Two impossible shapes ontop of eachother12/10/2023 ![]() The “butterfly” ballot style, used most notably in Palm Beach County, Fla., in 2000, has become synonymous with bad ballot design. An arrow pointed from Gore’s name to the third circle from the top, not the second. So voters needed to punch the second circle to vote for Gore, right? Nope. Al Gore (D) was listed second in the left column under George W. In those oddly constructed ballots, candidates’ names were spread across two facing pages - a major design no-no - with a row of punch circles down the center. ![]() Many ballots contain icons to help voters along.Īrrows, for instance, were key to understanding the infamous “butterfly” ballots in Palm Beach County, Fla., in the 2000 presidential race. Unfortunately, many designers of elections materials still put important instructions in all-caps.įollow your arrows (and doodads and dingbats) Studies show people are less likely to read text that is loud red or in all-capital letters than they are to read text written in black type with capital-and-lowercase letters, McReynolds said. “Most people are right-handed, so you’re covering the name while you’re filling in the circle.”Īnd check to see if the color of ink is specified. “I’ve seen ballots where they put the oval to the left of the name,” said Amber McReynolds, CEO of the National Vote at Home Institute. People tend to fill in ovals completely, for instance, but only put check marks in squares - and a check mark may not register on a scanner.ĭouble-check that you match the oval to the candidate. Paper ballots usually require voters to fill in shapes next to their choice of candidate, but sometimes the shapes are counterintuitive. “All of those come first,” said Larry Norden, director of the Election Reform Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, “and then the design.”Īs you wade through the instructions, don’t miss these things: Ovals? Squares? Be bold and watch where you’re coloring. Not all of those states will accept ballots “naked” - without that inner covering. Two envelopes? Don’t let your ballot go commando.Ībsentee ballots in some states are designed to fit into a second envelope or sleeve to ensure privacy, according to the National Vote at Home Institute. Some states have a “cure” process that alerts an absentee voter to an envelope problem and allows them to fix it, but many states do not. That is probably the signature on your driver’s license or state-issued ID, so take a peek at it before you sign. (Brennan Center for Justice)Īlso critical: In many states, the signature has to match the one the state has on file, according to the National Vote at Home Institute. After nearly 4,000 Minnesota voters didn't sign their 2008 absentee ballot envelopes, left, Minnesota made the signature line more prominent in 2010, right, and the rate of unsigned envelopes dropped by half. The ballot had clear boxes for the voter’s printed name and address, but the signature area could be mistaken for blank space before the next section.Īfter a redesign for 2010 included a large X - the universal cue for “sign here” - and shading that emphasized the signature box, the rate of unsigned ballots fell by half. Senate race by just 312 votes, but more than 3,900 absentee ballots weren’t counted because the envelopes weren’t signed, according to a guide put out by the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice. The 2008 Minnesota absentee ballot envelope did not.ĭemocrat Al Franken beat Republican Norm Coleman in that year’s Minnesota U.S. Elections Assistance Commission.Ī good design will make the signature spot very obvious. ![]() (Disabled voters who can’t sign will be asked for some other mark or identification method.) Other than missing the deadline, the top reason ballots are thrown out is a signature problem, according to the U.S. If you are voting absentee, you will have to sign at least one item in your ballot packet, usually the outside of the envelope. X doesn’t always mark the spot - so be sure to sign And the most common place for a ballot-disqualifying mistake is the envelope. Hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots are thrown out every election year largely because of voter mistakes. The envelope is too important to be an afterthought if you are one of the millions of Americans who votes absentee. Honestly, that should be fine, but I can't quite get that working either.(Rose Wong for The Washington Post) Intimidating envelopes I found, but that appears to work with pixels instead of in vectorspace. I have a code reference where it's working as desired, but it's in React Native (unfortunately can't share it here), using Shopify's React Native Skia library, because that library has a blendMode="xor" option that SVG doesn't appear to have natively.
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