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Repeat of Florida Butterfly Ballot

Posted by michael on from the those-who-don't-study-history dept.

More Trouble writes "The Michigan Absentee Ballot seems to be very 'confusing', a la the infamous Palm Beach, Florida Butterfly Ballot. Help!"

3 of 48 comments (clear)

  1. Thank God for Small Favors, then. by Skyshadow · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Gee, it's a good thing that the polls aren't showing that the race in Michigan is almost tied or anything, right?

    Seriously, someone actually looked at this and decided it was okay?

    --
    Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
  2. Re:It's a screwed up ballot, BUT.... by Sancho · · Score: 2, Insightful

    But in the event of a recount, where does the vote go? There's a notation for every candidate, it's just shifted down one. People who are going to vote for Bush would probably recognize the problem (since their notation is missing) and vote for the topmost one, which is correct for Bush. People voting for Kerry would not even look for the place to vote for Bush and would just mark the topmost one because it looks like it goes to Kerry.

  3. Re:It's Fixed. by fatmonkeyboy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Those were due to the stupidity of the user and a general inability to read and follow fairly simple directions.

    I hope you're not an engineer.

    The one thing I took away from my "User Interface" class in college is that if someone has trouble using something, it's the fault of the designer and not the fault of the user.

    I assume you have, at least once, pulled on a door, only to look down and see a big "PUSH" sign on it. A door can (and should) be designed so that you would never try to pull on it in the first place (e.g., don't put anything you can grab on the "push" side).

    The same with the Florida ballots in the last election. They were, quite simply, poorly designed. Yes, you can figure them out by looking at them closely and following the directions. That's not the point.

    Just as when you walked up to pull on the "PUSH" door, you didn't expect to need to read a sign to use it, the voters didn't expect to need to read the directions in order to punch in the correct hole. So they didn't...