Marilyn Roberts, an associate professor of advertising and political campaigning at the University of Florida, said that while Halperin should be held responsible for his literature, she doubted the incident would have much impact on voters, who will mostly be coming to the polls to choose sides in Florida’s tight gubernatorial race.

“When we batter back and forth like this, oftentimes it causes many voters just to tune out and term it politics as usual,” Roberts said. But “because of the other active high level races, this is not going to affect turnout in this particular race.”

Broward was also among several Florida counties plagued by voting irregularities in the presidential election two years ago. Federal attorneys will observe Broward polls today to prevent violations of civil rights law.

Josh M. Mendelsohn ’05, a Broward County native who has been heavily involved in local politics, said he thought the race was a toss-up despite the discussion of the Harvard incident.

He said that most Florida voters rarely read The New York Times and that “from Broward County’s perspective, this is not a big deal.”

Mendelsohn, who is secretary of the Harvard Republican Club, said the incident didn’t change his mind on who to support.

“It’s very clear that there’s a good candidate in this race and there’s a not very good candidate in this race and a mistake was made,” he said.

He said Halperin had made an “unfortunate error” but that did not weaken his appeal as a candidate.

Karen Halperin said the correct information in her father’s television ads and campaign website make clear that he is not misrepresenting his Harvard affiliation.

“I don’t want to get petty, but our opponent didn’t even graduate from college,” she added.

Rich attended the University of Florida but did not earn a degree.

—Staff writer Elisabeth S. Theodore can be reached at theodore@fas.harvard.edu.