Speak Up Archive: Any Ballot Designers in the House?

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Any Ballot Designers in the House?

I posted a similar comment a few months ago but since non-stop election coverage is flowing out of CA, I thought today would be an appropriate time to revisit the subject of voter ballot design.

A few newsworthy links:

Wanted: A Legible Voting Ballot - Why it’s time to redesign the ballot design process. - an article on the current CA ballot.
Graphic designer, others say recall ballot confusing - Another CA election article that actually considered the opinion of a graphic designer.
Ballot-design suit under negotiation - A lawsuit in IN regarding a ballot design.
Judge To Decide Ballot Dispute Wednesday - another article regarding the IN lawsuit along with a photo of the ballot and the lovely political party logos.

And, finally, perhaps an answer to these issues:

ElectionDesign.org - a non-profit corporation that focuses on Design for Democracy. Affiliated with the AIGA, IDSA, UIC and UPA.

Maintained through our ADV @ UnderConsideration Program

ENTRY DETAILS
ARCHIVE ID 1622 FILED UNDER Discussion
PUBLISHED ON Oct.07.2003 BY darrel
WITH COMMENTS

Comments

I'm not sure why things have to be so confusing, here's a clean Canadian ballot

On Oct.07.2003 at 05:07 PM

I find it interesting that each county designs its own ballot. Also, the order of propositions and measures is even up to the county. This is insanity! I also love the yearly "random alphabet" drawing to determine the order of names on a ballot.

I think it is sad that we still have to go through this considering how poor ballot design influenced the presidential election.

On Oct.07.2003 at 05:11 PM

South Africa's 1994 ballot is interesting

On Oct.07.2003 at 05:21 PM

I like the ballot design by Marcia Lausen linked from the Slate article. It should be common practice to design ballots in this way.

On Oct.07.2003 at 05:40 PM

Like, don't like, like, don't like. It bothers me to see people in positions of power view design as merely a subjective matter. Quotes like "[y]ou can't please everyone," and "[t]here are only three items on the whole page. I can't see how you can call it (the recall issue) buried" betray not only an ignorance of design, but an ignorance of the impact of design.

It seems like it should be possible to objectively test the superior clarity of Lausen's design, but only if they understand the need to run the test in the first place.

Also, the Indiana article--The A-team? The A-team? What?

On Oct.07.2003 at 08:24 PM

Do you think we can blame the Terminator's victory on ballots? I think it's both awesome and hilarious that he won.

On Oct.08.2003 at 01:37 PM

I did touchscreen voting here in LA. It was pretty straightforward but painfully obvious the machine was using a windows-based application.

All those square bevels and gray backgrounds.

Ew.

On Oct.08.2003 at 03:30 PM