What’s Wrong With the Election System?

David KimballUniversity of Missouri-St. Louis

December 5, 2002

Outline

• Impetus for an examination of voting methods in the United States

• Research findings• Recommendations for election reforms

and issues for future elections

Sunshine State in 2000

2000 Presidential Election:“A Perfect Storm”

• Florida Official Results• George W. Bush – 2,912,790 votes• Al Gore – 2,912,253 votes• Bush wins Florida by 537 votes.• Approximately 180,000 ballots in Florida

failed to record a vote for president (roughly 3% of ballots cast).

• Nationally, about 2 million unrecorded votes in the presidential election of 2000.

How Can You Fail to Cast a Vote?

• Overvote: Selecting too many candidates

• Undervote: Not selecting any candidates

NORC/Media Consortium Review of Florida Ballots

• Most unrecorded votes in Florida were overvotes (68%).

• Half of the undervotes in Florida were failed attempts to vote for a single candidate.

• Half of the undervotes Florida were “genuine” (blank).

• Almost 25,000 of the unrecorded votes in Florida could have been counted.

Overvote in Florida

Overvote in Florida

Undervote in Florida

Undervote in Florida

Undervote in Florida

Undervote in Florida

What’s Happened Since Florida?

• Each state and county has asked “Could Florida happen here?”

• Federal legislation – the Help America Vote Act of 2002

• State legislation – Missouri included• Research to examine the correlates of

unrecorded votes and find out what works and what does not.

Research on Unrecorded Votes

• Examined election returns from counties in 2000

• Examined precinct returns in Florida and Illinois

• Primarily a cross-sectional analysis• Other studies, including multiple

elections (Caltech/MIT Voting Project, groups at Maryland, Berkeley, Harvard)

Factors Examined

• Voting technology• Ballot features and design• Election features• Demographics

– Socio-economic disparity in unrecorded votes.

Local Control of Elections

• Election administration is primarily a matter of local (county) control.

• This creates a lot of variation in voting methods across the country.– Great for researchers– Headaches for election reformers

• Voting technology is a prime example

Votomatic Punch Card

Paper Ballot

Lever Voting Machine

Electronic Voting Machine (DRE)

Electronic Voting Machine (DRE)

Optical Scan Ballot

Voting MethodVotomatic PunchDatavote PunchLeverPaperCentral ScanPrecinct ScanDREMixed

Voting Methods Used in 2000

Voting Technology Results

• Votomatic punch card ballots clearly produce the highest rate of unrecorded votes in contests at the top of the ballot.

• Newer voting technology that allows voters to discover and correct mistakes reduce the number of unrecorded votes, especially in low-income or minority precincts.– DRE– Precinct-count optical scan

Unrecorded Votes in the 2000 Presidential Election by Voting Equipment

Voting Technology Unrecorded Votes

Punch Card – Votomatic (28% of ballots)

2.8%

Optical Scan – Central Count (15% of ballots)

1.8%

DRE (11% of ballots) 1.7%

Lever Machine (15% of ballots)

1.6%

Paper Ballot (1% of ballots) 1.6%

Punch Card – Datavote (3% of ballots)

1.2%

Mixed (6% of ballots) 1.1%

Optical Scan – Precinct Count (20% of ballots)

0.9%

Ballot Design

• Ballot design has been largely overlooked as a cause of unrecorded votes.

• Several ballot features are important– Number of columns– Straight-party option– “None of the above” option

“Butterfly” Ballot

Unrecorded Votes in Florida by Ballot Design

Ballot Design

Unrecorded Votes

Overvotes

Undervotes

No Confusing Ballot Presidential candidates listed in 1 column

2.1% 1.2% 0.8%

Confusing Ballot Presidential candidates listed in 2 columns

7.6% 5.9% 1.7%

Straight-Party Punch

Percentage of Unrecorded Votes in the 2000 Presidential Election (Counties)

Exp

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tag

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Black Percentage of Population

No Straight-Party Punch Straight-Party Punch

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Nevada Ballot

Ballot Layout

Ballot Instructions

Voter Education

Recommendations

• If cost and staffing is no object, replace punch card voting systems and adopt ballot features that reduce the number of unrecorded votes.

• Switching to new voting technology is costly. Making ballot design improvements is relatively inexpensive.

• Consider uniform voting systems at the state level?

• A potential concern is the growing use of absentee and mail-in voting.