Ballot Design Makes a Difference

By Wendy Underhill

Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works. –Steve Jobs

Dean Logan, head of elections for Los Angeles County, shows off four pocket guides to ballot design best practices.

While those words were not intended specifically for the ears of state legislators, they might as well have been—at least when it comes to ballot design. 

Ballot design made news in Florida last week, when it was discovered that 60,000 ballots had been misprinted. The votes recorded on 27,000 absentee ballots in Palm Beach are now being reviewed and hand-transferred onto corrected ballots if necessary.

The Palm Beach difficulty is the result of an error. But even without errors, ballot design can play a surprisingly significant role in elections. The fonts, the print size, the positioning of races on a page, and the use of color and icons all relate to the overall ease-of-use for the voter. If instructions are unclear, the layout is crowded, or the text is hard to read, voters get frustrated and their votes may get lost.

Who's responsible for ballot design? Local election officials do the actual layout of ballots, but they do it under specifications set in state law. Frequently statutes dictate design details, such as what size type to use, whether to use all capital letters (a big no-no for readability), and if party logos are to be included. All of these specifications can be a problem.

The good news is that if design is a statutory problem, there is a statutory solution. "We want legislators to build in flexibility, not rigidity," says Dana Chisnell, an independent researcher who focuses on civic design. That's because expectations around design change over time—and voting technology changes mandate design changes as well. Chisnell advocates that legislatures drop the specifics and instead require usability testing for ballots (and possibly other elections materials). "Usability testing" simply means trying out a draft ballot on potential voters. It can be as simple as asking a handful of willing volunteers to vote a mocked-up ballot.

In a blog post, Ballots are Made by Laws and Systems—and Miracle Workers , Chisnell tells the story of how a last-minute change to the wording of a ballot initiative was required in Ohio, doubling the length of the description. This meant that a carefully crafted ballot design was thrown out, and a quick remake was required. The final result was still fine, in part because "Ohio has issued a directive and template to the counties that sets out all of the ballot design best practices allowable within Ohio election law."

Ballot design best practices are the backbone of the new "Field Guides To Ensuring Voter Intent." These pocket-sized books belong in the hands of every election administrator—and possibly in the hands of state legislators who serve on election committees as well. Fortunately, they are free for the printing (although by printing it out on 8 ½ by 11 in. paper, the cute factor of the published version is lost).

Here are my favorite suggestions from the field guides for ballot design, suggestions that apply not just to ballots but to just about all written materials as well:

• Use lowercase letters.
• Avoid centered type.
• Use big enough type.
• Pick one sans-serif font.
• Put instructions where they are needed.
• Use clear, simple language, using this guide to Plain Language.

Comments

[Anne Dunn]

Perhaps I misunderstood a statment in the article which reads: "Who's responsible for ballot design? Local election officials do the actual layout of ballots, but they do it under specifications set in state law." In Louisiana, ballot design is done at the state level. R.S. 18:551 provides in part that "The secretary of state shall prepare and certify the absentee by mail ballots, the early voting ballots, and the ballots to be used on the voting machines in primary and general elections." There are specifications about how the sec. of state is to do this, but local officials do not prepare ballots in Louisiana.

[Wendy Underhill]

Anne, thank you for reading this post on ballot design, and for commenting!

I did not know that in Louisiana it is the SOS that is responsible for ballot design. That is unusual. It does make me wonder, are there a few other states where this responsibility lies at the state level? That would be a bit of a research project.

[mack]

Who made the decision for Florida ballots to list all Republican candidates FIRST? Was that intentional to impact outcome? In many other elections I've participated in, both FL & other states as well as Pres & local elections, the incumbent is always listed first. There is something not quite right about having the current President of the US not listed first.

[JT Orlando]

Florida law provides that the candidates from the sitting governor's party are listed first in each race. Hence, Romney first, Obama second. Yet another reason we have to get rid of Gov. Voldemort.