HAMILTON — The switch from the traditional seven-seat Hamilton City Council race to this year's six-seat race apparently confused some voters in the Nov. 6 election.

        The Butler County Board of Elections threw out 216 ballots because people had voted for more than six of the 15 City Council candidates.

        In the council race in 1999, 37 ballots had to be thrown out because of overvoting.

        Until this year, Hamilton residents could vote for seven council members, with the top vote-getter becoming the mayor. But this year, a city charter amendment separated the mayor's race from the council race.

        That meant people could vote for no more than six council members.

        “Some people voted for seven this time because they had been doing it for years,” said Robert Mosketti, Board of Elections director.

        Debbie Hurd, of Hamilton, said some people probably didn't take the time to read the instructions above the listing of City Council candidates.

        “It said specifically to vote for no more than six candidates,” she said. “I just did what it said.”

        Overvoting tends to occur with races involving a large number of seats, Mr. Mosketti said.

        Cincinnati, which also switched this year to separate mayoral and council races, had the same problem. There were 2.279 ballots thrown out of the City Councilelection because people voted for more than nine candidates. There were 26 candidates.

        Those types of races also temptpeople to vote for fewer candidates than they're allowed.

        “It's selective voting,” Hamilton Councilman Richard Holzberger said. “They vote only for their one or two favorite candidates so they don't give the others a chance to surpass them. When I was going door to door this past campaign, a lot of people told me they did that.”

        In Hamilton's council race, the average voter selected 5 1/2 candidates when they could have voted for six. In Cincinnati, the average voter chose 6 1/2 candidates in a race with nine open seats.

        The 216 ballots that were thrown out of the Hamilton City Council race because of overvoting had no impact on who wound up on council, Mr. Mosketti said.

        Mr. Holzberger, who has been on council for six years, edgedincumbent Archie Johnson by 163 votes for the last council seat.

        Even if all of those 216 voters had chosen Mr. Johnson, Mr. Mosketti said, they would have had to withhold votes from Mr. Holzberger and the two candidates who finished just ahead of him for Mr. Johnson to be elected.

        “The likelihood of that happening would be very slim,” he said.

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