Chad

A Chad are small pieces of paper or card resulting from the use of punch card voting machines. The plural of this term is "chad" rather than "chads".

The following terms were widely used during the 2000 US Presidential Election, where square punches were used.


 * hanging chad A chad with only one corner remains attached to the card.
 * swinging chad A chad with two adjacent corners still attached to the card.
 * tri-chad A chad with three corners still attached to the card.
 * pregnant chad A chad that's only indented slightly and is still fully attached to the card. (Also called dimpled chad)
 * punched chad A Chad that has been punched all the way out.