[EM] Ballot Design

[James Gilmour]

Lloyd Caesar  Sent: Friday, April 08, 2005 4:38 PM
> How should an STV ballot be designed for ease of use
> and ease of counting. (For the rules, let's say, paper
> ballots, computer count, manual recount if necessary)
> A simple list of names with spaces next to them
> for writing in a number is clear for voters but
> difficult for poll-workers who can't use a computer
> for the count (without foolproof OCR) and have to
> decipher handwriting.
> Names with numbered circles to fill in (SAT style)
> require as many numbers as there are candidates,
> possibly a huge number in say a multi-party 9-seat
> (about the largest practical) election. Furthermore,
> voters can lose track of the numbers as they move
> around the ballot and accidentally spoil their
> ballots.
> What might work? any ideas?

Take a look at:
http://homepages.phonecoop.coop/James.Gilmour/STVBallotPaper.pdf

This shows what an STV ballot paper MIGHT look like for the STV local government (council) elections in 2007.
This mock-up is based on current UK legislation on ballot paper design plus some of the recent recommendations from the
UK Electoral Commission that may or may not be implemented.  (The unique number of each ballot paper has traditionally
been printed on the back of UK ballot papers.  This may be replaced by a number and barcode on the front of the ballot
paper if scanning is adopted.)

UK ballot papers are designed for manual completion with a traditional 'stubby pencil'.  They can be sorted and counted
by hand.  They can also be scanned ('intelligent character recognition') to produce computer readable files for the
counting process.

James Gilmour