The ballots that produced the handing chads were paper
tabulating machine cards, commonly called IBM cards or computer
cards. The voter was supposed to punch out a perforated tab or chad
to make his vote. The chad was supposed to be completely removed to
create a clean hole in the card, but some people punched the card,
but left the chad hanging. These hanging chads interfered with the
machine used to read and tabulate the vote cards.