Seasoned political observers gathered Friday, June Seventh at High Noon to monitor the careful hand-count of the paper-ballot chads for our recent 'Count the Chads' competition.

A team of meticulous counters was provided by Larry Sabato's Center for Politics at UVa, under the direction of Joshua J. Scott. Media coverage included Melinda Semadeni's team from WVIR-29, Katherine Cross of WINA, a photographer from the Daily Progress, and other print media types.

The scene was the Galleria at the Main Street Market, a public space surrounded by a gastronome's dream-world of shops devoted to food and cooking.

The program opened with the chad counters in place, already at their task. George Loper welcomed the assembled guests and onlookers and introduced the panel of Observers. Joshua J. Scott introduced his team of counters, and explained the presence of the Palm Beach County Votomatic Machine. Dave Sagarin explained the recent history of the chad guessing competition, and the weighing of the chads. (The weighing estimated a number of 4,678).

Then Jim Heilman delighted the assembly with a short group of Haiku on the theme of the day, followed by a Chad Limerick:

There once was a chad from ballotland
Who liked its life ever so bland
But once punched out
Found some clout
In giving the winner a helping hand.

Jim Heilman and Arthur Scott

At that point, the counters having finished, the tally was run and the total number of chads was determined to be 4,369. The Observers certified the result.

Certification of the count by Official Observers Bryan McKenzie, J.W. Lark III, Meredith Richards, James M. Heilman, Cornelia Johnson, Mitch Van Yahres, Esther W. Page and William B. Harvey.

And the winner with a guess of 4,500 is Ron Tweel, an attorney in Charlottesville. His prizes include possession of the bag of chads, and a luncheon with several of the participants in the proceedings.

Ron Tweel was chosen winner, out of more than one hundred contestants, as having come closest to the hand count.

Asked about his remarkable estimate, Ron said that he counted out a few chads to see how much space they took up and extrapolated that figure to the remaining chads in the bag.

Our congratulations to Ron Tweel and our grateful thanks to all who participated in the contest and the event.