Ballot Design and Unrecorded Votes on Paper-Based Ballots

Abstract

The 2000 presidential election focused attention on the problem of unrecorded votes, in which a person casts a ballot but fails to record a valid vote for a particular contest. Although much recent research has evaluated voting technologies and their effects on unrecorded votes, there has been little research on the effects of ballot design. We argue that the same theories used to design and evaluate self-administered surveys can be used to analyze ballot features. We collect and code paper-based ballots used in the 2002 general election from 250 counties in 5 states. We code the ballots in terms of several graphic design elements, including the content and location of ballot instructions and the layout of candidate names and office titles. Our analysis suggests that several ballot features are associated with unrecorded votes (both overvotes and undervotes) in the gubernatorial contests. We also find that ballot design features exacerbate the racial disparity in unrecorded votes. Ballot design can be an important factor in determining whether voters are able to cast a ballot accurately, which can influence the legitimacy of elections. The 2000 presidential election and the Florida recount controversy illuminated the phenomenon of unrecorded votes (in which some voters come to polling places but fail to cast a valid vote for a particular contest). Roughly 2 million voters (almost 1 out of every 50 to cast a ballot) failed to cast a valid vote for president in the 2000 election (Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project 2001). The Florida imbroglio prompted a new wave of research on election administration and a flurry of election reform laws in Congress and

Overvoting and the Equality of Voice under Instant-Runoff Voting in San Francisco

“…A relatively higher rate of overvotes resulting in spoiled ballots was found in precincts with more black residents (Neely and Cook 2008). This follows work that has examined the residual vote (Bullock and Hood 2002;Darcy and Schneider 1989;Kimball et al 2004;Kimball and Kropf 2005) and overvotes, in particular (Sinclair and Alvarez 2004). 5 Higher counts of overvotes were also found, at times, among San Francisco communities with more Latino residents (Neely and Cook 2008), something shown in a similar analysis of voters in Los Angeles (Sinclair and Alvarez 2004), and in areas with more foreignborn residents.…”

“…However, because those differences were rare in the earlier IRV analysis (Neely and Cook 2008) we expect there to be no significant difference in overvotes between areas with more male or female residents. Other factors have been shown to matter in the rate at which voters cast uncounted ballots: elderly voters (Darcy and Schneider 1989;Kimball and Kropf 2005;Stiefbold 1965), less educated voters (Walker 1966;Bullock and Hood 2002), and poorer voters (Darcy and Schneider 1989;Kimball, Owens, and Keeney 2004;Knack and Kropf 2003) have been identified as more likely to cast a ballot that is not counted. However, the prior IRV study found few of these relationships.…”

“…Analyses of uncounted votes have shown that ballot complexity can cause voter fatigue and confusion (Bullock and Dunn 1996;Walker 1966). Choices may be affected by the sequence of the names listed (Hecock and Bain 1956;Krosnick, Miller, and Tichy 2004) or the general layout of the information on the ballot paper (Bullock and Hood 2002;Darcy and Schneider 1989;Kimball and Kropf 2005;Walker 1966). The previous study of IRV in San Francisco showed that the counts of overvotes were consistently and positively related to the number of candidates on the slate (Neely and Cook 2008).…”

Overvoting and the Equality of Voice under Instant-Runoff Voting in San Francisco

“…A relatively higher rate of overvotes resulting in spoiled ballots was found in precincts with more black residents (Neely and Cook 2008). This follows work that has examined the residual vote (Bullock and Hood 2002;Darcy and Schneider 1989;Kimball et al 2004;Kimball and Kropf 2005) and overvotes, in particular (Sinclair and 5 Alvarez 2004). 5 Higher counts of overvotes were also found, at times, among San Francisco communities with more Latino residents (Neely and Cook 2008), something shown in a similar analysis of voters in Los Angeles (Sinclair and Alvarez 2004), and in areas with more foreignborn residents.…”

Untitled

“…In his critique of the new polling methods Sullivan (2009) found that Internet respondents who are surveyed multiple times per week on different topics develop survey fatigue as they pursue prizes like tote bags, gift certificates, T-shirts and even cash. Though studies on ballot design (eg, Kimball & Kropf 2005;denver, Johns & Carman 2009) have attempted, using survey theories, to investigate the features of ballot designs and their impact on voting errors the issue still rests on the reliability of the method and measures. Exceptions are when there are similarities between the designs of ballot papers and of surveys.…”