Design
Ballot design can aid or inhibit clarity in an election. Poor designs lead to confusion and potentially chaos if large numbers of voters spoil or mismark a ballot. The butterfly ballot used in the Florida U.S. presidential election, 2000 (a ballot paper that has names down both sides, with a single column of punch holes in the center, which has been likened to a maze) led to widespread allegations of mismarked ballots.
Some political scientists prefer more explicit statement of the voter's actual tolerances and preferences, and believe that failure to reflect these in ballot design and voting system alternatives causes many problems and leads for calls for electoral reform. For instance, a non-binding referendum or poll, carried out on a ballot, carries much more weight than one carried out with only a public sampling in a less politically committed event than an election. For example, one might count the number of ballots whereon the voter had crossed out the name of the political party that nominated the candidate, even if (maybe only if) that voter had voted for him or her. This would indicate support for candidates but would be able to send signals to them that the "party line" was not why that voter voted for them, but rather, she or he expected them to act independently.
Such marking and counting could be carried out on an ordinary ballot with no provision for it, however, there would be risk of counting it as "spoiled" if the marks were unclear, and if ballot design had not allowed for it initially.
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Famous quotes containing the word design:
“We find that Good and Evil happen alike to all Men on this Side of the Grave; and as the principle Design of Tragedy is to raise Commiseration and Terror in the Minds of the Audience, we shall defeat this great End, if we always make Virtue and Innocence happy and successful.”
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719)
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Humility is often only the putting on of a submissiveness by which men hope to bring other people to submit to them; it is a more calculated sort of pride, which debases itself with a design of being exalted; and though this vice transform itself into a thousand several shapes, yet the disguise is never more effectual nor more capable of deceiving the world than when concealed under a form of humility.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)