Florida is not the only state that has trouble counting ballots, according to a report released yesterday by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University.

The report, entitled “Democracy Spoiled,” exposes problems with ballot spoilage—ballots cast but not counted—at the national, state and county levels in the November 2000 election.

“We’ve identified a problem. What was sort of anecdotal in the Florida election has been shown to be much more pervasive,” said Angelo Ancheta, director of legal and advocacy programs for Civil Rights Project and a lecturer of law. “The basic finding is that where you live greatly affects the value of your vote.”

The report also found that counties with large black populations were the most highly affected by ballot spoilage issues, thus disadvantaging black voters.

“What we suspected, and what we ultimately did find, was that counties with large minority populations had higher spoilage rates,” Ancheta said, adding that problems faced by minority voters in Florida served as the impetus for launching the report.

“After the November 2000 elections, there were a lot of recommendations that were coming out about election reform,” he said. “One problem that we wanted to look at specifically was ballot spoilage.”

The report found that Illinois had the most spoiled ballots of any state—comprising 12.5 percent of the national total—while Illinois, Georgia and Texas together accounted for one third of spoiled ballots nationwide.

Florida—site of the 2000 presidential election controversy—comprised 7.8 percent of the national total.

Georgia led the nation in spoilage rate, or the percent of ballots spoiled, at 4 percent—more than double the national average of 1.94 percent.

Massachusetts had a 1.28 percent spoilage rate, comprising about 0.3 percent of the total spoiled ballots nationwide.

States with spoilage rates below one percent included Connecticut, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Alabama and Maryland.

But the report also showed major local discrepancies, with the highest county spoilage rates occurring in the South, where 82 of the 100 worst counties are located.

Sixty-seven of the 100 worst counties also have black populations above the national average, while only 10 of the best 100 counties had similarly large black populations.

Duval County, Florida—where 27.8 percent of the population is black—ranked as the county with the worst voter spoilage rate in the nation, with almost one in 10 votes spoiled.

Richard F. Carlberg, assistant supervisor of elections for Duval County, contested the report’s numbers.