#Ballots November 17

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Today the 30-Day Election Trivia Coach4aday Challenge post is on the lack of consistency on BALLOTS.

Starting out with a pretty obvious fact. All BALLOTS are not designed or look the same. Where you vote determines the appearance, order, and fonts for the slate of officers.

Examples

The Brennen Center for Justice estimates that large numbers of BALLOTS are miscast each year due to lack of a consistent or uniformed design.

There is a Ballot Design Project that Brennen Center is taking on.

Some flaws they are trying to take on include:

Moving instructions to the top of a ballot not at the bottowm

Sometimes it is the size of the ballot or how it is designed-One example is NYC had a perforated two-page ballot that voters had to tear open. Many voters never understood they had to tear it open so races on middle page were left blank.

When voting on an electronic touch screen multiple races on the same screen.

The published sample ballots in some areas look nothing like the actual ballot.

Candidates for the same race split onto different pages or columns.