[Sigia-l] ballot usability redux

[James Spahr]

On Monday, August 11, 2003, at 01:45  AM, Listera wrote:
>
> I don't think the great state of California has the wherewithal to 
> produce
> unique ballots by Oct. So it'll most likely be a choice between 
> alphabetical
> or random, as the news reports indicate.

ah, why not?

If most states are like New York -- then they already do. Ballots in 
NYC (and Long Island -- they only 2 places where I have voted) contain 
local, regional, state and national election data on them. That means 
each voting district has a slightly different ballot than it's 
neighboring district. That's a whole lot of variations that could be 
made, probably not 139!, but enough to make a difference (see below)


>
> The Yellow Book analogy is not complete. Voters presumably are *not* 
> looking
> to make arbitrary decisions based on position and convenience as you 
> might
> in a phone book [ ... ]. If we assume that
> voters go into the booth having no idea who they'll vote for and make
> completely arbitrary decisions when they first see the ballot (and 
> therefore
> we should randomize for that), then the question of whether elections 
> mean
> anything at all comes to mind.

I may go in and know that I want to vote for the Green Party. Doesn't 
matter whom -- they just have to care about the environment. I know 
*alot* of people who vote like this for local and congressional 
elections.

But, I agree. Voting is hopefully not like looking up a mini-storage 
place in the yellow pages. I truly hope voting is analogous to someone 
undergoing the search for an attorney.

James.