An overvote occurs when one votes for more than the maximum number of selections allowed in a contest. The result is a
spoiled vote
In voting, a ballot is considered spoilt, spoiled, void, null, informal, invalid or stray if a law declares or an election authority determines that it is invalid and thus not included in the vote count. This may occur accidentally or deliberat ...
which is not included in the final tally.
One example of an overvote would be voting for two candidates in a single race with the instruction "Vote for not more than one." ''
Robert's Rules of Order
''Robert's Rules of Order'', often simply referred to as ''Robert's Rules'', is a manual of parliamentary procedure by U.S. Army officer Henry Martyn Robert.
"The object of Rules of Order is to assist an assembly to accomplish the work for whic ...
'' notes that such votes are illegal.
The exact definition of overvotes is ambiguous in a contest with N-of-M voting, where N of M choices can be selected and N>1 (vote for no more than N). Sometimes overvotes are reported as the number of ballots overvoted in the contest, and sometimes it is reported as N*overvoted-ballots.
Undervotes combined with overvotes (known as
residual votes) can be an academic indicator in evaluating the accuracy of a voting system when recording
voter
Voting is a method by which a group, such as a meeting or an electorate, can engage for the purpose of making a collective decision or expressing an opinion usually following discussions, debates or election campaigns. Democracies elect holde ...
intent.
While an overvote in a
plurality voting system or
limited voting
Limited voting (also known as partial block voting) is a voting system in which electors have fewer votes than there are positions available. The positions are awarded to the candidates who receive the most votes absolutely. In the special case ...
is always illegal, in certain other
electoral methods including
approval voting, this style of voting is valid, and thus invalid overvotes are not possible.
In the corporate world, the term "overvote" describes a situation in which someone votes more proxies than they are authorized to, or for more shares than they hold of record.
References
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External links
USAToday.com – How USA Today and others examined overvote
Elections
Voting theory