A redesign of the New York State ballot. Three (3) versions were created to be more voter-friendly. This project was a pursuit of discovering why the ballot exists in its current condition and what I can do to make it more user friendly.
3 ballot designs were created with varying weight on legality and best design practice.
The existing ballot tried to be more inclusive, but poor design constraints created confusion.
There is a lot of research around ballot design and was included in all my concepts.
Voters, candidates, parties, representatives, and ballot companies must all be considered in the design.
My roommate and I voted absentee for the November 2018 election. When we looked at both of our ballots, mine from Texas, and hers from New York, we were shocked at the starkly different styles and methods that our precincts used to elect officials. The Texas ballot has plenty of room for improvement, but I found my roommate’s ballot particularly troubling.
I had a difficult time understanding how this ballot worked, what different symbols meant, why candidate’s names were listed more than once, why it looked like the same candidate was representing different parties, why a candidate could be listed multiple times if they’re running unopposed, and why the ballot was so compressed.
The poor design of the ballot made me wonder how reliable the results could be. I decided to learn more about why the official ballot is so difficult to navigate, including what the New York law dictates, and what design practices I could implement to improve the voter experience.
Around the time I decided to pursue this project, there was an interview on the NPR show All Things Considered about confusing ballot design. During that segment I learned about the Center for Civic Design (CCD), a non-profit organization dedicated to improving ballots and voter abilities across the country. I reached out to them, and they pointed me to a Medium article with many resources to begin my research.
Around the time I decided to pursue this project, there was an interview on the NPR show All Things Considered about confusing ballot design. During that segment I learned about the Center for Civic Design (CCD), a non-profit organization dedicated to improving ballots and voter abilities across the country. I reached out to them, and they pointed me to a Medium article with many resources to begin my research.
The CCD’s website has Field Guides for the many different aspects concerning the voting process, one of which is the ballot design itself. I learned about the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which established the federal Election Assistance Commision (EAC) in an attempt to bring the country to more modern voting methods and techniques and provide guidance and standardization to the states on how they conduct their elections. The EAC published a report in 2007 on the Effect Designs for Administration of Federal Elections, with Chapter 3 covering Optical Scan Ballots (aka paper).
I then turned my attention to the specific laws for the State of New York. I read about a report from the Comptroller on Voting Reform in New York City, which covers updates to many aspects of the voting process, including ballot design, and the New York Board of Elections proposal for 2018, which repeals some of the more antiquated laws. This report also mentions enacting the Voter Friendly Ballot Act, which also repeals antiquated laws, updates current laws, and adds new laws to reflect our current technology. Assembly Bill A9607** enacts the Voter Friendly Ballot Act and has passed the State Assembly and is currently in review by the State Senate, as of January 9, 2019.
Before designing any ballot, I imposed the following restrictions on myself.
From the sketch, I chose to create 3 new designs weighing the state's legal requirements against good design practices. The content is from an original November 6, 2018 New York Orange County ballot, which I’m calling the “current ballot”.
Unless otherwise noted, all these ballots follow the requirements set forth by Assembly Bill A9607 and EAC recommendations pertaining to ballot design.
If you like what you see and want to work together, get in touch!
asher.d.friedman@gmail.com