Topic: Democracy
Bad ballot design problems A reply to the Brennan Center & USA Todayby Darryl W. Perry
(libertarian)
Monday, July 21, 2008
The Brennan Center published an article (http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/better_ballots/) that got publicity by USA Today. (http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-07-20-ballots_N.htm) The Brennan Center claims " While all groups of voters are affected by poorly designed ballots and badly drafted instructions, these problems disproportionately affect low-income voters, new voters, and elderly voters." Which caused USA Today to publish another article stating that "Ballot Designs are 'literacy tests for voters'". Richard Winger of Ballot Access News published a report on the Brennan Center report stating "The study finds these problems: (1) splitting candidates for the same office onto different pages or columns; (2) placing different contests on the same touch screen; (3) placing response options on both sides of candidates names; (4) using "complete the arrow" instead of "fill the oval" response options; (5) leaving columns or rows for disqualified candidates; (6) inconsistency in format and style; (7) not using shading to help voters differentiate between voting tasks; (8) not using bold text to help voters differentiate between voting tasks; (9) not writing short, simple instructions; (10) placing instructions far from related actions; (11) not informing voters how to correct paper ballots; (12) failing to effectively warn voters of undervotes in touch screen systems; (13) publishing sample ballots different from actual ballots."
While I cannot argue that some ballots are poorly designed, I do not expect the government to ever "fix" the problem. Since HAVA became Federal Mandate, over $3 BILLION (of Federal tax-payer money) has been spent by States and municipalities to switch to "new" voting systems, most switching to electronic voting machines, that leave no paper trail. These electronic voting machines are not without problems. Not to mention, that there is no paper trail, in 2006, over 18,000 people in Florida's 18th Congressional District didn't vote for that particular House Race, due in part to two races being on the same screen. I would write that up to "voters not paying attention"; but others may claim "bad ballot design".
What is the solution? There are a few. One solution would be to get the government out of the business of printing ballots. Well, who would print the ballots? I propose that no one print ballots. WHAT?!? No one print ballots?? How will I vote? How will I know who is running for office? It's simple really, we go back to the way elections were held in the late 1700's & early 1800's. You (the voter) would go to the polling place, identify yourself to the Elections Clerk and state your preference of who you want for each office. Now, I realize that this may cause some people to be skeptical about privacy rights, and that I can sympathize with. So, I will modify this to allow for a private ballot. Each voter will receive a ballot that only has the names of the offices up for election and a space to write the name of your preferred candidate. Another option would be to allow each "party" or organization to print a ballot with it's list of endorsed candidates, and voters can bring this to the Elections Clerk.
While this may not completely remove "voter confusion", it will eliminate poor ballot design, as there will be not ballot to design.
Ultimately, I would like to see all elections be held using non-partisan IRV. IRV (Instant Runoff Voting) allows a voter to rank his/her choices in order of preference 1, 2, 3, etc. The candidate that has the fewest votes after the first count, is eliminated and the votes cast for that candidate go to the second preference. This continues until one candidate receives a majority of the votes cast. One of the advantages of non-partisan IRV is that all candidates are treated equally. There is no preference given to members of this party or that. Everyone has the same requirements for getting on the ballot. Usually a small filing fee.
However, I suspect that no matter how the ballot is designed nothing will ever change, until we elect people that want things to change. But, that will not happen as long as we have restrictive ballot access laws. Those supporting restrictive ballot access laws claim "voter confusion" by "too many" candidates on the ballot; but, I say that the real issue involves "voter education". Too often people step into the election booth and vote for a candidate they know nothing about, except for the 30 or 60 second sound bite from the TV news.
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The views expressed in this
article are those of Darryl W. Perry only and do not represent
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Seriously? Your joking right? Have you in any way ever been involved with any election? a) You've just increased time to vote about a 100 times. It's very common to vote for dozens of items. b) I guess we've got a spelling test to be able to vote now... c) Have you considered the administrative nightmare of trying to tally your write-in only ballots? What about the legal implications? How poorly misspelled does a name have to be before it doesn't count? d) I guess you better not be disabled in any way... I really could go on and on.
This is absolutely without a doubt the single most irresponsible and poorly thought out comment on election reform I've ever seen. Pre-printed party ballots? Yes people should only be able to vote for one party per election. Let's also restrict elections to only white male property owners while we're at it.
Mr. Perry, I too support IVR and I really like your article, however, though I disagree with Mike's characterizations of your idea he does bring up some very valid concerns.
Posted By: Darryl W. Perry
Date: 2008-07-23 11:50:01
The first proposal that I listed was simply a return to how elections were held before government printed ballots appeared in the USA in the late 1800's.
I'm simply pointing out that no matter who designs the ballot, there will ALWAYS be "problems" and the only way to "solve" the problem of "bad ballot design" is to have NO ballot design, which as we all know is almost impossible.
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