Book Review: Design for Democracy: Ballot and Election Design by Marcia Lausen

Design for Democracy: Ballot and Election Design
Author: Marcia Lausen
Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Review One

The flawed process of the 2000 presidential election triggered the examination of the election process in the United States. As a result, the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) was passed by Congress in 2002 to encourage states to revise their voting systems, and financial incentives were made available to states to implement the provisions of the act. Most states have now adopted either the optical scan or the DRE (touch-screen computers) systems and have abandoned the punch card machines with their “hanging chads” and difficult-to-interpret ballots. Nebraska adopted the optical scan voting system, which is highly reliable and has a low percentage of unrecorded votes. Nebraska can take pride in the fact that optical scan machines were in use in Nebraska by nearly 85 percent of the voters long before they were recommended at the national level.

This book goes beyond the consideration of voting equipment and stresses the necessity of well-designed ballots and election materials. It grew from the initiative of Design for Democracy, a group of design specialists, from whose name the book takes its title. The author, Marcia Lausen, is a founding member and a professor of graphic design at the University of Illinois in Chicago. The book has a section on ballot design with many excellent design models. It also has other design models for registration forms, voter education literature and polling-place signage. In addition, it has suggestions for designs for election administration, such as manuals for poll workers, and the design of administrative forms and envelopes. The final portion of the book deals with logos, colors, symbols and icons and photography.

This book would be most useful for state and county election officials. But it would also be of interest to those who follow elections closely and those who want to see our democracy function effectively. Many of the suggestions and ideas in the book have already been adopted in Nebraska. In fact, two counties, Cedar and Cuming, were used as test sites before the book was ever published. And Secretary of State John Gale testified on the proposals before the U.S. Election Assistance Commission at their meeting in Minneapolis on April 16, 2008. For the full text of his remarks, go to http://www.eac.gov and search for John Gale.

A note of caution: Not every suggestion in this book has application in every jurisdiction. Some might even argue about some of the conclusions. Cost definitely has to considered. But the book is beautifully illustrated and organized to make it very usable. It has and should make a contribution to the discussion about a more effective election process.

Review Two

By Aaron Vacin

In our society we are provided the opportunity to participate in one of the answers, less exciting though it might be, to the Hobbesian jungle—namely, voting. Any citizen who cares about the small issues and the big issues, from local and state decisions to national decisions, should try to be as informed as possible, because an uninformed mind becomes brittle in its thinking. Then, putting some thought into our decisions, we take the next step—action.

At this point, the thing we shouldn’t have to worry about is a hanging chad or accidently voting for Pat Buchanan.

Simple things like this can cause the trust between citizen and government to erode. Voting ballots and processes that are antediluvian or confusing should be retired and efforts should be made to make them as clear and easy to use as possible. It is also true that many ballots have become more complicated while the designs have remained the same, becoming a burden to election officials and voters. People have theoretically put some thought into their vote, so maybe it wouldn’t hurt to put some thought in making sure the process itself works accurately and efficiently. This is where well-thought-out design comes in, for both the ballot and the voting process itself.

The book “Design for Democracy: Ballot + Election Design” is about how Cook County (which encompasses Chicago) and the state of Oregon partnered with designers from AIGA’s Chicago Chapter (American Institute for Graphic Arts) and Chicago’s School of Art and Design to help improve election design—from the ballot itself and extending to pretty much every other aspect of the voting process you can think of.

The book states: “Nowhere in the realm of government communication is the impact of design greater than in the election process. As a result of the 2000 presidential election controversy, public officials began to better understand the need for design expertise in planning and conducting elections.”

While it examines ballot design, a major part of the book shows actual application of design principles to various ballots and the voting process, thus serving as a good tool for those involved in the election industry, including designers, election officials, lawmakers, printers and manufacturers.

The first and probably most important design changes involved the ballots themselves. While most of us will probably agree that #2 pencil bubble tests, punch-out forms and various other forms of voting are not inherently exciting, a little work by a good designer can help improve the efficiency and accuracy of the experience. Some of the most important aspects of a ballot include the instructions and the clarity of choices. These need to be made as clear as possible. One would think this should be simple enough, but it takes a bit of thought and planning, which lies in the area of “information design.”

Information design should be as functional as possible. Its goal is to get the information from the eyeballs to the brain as accurately and efficiently as possible. And while the landmarks of the design should be noticed, the design itself should be well thought-out enough that it is not actively pondered upon. As stated in the book, “While design for other subjects or industries might consider point of view, creativity, and expression, design for elections requires neutrality, legibility, and access.” Much of good information design is achieved through the alignment and hierarchy of elements, easy-to-read typography and easy-to-understand navigation.

The book gives many examples of before and after changes, which are insightful to anyone interested in information design and how it relates in particular to the voting process. For most of the first part of the book, they use ballot examples where they point out specific problems and how they fixed them.

One of these examples is the “butterfly ballot,” which has the names running down both sides of punch-out holes. An example of this type of design is the infamous George W. Bush and Al Gore ballot in Florida in 2000. While Bush was on the first line on the left and Gore second on the left, there were candidate names to the right of the butterfly as well that actually corresponded to the numbered punch-outs in between those names and the candidate names on the left. Therefore some people who thought they were voting for Gore, who was second on the left but actually third on the ballot, voted for Pat Buchanan, who was second on the ballot but whose name was over to the right. Unfortunately, while these votes may have helped Buchanan’s ego (a noble end or not), due to bad ballot design, voters didn’t get to vote for whom they wanted.

In other examples, the book shows how even if the ballots themselves are not changed drastically, simple principles of information design can help to make things more voter-friendly. Things that seem like they would be good are often just the opposite, and things that seem like they would be bad remain bad. One example is the use of a ballot section title placed in the center of the page, while the actual material moves back over to the left. Other examples show how the use of all caps (WHICH MAKES A SOLID BLOCK OF TYPE THAT CAN BE HARDER TO READ BECAUSE IT HAS FEWER VISUAL DIFFERENCES) and other design devices can actually hinder instead of help.

The book doesn’t just deal with the ballot, though. The designers also applied design practices to pretty much all aspects of the voting process, including voter registration, instructions and forms for election officials, signage, brochures and guides for voters, Web sites, polling location setup, electronic voting systems and even advertising for the event itself. Basically, they went through the entire voting process and tried to improve it through thoughtful design applications. There is also some emphasis on making an informed voting public better able to participate in the improved process by providing easily accessible information. A better-designed and more efficient process would also potentially attract new voters as well. There is also discussion of making the job of the election officials easier and more efficient. Assuming the voting itself goes efficiently, the post-voting process of collecting and counting ballots should go efficiently as well.

Another interesting aspect to this book is that it shows specific examples of what the designers did, going into specific colors schemes, fonts and other design specifics, such as how photographs, graphics, instructional illustrations and logos were used. The good news for the designer is that the voting process has some fairly obvious choices for themes and mood. And unlike the ballot itself, some of this involves more of a marketing-style approach.

Ultimately each of us has the same responsibility as our elected officials: to make the most informed, thoughtful decisions we can and to then vote based on those decisions. After all, decisions we make today will have an effect on our individual lives, on our collective lives and the lives of those in the future. If we can achieve a good ballot design and voting process, then we can worry less about the process and more about the vote itself. And that’s the important thing.