I spent two days counting absentee ballots so I know firsthand the effort that goes into voting this way. You need to request a ballot or appear in person. Have the proper identification. Sign the ballot. Seal the envelope. Do it all in a timely manner. And each step of the process is checked and verified and recounted multiple times.
So, it pained me to see the number of times the ballot-counting machine stopped — most often because it rejected a ballot due to an “overvote” — someone filled in two circles when they were only to choose one candidate, or more likely, picked three when there were two seats open for that position, or cast six votes in an extension position that only had five vacancies. The rest of their ballot was counted, but it slowed down the process as the election officials verified what had stopped the machine, and it meant that the votes the person thought they cast weren’t valid.
And yet they never knew it. Since we use paper ballots, there wasn’t the annoying-yet-effective electronic prompt to indicate an error. They turned the ballot in thinking all was well and only after it was too late was the overvote discovered.
There has to be a better way — even with paper ballots — to make it clearer as to the number of votes that are to be cast. The use of color or highlights. All the positions with multiple votes grouped together on the ballot. Larger print for the instructions. Something to preserve privacy but increase the likelihood that the votes actually count.
If you have a confusing form — something that routinely is missing information or filled out incorrectly — don’t be like the election officials and keep printing it the same way time after time. Do tests with real people in advance to see if your format is clear. Keep making changes to decrease the error rate. Make modifications with the goal of zero errors. If your users are repeatedly making the same mistakes, the problem is with you, not them.
