ABSTRACT
Who has not heard of punched card ballots? These are the same cards that caused such an uproar in the 2000 presidential election. Where did these cards come from and how are they read?
Punched cards have been around since the late 1800s. Herman Hollerith is credited with inventing the standard punched card, but he actually got his idea from seeing similar cards being used to control Jacquard looms. It was Joseph-Marie Jacquard, a Frenchman, who had the idea of using holes punched in a card to better control the pattern a loom weaves. The first cards Hollerith designed were used to tabulate vital statistics by the New York City Board of Health; however, they are more noted for their use in the 1890 census.
