Word.ws English Dictionary

overvote

overvote noun: a case in which a voter has marked a ballot for more choices than allowed by the rules.

Noun

overvote (plural overvotes)

  1. (US) A case in which a voter has marked a ballot for more choices than allowed by the rules
    • An overvote that took the form of punching Gore's chad and then writing his name (or Lieberman's) in the place for a write-in candidate would unambiguously manifest the voter's intention to vote for Gore.2001, Richard A. Posner, Breaking the Deadlock, →ISBN, page 78
  2. A case in which more votes are cast in a voter's name than allowed under the rules
    • Overvotes are a relatively common phenomenon for shares held in a street name.1978, Martin Lipton et al., Takeovers and Freezeouts, →ISBN, page 17

Verb

overvote (third-person singular simple present overvotes, present participle overvoting, simple past and past participle overvoted)

  1. (US) To spoil a ballot by marking it for more choices than allowed by the rules
    • […] a poll worker can manually override the program and accept the ballot, even though it has been overvoted or undervoted.2005, United States Government Accountability Office, Elections, →ISBN, page 10
  2. To cast more votes than allowed under the rules
    • I know a great deal of difficulty ensues, and frequently brokers' shares are overvoted.1955, Stock Market Study, page 1429
  3. (obsolete) To outvote or overrule
    • Caleb and Joshua would have been overvoted by almost six hundred thousand Israelites; […]1653, William Jenkyn, An Exposition Upon the Epistle of Jude, published 1839, page 119

Forms of overvote

Noun
pluralovervotes
Verb
third-person singular presentovervotes
present participleovervoting
past participleovervoted
pastovervoted

Origin of overvote

From over- + vote.

Words formed from overvote

Questions about overvote

What does overvote mean?
Overvote means a case in which a voter has marked a ballot for more choices than allowed by the rules.
What part of speech is overvote?
Overvote can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of overvote?
The plural of overvote is overvotes.

Words near overvote in the dictionary

  1. overvoltages
  2. overvoltaging
  3. overvolted
  4. overvolting
  5. overvolts
  6. overvote
  7. overvoted
  8. overvoter
  9. overvoters
  10. overvotes
  11. overvoting

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: overvote (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “overvote.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/overvote. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.