Confusing ballot designs still plague elections

So it would seem that redesigning ballots to make them simpler should have been a high priority. But that hasn't been the case, voting experts say.

Eight years after the fiasco in Florida's Palm Beach County, confusing ballots continue to stymie voters and plague elections in this primary season.

"The sad fact is, we still have not systematically addressed the need for good ballot design standards," said Lawrence Norden of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University's law school. "We've spent billions of dollars on overhauling election administration in this country, but we're still seeing the same ballot design mistakes in almost every federal election."

There are no federal laws concerning ballot design. Some states have guidelines, others don't. Largely, ballots are designed by local election officials, who number more than 5,500. On Election Day, that means there will be the same number of ballots across the country, all with different designs.

This year's hectic primary season has already met with confusion and controversy. In Pennsylvania's April 22 contest, some folks at the polls complained a ballot section containing delegate choices was hard to read and easily overlooked.

In Ohio's problem-prone Cuyahoga County, home to Cleveland, several March 4 primary voters became upset when poll workers insisted they remove a perforated ballot stub, used as an accounting device, on which was clearly printed "Do not remove." Voters feared their ballot wouldn't be counted.

County elections director Jane Platten held a news conference that day, promising voters -who turned out in record numbers for a Democratic nominating race between New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama -that every ballot would be counted, with or without a stub.

One of the worst primary snafus occurred in Los Angeles County, the nation's largest voting jurisdiction. On Super Tuesday, Feb. 5, an avalanche of voters inundated polling places. Many complained about a ballot eccentricity that required independent voters to fill in two ovals -one for a candidate and one for the party in which they were voting.

Days later, a stormy public hearing followed, and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors demanded an investigation. Initially, more than 60,000 ballots were considered void. Acting county registrar Dean Logan then led a recount of those cards and eventually 48,525 Democratic votes were added to the county total, giving 51 percent to Clinton and 42 percent to Obama. The election's outcome was unchanged, and opponents appeared calmed by the recount.