Ballot Paper Design
Dr Theresa Reidy
UCC
Department of Government
Two Broad Categories
• Categorical Ballot
• Ordinal Ballot
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Categorical
Ballot
• Sample Ballot
Paper
(State of Missouri General Election )
• Vote for one
candidate only
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Ordinal Ballot
• Sample Ballot
Paper (from the
2002 General Election)
• Vote 1,2,3 etc
in order of
choice
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Issues to Consider in Ballot Paper
Design
•
•
•
•
•
Instructions to the voter,
Candidate information,
Candidate order,
Ballot shape,
What is required of voters?
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Why is this important?
• Ballot papers should be designed:
– to maximise the total valid poll,
– and minimise voter difficulty (literacy issues, spoiled
votes, etc).
• Ballot design effects on election results are
marginal but, seats are won and lost with only a
few votes under PR-STV.
– Every vote counts.
• Low information elections.
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Low Information Elections
• Low information elections are elections which do
not involve significant constitutional office and do
not attract large scale media coverage.
• Research on low information elections has
established that voters compensate for a lack of
political knowledge by taking cognitive shortcuts
to make voting decisions.
• Elections in Ireland provide a variety of shortcuts/cues for
voters.
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Low Information Elections
“Voters who bother to show up at the polls are
sometimes faced with the complex task of choosing
among unknown candidates in an election that has
received very little media coverage. In the absence of
cues such as party and incumbency, how do voters
deal with the cognitive demands of decision making
in low information elections?”
S. Banducci, M. Thrasher, C. Rallings and J. A. Karp, “Candidate Appearance Cues in Low-Information Elections”, paper
presented to the American Political Science Association Annual Conference, Philadelphia, 21/08/2003.
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Low Information Elections and
Voting Cues
• Voters economise by using political and social
stereotypes to judge candidates.
• Using basic information about candidates - party
affiliation, incumbent/challenger status, elite
endorsement - the voter
"can associate a candidate with a political and/or
social group and project onto the candidate such
things as issue positions they believe the group
holds" (McDermott, 1998:898).
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Voting Cues
• Ballot Position Effects
• Ordinal voting
• Alphabetical voting
• Party Affiliation
• Candidate Information
• Geography, Profession.
• Ballot Paper Photographs
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1
2
3
4
• Ballot Position
Effects:
Ordinal/Numerical
Voting
• Known as “donkey
voting”
5
6
7
8
9
10
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Ballot Position Effects: Alphabetical
Voting
• Needs to be considered when ordinal ballots
are used
• Alphabetic voting occurs when voters read
up or down the ballot and give a preference
to the first name they recognise
• Seen to favour names at the top or end of the
alphabet
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Party Affiliation
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Candidate Information
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Ballot Paper Photographs
• Introduced in 1999
• Why?
• Combat literacy problems
• Similar names
• Localism would suggest high levels of candidate
recognition
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Social Psychology Insights
• People are quite willing to base important
judgement on the basis of photographic
information.
• Rosenberg et al 1986 and 1991
• Race and gender
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None of the Above
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In Summary
• Irish design has positive features
• Different ballot papers for each election
• Clear instructions
• Many voting cues
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Options for Consideration
• Randomise the ballot position,
• None of the above,
• Place the photos on the left of the ballot,
– People read left to right
• No ballot paper photos,
– Option to use candidate numbers instead
• Would minimise unforeseen aspects of ballot paper photos
• Candidates would use numbers in their publicity material,
minimising use of image and would minimally reduce
localism.
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References
• De Swart, H., van Deemen, A., van der
Hout, E., and Kop, P., (2003)‘Categorical
and Ordinal Voting: An Overview’.
•
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