Never mind that this ballot is marked for Obama (it’s not mine; I don’t even tell my husband who I’ve voted for). The chosen candidate is not the point. The point is the ridiculous means of indicating which candidate the person voted for.
Voters understand checking a box or filling in a circle. Actually, anyone who made it to third grade understands those methods of making a selection. But filling in the missing section of an arrow? That’s just not instinctive or intuitive or natural.
Sure, the ballot includes instructions on how to complete it. But still, it’s simply not...normal. The best thing I can say about it is that it’s paper and not a Diebold voting screen.
This happens to be the Arizona ballot. But I don’t think we can blame that state entirely, since I understand this type of ballot is used in other states as well. I’d love to meet the person who designed this and find out what the rationale for it was.
By the way, all those other names in each party’s box are the names of the official electors. I’ve never seen that before, either.
No comments:
Post a Comment