[WEB4LIB] RE: The Bad Design Election

[Richard Wiggins]

That report is extremely misleading, as was the "experiment."  To quote the AP article: "McGee's ballot was on one page instead of two, with no split or line down the middle like the Palm Beach ballot. McGee's ballot also had large arrows pointing from the name of the character to the corresponding box. The Palm Beach ballot arrows were smaller." This was a stunt, not a carefully designed experiment, regardless of the claim that it was politically neutral.

If you want to see a simulation of what voters in Palm Beach County actually saw, from the angle of a human standing in a voting booth, visit this URL:

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/graphics/news/ballot.htm

The question is not whether those who misvoted could have done a better job of following directions.  The question is whether the ballots were designed in a way that conformed with Florida law (which arguably they did not) and whether the design, imposed on a large population of elderly voters, who were given a limit of no more than 5 minutes to complete their voting, encouraged a mistaken vote.  

The whole thing is a very sad tale. I still feel very, very sorry for the PB County elections supervisor (as it happens, a Democrat whose goal was to make the ballot text readable).

/rich



------Original Message------
From: HTheyer <htheyer at pacbell.net>
To: Multiple recipients of list <web4lib at webjunction.org>
Sent: November 10, 2000 11:19:02 PM GMT
Subject: [WEB4LIB] RE: The Bad Design Election


I just heard on the radio that a school had kids elect their favorite Disney
character using the same butterfly and punch card design.  The report said
is wasn't to make a political point, but the kids all used it correctly and
didn't vote for a different character than they intended.

Could it be that adults don't read directions and kids do?

Hillary Theyer
Richard Wiggins
Consulting, Writing & Training on Internet Topics
www.netfact.com/rww         wiggins at mail.com
517-349-6919 (home office)  517-353-4955 (work)
Richard Wiggins
Consulting, Writing & Training on Internet Topics
www.netfact.com/rww         wiggins at mail.com
517-349-6919 (home office)  517-353-4955 (work)  
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