed under the rules
- verb obsolete To
outvote oroverrule
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Theoretically if we had a totally fair count, for example, if right now we weren't just counting the undervote, but also the overvote, that is all the votes, and applying the same standard to dimpled chad in the one instance as in the other, you bet.
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Where the machine finds more than one arrow to have been substantially completed, it will attempt to accord the vote to the arrow that is most substantially completed; if no such arrow is more substantially completed than any other, no vote at all shall be recorded, and the ballot shall be deemed an "overvote" as to that office.
Hillary Clinton wants the Democratic Party to check into the irregulaties in the Texas caucuses. Ann Althouse 2008
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One ballot was an overvote, meaning more than one candidate was selected.
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"overvote" ballots where the voter had mistakenly marked the ballot for both Rossi and Gregoire.
Dissecting Leftism 2008
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The county auditor/treasurer has ruled that this is an invalid overvote.
Lizard People Could Be Decisive in Minnesota - Swampland - TIME.com 2008
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Gale Brewer, chairwoman of the City Council committee on governmental operations, and 31 other council members sent a letter to the state Board of Elections calling the machines handling of the overvote "substandard and misleading."
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Any overvote that is submitted will be thrown out as invalid.
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Ms. Weiser said she's noticed very little education efforts about the new machines, and she added, "I am very skeptical any education program can adequately address the overvote problem, which is one of the things that can happen with the machines."
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Did someone add the mark for Barkley, to create a machine overvote?
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So by the basic rules as stated, filling in another oval and writing in a name is an overvote.
Franken The Likely Winner As Minnesota Recount Heads To Finish Line 2009
qms commented on the word overvote
Vote counting has turned for the bad —
The fraud claims and strange hanging chad,
The mystery trove of note
Or mischievous overvote,
Now Russians come hacking us. Sad!
March 22, 2017